Time to move forward

Dear Mr. Behan:
Many rumours have circulated, and many references to the RiverWalk Condominium building have appeared in the columns of your newspaper. Recently, it appears the subject has become a hot topic in the upcoming municipal election.
Unfortunately, much of what has been written and what is rumoured dwells mainly on negative issues, half-truths, and innuendoes—all of which tend to discredit the present council members seeking re-election.
This letter is not necessarily written in support of those candidates but, in fairness to them, we believe more of the facts which led to the construction of the building should be presented as it did not appear to be a bad idea nor controversial at the time.
Several years ago, a decision was made to explore the feasibility of building a condominium in Fort Frances. Such a building and lifestyle were successes in many communities similar to Fort Frances and public meetings here indicated support for the project.
In addition to making the condo facilities available to Fort Frances residents, the project would turn vacant property—generating relatively little tax revenue—into 32 residential properties paying full tax revenues to the town.
Further, the project was seen as an enhancement to the La Verendrye Parkway development of the riverfront and might have provided access to some government funding for it.
We don’t believe the government funding happened but nevertheless, council did make the decision to support the condo project, it went ahead, and it has been built.
No amount of bashing of present council members is going to change that. Now it is time to move on. Perhaps the candidates seeking office now should better direct their attention and efforts to what they would do to assist the project to move forward.
To date, 18 units in the building have been sold and are self-supporting by the owners. Each time a unit is sold, the mortgage is reduced, mortgage interest decreases, and the new owner takes over the monthly maintenance fee and becomes a new town taxpayer.
There are 14 units left to be sold. When that happens, the building will be completely self-supporting and there will be 32 owners paying full taxes to the town.
The negativity which we mentioned at the beginning of this letter has been very detrimental to the sale of units. In the past, some comments in your paper have referred to the building as everything from “controversial” to “monstrosity,” and mentions some criticisms such as “too few closets” and “apprehension concerning the elevators.”
We don’t know where your writer got this information, but we now have been living in the building for about eight months and have never experienced those concerns. It is this type of misinformation that, when repeated, gives the whole project a bad image.
If you are going to print an article, we would hope you would give some extra attention to presenting the facts fairly, rather than just taking random pot shots at a project that may not be popular with everyone in town.
We, and about 25 other people living in the building at the present time, have invested a substantial amount of money as well as many volunteer hours of work and effort to make this project a success. The building is our home.
To date, we have not heard any regrets from any of the owners who have moved in. We are proud of the development.
Hopefully, the incoming mayor and council will join with us in promoting the sale of the remaining units so that the building will be recognized as the asset to the town that it is.
Yours truly,
Cal and Noreen Robertson
Owners, 306-611 Nelson St.,
Fort Frances, Ont.