Dear Editor:
On Thursday June 20 I parked at the post office in Elora. I was in and out in fewer than five minutes. In that time, our local parking authority diligently gave me a ticket for not parking within the diagonal lines.
Of course, he/she had no way of knowing that I was not one of the tourists flocking to see the quaint hamlet of Elora, but still, it felt like someone was skulking around looking to pounce on anyone who could add to the township coffers. Guilty as charged. No dispute there. But the post office parking lot in the middle of a weekday? Really?
We live in a house that was built in 1856. Tourists flock to Elora, not Fergus, for many reasons like white water rafting, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and such, but most of the visitors come to see the village with its old buildings and quaint locally owned boutiques.
It appears that the developers and the politicians don’t care about how this town is rapidly transforming itself into “just another tourist attraction” at the expense of promoting the rapidly growing trend to replace history with economic expediency.
There is no housing shortage in the Elora core, but building three- and four-storey apartments/condos that face a parking lot seems to suggest a desire to maximize commercial space regardless of the impact on the allure of Elora.
Good luck with the traffic, good luck with inadequate infrastructure, good luck with ever-increasing mill rates to keep ahead of the unbridled growth. Take pictures of Elora for posterity folks, because it ain’t gonna last.
Moe Jacobs,
Elora