Richmond Hill
December 10, 2008 By: David Fleischer www.yorkregion.com

Dunlap lands focus to be on people: Metrus

The future of the 190-acre David Dunlap Observatory site is taking shape. But it doesn’t look bright for stargazers.

The site where the first black hole was observed 37 years ago, will give way to a medley of high-rise condominiums, homes and retail.

Developer Metrus is refining its plans for the 190-acre site ahead of a January conservation review board hearing.

“We’re trying to create a precinct . . . that would become a people place,” the company’s vice-president Fraser Nelson said.

The Elm’s Lea farmhouse has already been leased-to-own to a new resident.

The castle-like administration building lies empty, but Mr. Nelson believes it could be a perfect library or public facility.

As for the telescope, its role in research is likely over, Mr. Nelson said.

“I’m less worried about that than the use of dome, the administration building and the precinct around it,” he said.

Metrus hired an operator to exercise the telescope, but researcher and DDO Defenders member Dr. Ian Shelton said all that can be done is to take Metrus’ word enough is being done.

“My concern, first and foremost, is that, at the very least, the telescope is being maintained,” he said.

Mr. Shelton hoped to use the telescope for outreach activities over the holidays but was aghast when Metrus officials asked him and fellow Defender Karen Cilevitz to sign non-disclosure agreements about anything they might see inside.

“They put up official roadblocks right from the get go,” he said.

“It was tantamount to a muzzle,” Ms Cilevitz said.

Mr. Nelson said he has full confidence in the operator they hired to keep the telescope in shape.

Since he has not been inside, Mr. Shelton wondered if the Commonwealth’s biggest optical telescope is being treated like a rusting car in the driveway, judged to be operational so long as the engine turns over.

“At the bare minimum, the telescope should be honoured with the ability to survive until someone can take it over,” Mr. Shelton said.

Mr. Nelson said that is being done and added U of T astronomy chairperson Peter Martin has made himself available for any questions the new owners have.
For his part, Richmond Hill Mayor Dave Barrow thinks the telescope may yet have a future and hopes someone can find a plan to use it.

“There seem to be opportunities that are not fully understood,” he said, adding that he was told even NASA still had use for its observations.

A team of consultants is determining Metrus’ plan for the site, including how much around the historic buildings should be preserved.

Mr. Nelson said he expects the majority to be residential, including some high rise buildings, but where they will go, how many there will be and where small pockets of retail will exist are all questions to be answered.

“We’d be foolish not to look at some high-rise,” Mr. Nelson said, pointing to the ideal location between two main streets and on major transit lines.

“Transit is coming, and density is coming,” he said.

“There’s a long way to go before we know how much of the land is developable,” Mr. Barrow said.

The town seeks to designate the site’s western half while the Richmond Hill Naturalists want to see its entirety designated.

No matter what review board recommends, the protection is not absolute but rather a legislative layer through which any development must proceed.

Metrus may want to build as close to the historic buildings as they can but the town’s goal is to see subdued development, if any at all, in the immediate precinct, Mr. Barrow said.

Beyond the site’s historic qualities, the town may look at environmental and other layers of protection for different areas.

After purchasing the lands in the summer, Mr. Nelson pledged to leave the buildings but the onus is on an outside group to come up with a plan for using them.

A group from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada pitched their plan for an Observatory Park, but since it entailed finding someone to run and fund it, that has so far gone nowhere.

In September, a meeting between Metrus and members of the DDO Defenders, who hoped to see research continue there, was cancelled.

The reason, Ms Cilevitz said, was a letter she wrote to The Liberal, arguing the site should be left as is.

“They took their opinion to the newspaper and I see a gulf there,” Mr. Nelson acknowledged.

Once a conservation hearing is on the table, the entire site is considered to be under its protection pending a decision.

When Metrus began installing walkway lights and drilling holes in doors for locks, Ms Cilevitz and the Defenders were stymied in their attempts to get the town to crack down on any changes.

“The Town, as the designating authority, is beholden to the people and the province to absolutely ensure that Canada’s greatest scientific treasure is protected and taken care of,” Ms Cilevitz said.

Metrus has been more cautious since that initial round of work and know their obligations, Mr. Barrow said.

The board hearing convenes at the town hall on Jan. 15 and is open to the public.

DEED AND ROBARTS

The deed of Aug. 10, 1932, gave the University of Toronto control of the land so long as it housed an observatory.

It also says the surrounding parklands should be made available to the public and at such time as U of T is done with them, the lands, and everything built upon them, revert to the heirs “without any cost or charge.”

So how did the school financially benefit from selling land which wasn’t theirs?

The university argued Mrs. Dunlap’s intent could best be preserved by trading an obsolete observatory for a high-tech institute downtown.

Of the three Dunlap heirs, only Donalda Robarts continued to fight to save the observatory.

In 2003, the school made an aborted stab at having the deed negated in court before getting back to the table and winning over Mrs. Robarts’ two brothers.

“We were trying to prove the deed meant what it said and we didn’t succeed,” her husband, Richard Robarts said.

She and her brothers signed a deal allowing the university to sell the land and awarding them a share of the $70 million for which it sold, but the agreement’s precise terms are undisclosed.

While U of T spun the sale as necessitated by light pollution’s effect on the telescope, Mr. Robarts said he and his wife spent 20 years fending off pressure from a series of university and provincial officials.

“It was very aggravating and very nerve-bending,” Mr. Robarts said.

His story correlates with Professor Tom Bolton’s arguments that the university spent years starving the telescope of personnel and upgrades and then saying it was no longer at the forefront of astronomical observation.

That means they were trying to sell the lands while Mr. Bolton worked with the town to develop a light-pollution by-law, which keeps light levels where they were in the 1970s.

After two decades of lawyer bills and family strife it’s not surprising that Mr. and Mrs. Robarts, now in their 70s, would prefer to stay at their Windsor home, out of the fray.

“In our view, it’s a fait accompli,” Mr. Robarts said of the sale.

Following the close, Mrs. Robarts fired off a letter to the university’s governors, however. She scolded them for monetizing a still-useful national monument and suggested other would-be donors to the school might look harder at how bequests are treated.

While Mr. Robarts did not want to disclose its precise contents, a copy obtained by The Liberal says the university’s “concern for money overruled any common sense and displayed a great lack of integrity.

“I can only assume you are embarrassed and ashamed of this piece of work,” Mrs. Robarts wrote.

Only university president David Naylor responded, Mr. Robarts said, and the letter was not conciliatory in its tone.

DDO TIMELINE

1932: Land donated in trust to the University in Toronto by Jessie Dunlap, in memory of her husband.

May 31, 1935: Official opening of the observatory

1971: Prof. Tom Bolton observes X-ray source, Cygnus X-1, the first black hole ever observed.

1989: Electronic equipment is upgraded, allowing the DDO to observe fainter stars than ever before.

1995: The town of Richmond Hill enacts a light pollution by-law.

Jan. 2007: University officials tell The Liberal there are no plans for a sale in the works.

Sept. 10, 2007: U of T announces its intention to sell the DDO lands.

Oct. 31, 2007: U of T’s governing council declares the facility surplus and opens a bidding process.

June 2008: The town completes its bylaw, listing the site’s heritage features and arguing that its western half should be protected from development.

July 28, 2008: The university announces Metrus affiliate Corsica Development is new the owner.

Jan. 15 to 23, 2009: A provincial Conservation Review Board begins hearings on the site’s future. In addition to the town and Metrus, the Richmond Hill Naturalists and the Observatory Hill Ratepayers are parties, each arguing for greater protection of the entire site.

You can read the 2003 court documents and the Dunlap deed by clicking on the links on the right side of the screen at www.yorkregion.com/news/observatorylands

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