Creative Healthy Living: Monique Drepaul

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November 27, 2014

Free Valet et Parking-Eglintion Avenue this Saturday 29 November

The Eglinton Way BIA Offers FREE Valet Parking to Shop their Neighbourhood!

Toronto, ON: As participants in in The Yellow Pages “Shop the Neighbourhood"campaign, The Eglinton Way Business Improvement Area (BIA) is offering Free Valet parking to its customers on Saturday November 29th, from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 pm

Shop The Neighbourhood is a free national initiative of Yellow Pages which supports small businesses and reminds Canadians how local shopping makes a difference in all our lives. The Yellow Pages team will be on The Eglinton Way handing out free balloons and bags to shoppers

“Yellow Pages is running an amazing campaign to support local

businesses and we really appreciate their efforts,” said Monique Drepaul, Executive Director, The Eglinton Way BIA.

“With over 50 of our merchants participating and providing great deals for shoppers, it’s a great way to help us inform the community that

stores on The Eglinton Way are still open for business during construction of the LRT.”

Customers shopping at businesses along Eglinton Avenue W. between Chaplin

Crescent and Oriole Parkway may use the valet service free of charge. Valet services will be provided by Adagio Valet at three location

The Healthy Butcher at 298 Eglinton Avenue W.,
TNT Blu at 388 Eglinton Ave. W. and
One2One Studio at 506 Eglinton Avenue W

Isabel Mazzotta

For the children, the local CIBC branch is providing a complimentary photo with Santa and the BIA is also offering free face painting provided by local community artist, Isabel Mazzotta at three locations along The Eglinton Way:

 Jumpin’ at 521 Eglinton Ave. W. (10:00 am – 11:45 am
 Little Ones at 372 Eglinton Ave. W. (Noon – 1:45 pm) and
 Artbarn School at 250 Eglinton Ave. W. (2:00 – 4:00 pm).

Shop the Neighbourhood deals are listed on www.yp.ca and can be downloaded via theYellow Pages mobile app. The Eglinton Way BIA will showcase their merchants` deals on the www.styleliveshere.com site.

Also, starting at noon, there will be an hourly give-away at a random valet stations, where shoppers could win one of six $50 gift certificates towards any independent small business of their choice on The Eglinton Way.

About The Eglinton Way BIA:

With over 200 businesses, located in Forest Hill, on Eglinton Avenue W. between Oriole Parkway and Chaplin Crescent, The Eglinton Way has everything you want to live, shop, eat and dine in style.

November 12, 2014

Business owners may seek compensation for LRT construction impact

Monique Drepaul Eglinton Way BIA Executive Director

By Mark McAllister
Reporter
TORONTO – Businesses along Eglinton Avenue West say they’re now feeling the impact from construction on the Crosstown LRT and may soon be looking for payback.

Not only are there fewer customers showing up but some stores are starting to close up shop.

“I’ve seen approximately twenty businesses come and go,” Eglinton Way BIA Executive Director Monique Drepaul said. “We haven’t had that many replaced (in the past) and that has a huge impact.”

Eglinton Av. tongue in cheek link

She acknowledges that retailers are likely leaving because they know rent will be increased by property owners anticipating more business when construction is complete.

Others, however, are still losing money in the meantime.

“Every time I go out and talk to them they say, ‘Is there going to be financial compensation?'” she said. “If the city provides that to the property owner it won’t necessarily be passed on to the business owner.”

Work on the $5.3 billion Metrolinx project early last year and 19-kilometre line is expected to be complete in 2020.

The Director of Community Relations, Jamie Robinson, calls it “short term pain for long term gain” and was reaching out to residents and businesses before construction began.

“We recognize that this construction is messy and it will impact businesses,” he said. “We provide signage for businesses where, due to some of our work, people can’t see that there’s a business behind a fence.”

Metrolinx doesn’t provide tax breaks or operating subsidies to businesses if they remain open during construction.

Compensation is provided when land is required, either on a temporary basis, or permanently for station entrances or exits.

Mayor-elect John Tory has suggested that some sort of compensation to businesses should be considered but made no promises when asked about it last week.

“It’s something that I’m quite willing to entertain,” he said. “The notion of providing some degree of temporary relief for people during times when there’s intensive construction going on that really does disrupt their business.”

The concerns are similar to those brought up along St. Clair Avenue West when construction on the streetcar right-of-way was taking place.

A $100 million class-action lawsuit was launched and eventually dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

“You need money to try and go through with a lawsuit and you’re not going to get anything,” business owner Anna Maria Buttinelli said. “We didn’t get a penny. We lost money.”

At this point, there is no indication there will be any legal action along Eglinton Ave. West but businesses are more than willing to entertain any offers.

“We’ll take whoever says yes at this point,” Drepaul said. “Any compensation at this point is better than none.”

Monque Drepaul on Toronto LRT Construction--CBC Metro Morning

How Toronto main street is coping with LRT construction
Helping businesses affected by Eglinton Crosstown project site
Nov 07, 2014 7:58 AM ET
CBC News

It's important to preserve some sense of normalcy for retailers amid the upheaval caused by construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, a neighbourhood business leader says.

Monique M. Drepaul

Monique Drepaul , head of the Eglinton Way Business Improvement Association, has been helping business owners cope, and she took part in a roundtable discussion hosted by the city Thursday to talk about the health of Toronto's main streets.

Construction of the Metrolinx light rail transit project began in earnest in June 2013. Expected to be in service by 2020, the entire Crosstown LRT line will span 19 kilometres along Eglinton Avenue with a little more than 10 kilometres underground. The line, which will include up to 25 stations, will link to 54 local bus routes, three TTC interchange subway stations and GO Transit.

Twenty businesses in Drepaul's neigbhbourhood have closed since the start of construction.

Monique Drepaul at Panel Discussion on this topic

"They just couldn't survive," she told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Friday.

Some businesses left ahead of the construction, not knowing whether they would be able to pay the rent. In addition, foot traffic is down because, as Drepaul explains, "People don't like to see all these empty stores when they go by. They just feel that it brings the neighbourhood down."

Preliminary roadwork for the LRT was set to begin at Chaplain Crescent last December, but there have been a number of delays, which have kept local businesses guessing.

"Right now there's a lot of construction going on. We have two potential stations. One [site] is at Chaplain and one is at Avenue Road, and that is part of the problem. We're getting a double dose of the construction and this is only phase one of the project," she said.

"They're literally just setting up the headwalls for the station. They're not at the point where they're building the platforms yet."

The key to helping businesses cope, she says, is the sharing of information about the various stages of construction.

"I do know the city is issuing permits pretty much on a daily basis," not only to Metrolinx, but also utilities like Bell and Enbridge, Drepaul says.

She sat down Thursday with a city employee to explain that.

Drepaul says it would be helpful if local businesses knew, even on short-notice, when a store entrance will be blocked, instead of having merchants show up first thing in the morning "and discovering there's a giant truck in front of them."

She says her association has decided to make the best of a difficult situation, with a tongue-in-cheek set of ads called Style Under Construction and a website with the same name where business owners can see LRT updates.

October 13, 2014

Report on Monique Drepaul's Presentation to Toronto Complete Streets Forum

Monique Drepaul

Lessons learned from Eglinton Connects include BIAs considering customers’ preferred mode of transport
BIAs changed their perspective on supporting bike lanes after data discovery

City Centre Mirror
Rahul Gupta
As planners and cycling activists discussed how best to add protected bike lanes to Eglinton Avenue, Monique Drepaul was completely bewildered.

For the past two years, Drepaul had been invited to attend a series of Eglinton Connects community meetings alongside city planners and representatives from Cycle Toronto to discuss bike lanes – not a topic in which the small business advocate was heavily versed.

Representing the interests of local business improvement areas (BIAs) at the meetings – all resolutely against the idea of trading road or sidewalk space on Eglinton to accommodate cyclists – Drepaul quickly realized she couldn’t keep up with the jargon-heavy discussion.

“Someone mentioned adding bollards to deal with the cyclists, and I’m sitting there thinking to myself, please, someone ask what a bollard is,” recalled Drepaul, executive director of the Eglinton Way BIA, this week. “And nobody did. I felt like I was the only person who didn’t understand the terminology being used.”

Drepaul was part of a panel discussion during the 2014 Complete Streets Forum on Monday, Oct. 6, relating her experiences during the oft-contentious Eglinton Connects community consultations, which were completed earlier this year.

For the course of two years, more than 60 public meetings like those attended by Drepaul were scheduled. Along with feedback from online surveys, more than 5,000 people eventually weighed in on the study’s ambitious plans to revamp Eglinton in conjunction with the future completion of the 19-kilometre Crosstown LRT line, which includes encouraging more mid-rise development, creating green space and adding protected bike lanes.

Drepaul – who was joined by Eglinton Connects planner Paul Kulig, Cycle Toronto director Jared Kolb, meeting facilitator Alex Heath, and chief city planner Jennifer Keesmaat acting as moderator for the discussion – told forum attendees gathered inside Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park she found the courage to speak up the more she learned about bike lanes. She asked for a glossary of planning terms to help understand the discussions and found out bollards are a series of short, vertical posts erected to cushion cyclists from car traffic. But Drepaul, who personally supported adding bike lanes, still couldn’t mollify the concerns of Eglinton Way and other local BIAs convinced having more cyclists on Eglinton would scare away customers in cars.

Not helping matters was what she felt was the planners’ tendency to apply a one-size-fits-all approach when dealing with the BIAs. She felt they didn’t understand the nuances of communicating with local business of which some were heavily involved with social media, while others didn’t even have an email address.

What finally swung the argument in favour of protected bike lanes was data published by the University of Toronto, which showed clear evidence merchants were over-estimating the percentage of customers who drove versus those who rode, took public transit or walked. In reality, there were far more cyclists and transit riders and pedestrians – and far fewer drivers – than thought.

“When my chair saw these numbers, it completely changed the perspective,” said Drepaul. Sensing the opportunity, she presented the figures in person to the BIA’s board of directors.

“It was like the light bulb had gone off and people were realizing cyclists also shop,” she said.

Armed with her employer’s endorsement for the bike lanes, Drepaul was soon able to get other Eglinton-area BIAs on side, she said.

Aided by the support of the BIAs, the study was endorsed unanimously by city council in May, which included adding protected bike lanes all along the Crosstown’s route between Jane Street and Kennedy Road.

Despite the success in getting the bike lanes approved, Keesmaat warned the issue is not yet settled, not in a city where politics invariably re-ignites council approval of projects and a large segment of the public remains hostile to opening up any road space for non-car traffic on Eglinton.

She warned there are many more battles to come before the vision of Eglinton Connects is fully realized.

“It’s critical not to assume that we’ve built capacity or understanding around an idea to the extent it’s going to move forward,” said Keesmaat. “That means having a lot of hard conversations, and they need to be sustained on an ongoing basis.”

October 8, 2014

Monique Drepaul presenting ideas on the issues facing Toronto as it revamps its city transport.

Monique Drepaul has been active in presenting ideas on behalf of her BIA on the issues facing Toronto as it revamps its city transport. On Tuesday October 7^th she spoke as a panel expert (giving the BIA's perspective) for TCAT's Complete Streets Forum yesterday.

Monique is executive coordinator of the Eglinton Way Business Development Association. This association has been very active in presenting ideas to Metrolinkx as it redesigns Toronto’s transportation look. The Eglinton Way BIA is projecting an innovative look for its area under the theme Style Lives Here.

Eglinton Connects is about planning for the future Eglinton Avenue, and how to best leverage investment in rapid transit for the benefit of Toronto and its communities.

Metrolinx is investing approximately $5 billion in the design and construction of the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit (LRT) line. This new transit infrastructure is expected to be complete by 2020 and will run between Weston Road in the west, and Kennedy subway station in the east.

The construction of the Crosstown will significantly improve mobility and transportation options for Torontonians, while also bringing a number of planning opportunities and challenges.

The City of Toronto is undertaking Eglinton Connects, a comprehensive planning study along the length of the Eglinton Avenue corridor, to prepare for these challenges, and to realize the opportunities for the communities along the line.

Much of the groundwork is already complete. This was achieved through other processes and efforts, including public consultation. For example, much of Eglinton is an ‘Avenue’ in Toronto’s Official Plan, which means it is identified as an area where further intensification is encouraged.

Additionally, an Environmental Assessment was completed for the LRT, which contains approved transit designs, and portions of the Eglinton transit corridor streetscape (where the LRT will run in the centre of the street). We also know that the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Line will run underground between Black Creek in the west and Laird in the east. All of these previously made decisions, and many others, guided the development of this Study.

June 20, 2014

Leading an Enlightened & Successful Life

Leading an Enlightened & Successful Life

Sunday, June 29^th, 2014

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (registration opens at 9:00 a.m.)

At AlphaMax Academy, Stanvastestraat, 18-24 Zorg-en- hoop

Presented by I Ching Systems Educator & Intuitive Coach, Monique Drepaul

§ Do you feel weighed down and stressed?

§ Do you repeat patterns in your life with the same type of relationship or job?

§ Are you afraid to move forward?

§ Are you looking to change your life?

Personal Transformation involves breaking out of and resolving repetitive behavior patterns. All patterns are based on something that happened in the past. They are an attempt to protect ourselves from hurt and harm that has already happened. Now YOU can change your patterns, quiet your mind and find a new Path based on your natural gifts, hopes and dreams!
I Ching Systems is a research and education company that produces a technology based on the principles of eastern medicine that can be used to restore emotional balance. Monique has been using I Ching Systems instruments for over 10 years. Every participant will have the opportunity to use this transformation technology for free at the event.

Share this information with everyone you know and don’t miss this opportunity to change your life!

Seminar cost -SRD$100/person. Pre-register by June 27^th, 2014 and bring a friend for free. Call 8650795

Email smartbusinesschoices@gmail.com

http://www.MoniqueDrepaul.com

ICHING seminars