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Town gazes upon site
But, despite the rumours, Dunlap observatory lands not for sale: U of T
January 29, 2007
Jim Wilkes
Staff Reporter
Just like Halley's Comet, rumours about the David Dunlap Observatory keep coming around again.
Rumours that the rolling, heavily treed property in Richmond Hill that boasts Canada's largest optical telescope is about to be put up for sale, in part a victim of light pollution from the ongoing development that surrounds the 80-hectare site.
Director Peter Martin admits it has already become obsolete as a traditional observatory, one where astronomers point telescopes into the night to gaze at stars and record them on film or digital plates.
But Martin, an astrophysics professor at the University of Toronto, says it's still a vital spot where stellar spectroscopists gather important new observations at wavelengths unaffected by the brilliant light of a Richmond Hill night.
"You can only do what you can do, so it pushes you into niche areas rather than the broad sweep that an observatory can do in a perfect site," he said.
It was at the observatory in 1972 that U of T astronomer Tom Bolton first proved the existence of black holes, collapsed stars whose gravitational pull is so powerful that nothing can escape them.
A green oasis in the heart of Richmond Hill, between Yonge St. and Bayview Ave., just south of Major Mackenzie Dr., it has vast open fields and huge woodlots that are home to dozens of white-tailed deer. The deer are increasingly a problem for nearby homeowners, who claim they eat their trees and attract illegal hunters.
Martin says it's hard to escape the recurring rumours that the site is for sale and the possible $200 million windfall it could bring the university.
"There have been no official talks about selling," said Martin, who joined the faculty 35 years ago and became its chair in 1999.
There's also the matter of whether the university is actually permitted to put the property on the market.
The observatory and surrounding lands – a pre-Confederation farm purchased for just $28,000 – were given to the university by Jessie Dunlap in 1935 in memory of her husband, a wealthy Toronto lawyer and mining entrepreneur. The trust declared that if the school no longer needed the property for an observatory, it would revert to the Dunlap family.
The university's governing council has hinted it might be able to bypass the trust conditions if it sold the site and used the money to advance astronomical research in other areas, but that's a legal debate to be dealt with down the road – if it was actually about to be sold.
"This story has more legs than a centipede," said Richmond Hill Mayor David Barrow. "The story just keeps going around and around."
Barrow is the first to admit he'd be eager to see the land as a huge park in the centre of town and hopes if the university did sell, the town would get first crack at it. The town already leases adjacent land from the university, where it built the Elvis Stojko Arena.
"When we hear about it being for sale, we inquire and they tell us there's nothing imminent," Barrow said. "Then we hear they're actively engaged and then we learn it's not the case."
But none of that dulls the mayor's ardour.
"There's an opportunity there we wouldn't want to miss if it did become available," he said.
Developers are also keeping an eye on the site, which is surrounded by homes and the streetlights that have reduced the big telescope's usefulness. The town enacted a bylaw in the mid-1990s to force lighting to be aimed toward the ground, rather than upwards, but by that time it was too late to prevent a disastrously illuminated night sky.
"The fact that a town has grown up around this property, no matter what measures we might have taken, has probably put it at risk for its original use," Barrow added.
"If those 200 acres went on the market, we'd be competing with those who had other uses for it and it could go for $1 million an acre in a bidding war."
Critics have suggested that much of the land is a fallow field and that the telescope has outlived its utility as a watcher of the skies. Barrow isn't so sure.
"I don't know what its potential is," he said. "Some may say it's meeting its potential by sitting there as greenspace."
Councillor Lynn Foster, chair of the town's Architectural and Conservation Advisory Committee, has said she wants to protect the observatory lands and have them declared a heritage site.
But, despite the rumours, Dunlap observatory lands not for sale: U of T
January 29, 2007
Jim Wilkes
Staff Reporter
Just like Halley's Comet, rumours about the David Dunlap Observatory keep coming around again.
Rumours that the rolling, heavily treed property in Richmond Hill that boasts Canada's largest optical telescope is about to be put up for sale, in part a victim of light pollution from the ongoing development that surrounds the 80-hectare site.
Director Peter Martin admits it has already become obsolete as a traditional observatory, one where astronomers point telescopes into the night to gaze at stars and record them on film or digital plates.
But Martin, an astrophysics professor at the University of Toronto, says it's still a vital spot where stellar spectroscopists gather important new observations at wavelengths unaffected by the brilliant light of a Richmond Hill night.
"You can only do what you can do, so it pushes you into niche areas rather than the broad sweep that an observatory can do in a perfect site," he said.
It was at the observatory in 1972 that U of T astronomer Tom Bolton first proved the existence of black holes, collapsed stars whose gravitational pull is so powerful that nothing can escape them.
A green oasis in the heart of Richmond Hill, between Yonge St. and Bayview Ave., just south of Major Mackenzie Dr., it has vast open fields and huge woodlots that are home to dozens of white-tailed deer. The deer are increasingly a problem for nearby homeowners, who claim they eat their trees and attract illegal hunters.
Martin says it's hard to escape the recurring rumours that the site is for sale and the possible $200 million windfall it could bring the university.
"There have been no official talks about selling," said Martin, who joined the faculty 35 years ago and became its chair in 1999.
There's also the matter of whether the university is actually permitted to put the property on the market.
The observatory and surrounding lands – a pre-Confederation farm purchased for just $28,000 – were given to the university by Jessie Dunlap in 1935 in memory of her husband, a wealthy Toronto lawyer and mining entrepreneur. The trust declared that if the school no longer needed the property for an observatory, it would revert to the Dunlap family.
The university's governing council has hinted it might be able to bypass the trust conditions if it sold the site and used the money to advance astronomical research in other areas, but that's a legal debate to be dealt with down the road – if it was actually about to be sold.
"This story has more legs than a centipede," said Richmond Hill Mayor David Barrow. "The story just keeps going around and around."
Barrow is the first to admit he'd be eager to see the land as a huge park in the centre of town and hopes if the university did sell, the town would get first crack at it. The town already leases adjacent land from the university, where it built the Elvis Stojko Arena.
"When we hear about it being for sale, we inquire and they tell us there's nothing imminent," Barrow said. "Then we hear they're actively engaged and then we learn it's not the case."
But none of that dulls the mayor's ardour.
"There's an opportunity there we wouldn't want to miss if it did become available," he said.
Developers are also keeping an eye on the site, which is surrounded by homes and the streetlights that have reduced the big telescope's usefulness. The town enacted a bylaw in the mid-1990s to force lighting to be aimed toward the ground, rather than upwards, but by that time it was too late to prevent a disastrously illuminated night sky.
"The fact that a town has grown up around this property, no matter what measures we might have taken, has probably put it at risk for its original use," Barrow added.
"If those 200 acres went on the market, we'd be competing with those who had other uses for it and it could go for $1 million an acre in a bidding war."
Critics have suggested that much of the land is a fallow field and that the telescope has outlived its utility as a watcher of the skies. Barrow isn't so sure.
"I don't know what its potential is," he said. "Some may say it's meeting its potential by sitting there as greenspace."
Councillor Lynn Foster, chair of the town's Architectural and Conservation Advisory Committee, has said she wants to protect the observatory lands and have them declared a heritage site.