Garbage, noise and traffic: new plaza ‘like the wild west’ in Mississauga
Published August 9, 2023 at 10:15 am
A new Mississauga plaza is getting a reputation for piles of garbage, poor traffic control and late-night parties.
The plaza, Erin Mills Centre, at Eglinton Avenue West and Ridgeway Drive, is known for its plethora of restaurants. Many new spots began opening last spring.
But now the plaza is also getting a not-so-good reputation for garbage, poor traffic control and loud gatherings.
Mississauga Ward 8 Councillor Matt Mahoney tells insauga.com he has received complaints about the issues and is working on resolving them. He first noticed the problems when he went to a few new business openings.
He then started getting calls and emails about the place.
“It’s not only garbage, they’ve had a couple of late-night parties there,” Mahoney says.
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People have gathered outside in the parking lot and listened to music, he says.
But the biggest concern is safety as there are no traffic calming measures or stop signs in the parking lot.
“It’s like the Wild West,” he says. “I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous.”
The interior of the plaza is private property but there needs to be speed bumps, stop signs and way-finding signs for safety, he adds.
“So because those aren’t there, cars are driving kind of everywhere, and then you’ve got pedestrian traffic, you got people walking, they’ve got strollers, and all of those things,” he says.
A recent post on Reddit about the plaza, with hundreds of comments, details the same issues.
“Yeah it’s insane how popular this place is every night,” one person wrote. “Biggest issue is not enough garbage cans outside. Also no stop signs in the parking lot, tiny parking spaces so people keep dooring cars next to them.”
“This plaza is a sh**t show, people bring lawn chairs and sit around all day and give no f**ks about throwing their garbage out,” another person wrote.
Normally, a property manager would take care of these problems but Mahoney says he has been told the units in the plaza are individually owned like a condo cooperation.
A board of directors has been newly formed, he says, and he is planning to meet them soon to address these issues.
“I’m very concerned and it’s not the way that we want things to run and it needs to it needs to be fixed,” he says.
In a statement, the City of Mississauga says they received three complaints related to debris for plazas in the area in October of 2022. All complaints have since been closed as the debris was cleaned up, the city said.
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