The boys finished their prep work a couple of days ago. Now the serious machines can get in. And the Big Dig can start.

“We’re going down seven metres,” the site super told me. “It’s deep, yeah, but we’ve sure gone deeper. Anyway, there’ll be a lot of dump trucks hauling out of here.”

You bet. A hole 23 feet deep is no backyard swimming pool. It will consume a good chunk of the Parliament Oak site, rising toward King Street as it transitions from parking garage to hotel foundation and car ramp.

The plan is for two levels of parking with a garage entrance off King. (Loading docks and garbage will be accessed off Gage and Centre streets.) But even with almost 250 spaces, odds are cars will be everywhere in the ’hood when the hotel is rocking and a wedding spills onto the patio.

As you know, the Parliament Oak Boutique Hotel (as it is now called) will be a honking big, four-storey 219-room inn, conference centre and event venue plunked in the middle of an Old Town residential area. Houses on four sides.

Approvals for this thing flowed swiftly through a pro-development council despite a mob of citizens who protested outside town hall.

That stroking of developer Benny Marotta continued a few weeks ago when NOTL councillors voted in favour of the region dropping almost a million bucks in development charges related to the Big Dig. Bumping up underground parking to 248 spaces triggered that extra cost. Our guys blinked. So taxpayers get the bill.

Now the consequences.

Locals with engineering expertise warn about the water that will pour into the dig and the pumps that will be required to forever remove it. Others warn the flooding risk for the ’hood will be increased.

Folks living opposite fear King will have to be widened with a turning lane into the complex. And others just see this as a crowning piece of evidence that those we elected have a vision of this place that is, well, startling.

One brave soul making noise is Hamish Kerr. The longtime local was an Old Town store owner, Chamber of Commerce director and head of the Queen Street Business Association. Now he’s just retired and disgusted.

“Please do not think we are Luddites,” he said (including Leslie, his squeeze). “We believe in the direction that the wineries, the Shaw Theatre and the hotels have taken (with notable recent exceptions such as the ‘Airport Hotel’ that you alluded to). However, we do have very serious concerns about Queen Street being treated as an adjunct for buses en route to Niagara Falls, and the support network required to satisfy the appetite of the passengers, thereby ruining the overall ambience and raison d’être of Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

Kerr argues the Chamber is pushing for overtourism and that short-term vacay rentals “are so out of control that the Old Town is almost bereft of owners living full-time in their own homes.” 

Queen Street is corrupted, he adds, as retailers morph into gelato flingers. “The street has become one of ‘broken dreams’ for too many to count. However, the hordes have to be nourished. There are now around 35 ‘foodie’ places on Queen Street … are we just a food court for the outlet mall?”

Well, the place was packed this past long weekend. The parks, too. The horses trotted overtime. Gelato and ice cream droppings made the sidewalks sticky. Selfies everywhere. 

Hamish may yearn for times gone forever, but the body count on Queen speaks to the appeal of this place in a region where population is exploding, history has been paved over and every politician, plus the provincial government, is singing the same refrain: “Build, baby, build.”

They all want to come here. Because we’re different.

Oh, wait …