My dog-walking pal Sally Basmajian is a famous rom-com novelist. She’s an Old Towner. And a TikTocker.

Plus, (like many in the ’hood) she’s shocked at the Shaw Festival and its plans to erect a hulking theatrical complex on Queen Street, which will slither around the corner and eat half a block of Victoria.

“You’re likely not on TikTok,” she wrote me (not), “so I’m sending a copy of a post I did today about the proposed theatre expansion.” And Sally spared no punches.

“Where you have this graceful, frilly house,” she said, standing before one of the five structures the Shaw wants to pull down, “will be a truck bay for the new theatre when it gets built. A truck bay. Imagine!”

The old Royal George may need to tumble and be rebuilt she says, “but there are right ways of doing things and just egregiously wrong ways of doing things.”

At last count Sally’s posts had been viewed 43,500 times.

Well, she got a message from the festival’s czar, Tim Jennings (I did, too). It’s part of a repair campaign the organization has underway to calm a tempest that was apparently never anticipated.

For some reason these folks thought everyone would be OK with a three-year-long heavy construction project in the heart of NOTL, creating a 51,000-square-foot, five-storey-high complex of stone and glass requiring multiple demolitions of heritage buildings, the erasure of housing units and the complete commercialization of half a block of one of the town’s signature residential streets.

Part of the charm offensive is Robin Ridesic, who lectured me in person about the righteousness of the Shaw proposal. She’s a festival director (and is charming).

Her key point — one her colleagues are making loudly now — is that the drawings Sally and many others reacted to are “only preliminary. We’re open to change.”

Well, many are concerned approvals are being rushed ahead so the Shaw can meet a deadline for public funding. The impact of this on the community can only be imagined, since local politicians have thus far been mute.

“I wonder if you have any thoughts on the upset that this project will bring to the middle of our little downtown for a projected three years,” says Richard Glushkoff.

“A project this size usually demands that there be permanent space for construction equipment and traffic control at the Queen Street site plus a lane reserved on Queen for construction site workers and supplies. The dust, noise and dirt will make NOTL a place not to visit until at least construction is over.”

And while Shaw folks say they’re building “for the next century,” some people suggest that could be folly.

Like festival patron and New York resident Bill O’Neil. “I suggest Shaw has a much larger problem,” he tells me.

“Look at the hair colour of the majority of their audience. Their programming, to a large degree, is not for folks under 50. Who in their 30s knows ‘South Pacific’? (how many of them know where the Pacific is?). Who will come to this new museum?”

Growing is the sentiment our bucolic little oasis is, well, getting a tad tacky.

“Friends whose favourite visiting venue was once our town, have said they no longer come because the town is no longer charming,” says Marilyn Bardeau.

“Instead of making the town more attractive to visitors, the overdevelopment is driving them away. How sad is that? People flock to Europe for old world charm, not to the newer sections of the towns. Just as they did to NOTL. Why can decision-makers not see this?”

Paulette and Keith Kennedy now regret moving here.

“We spent two years looking for the perfect place to live when we were in South Africa. Four trips to the U.S. and Canada finally led us to NOTL. We bought our house over the internet and moved in Nov. 1, 2018. We love the town, but the changes that have taken place in these few years have been quite shocking to us.”

Well, Tim Jennings, I know you’re reading this. And watching Sally. Are you listening?

Garth Turner is a NOTL resident, journalist, author, wealth manager and former federal MP and minister. garth@garth.ca