“Deal with that, turds.”

After repeatedly trying to appease citizen groups, city working groups, and town council members, a downtown developer has submitted his final revision of a plan for new downtown building development with the above snarled derision.

Initially proposed at 21 stories, concerns ranging from skyline maintenance to waste handling had whittled the initial development plan down to 70% of it’s initially planned size and was deemed a reasonable adjustment by all sides. However, those changes were still not enough to appease a committee advising city council, who were deadlocked at 3-3 in votes for and against the project, so the developer took a different tack.

The revised tower includes radical bylaw variance, reduced aesthetic appeal, the removal of subsidized housing, and a 15-foot mirror ball at the pinnacle. When asked about the last point, the developer laughed. “You want historic charm? How about a disco-ball homage to the last time this city had any reasonable growth.”

Other developers were quick to line up in support of the new tower, seeing it as a shining example of passive-aggressive sarcasm. Some went so far as saying that they would make their own proposals denser, shittier, and uglier “purely in solidarity.”

The downtown developer shook his head in disbelief when asked if he would leave the plan as-is, or withdraw it after the obvious message had sunk in.

“You know what’s crazy about you guys? You don’t even understand that you’re the butt of the joke.” He explained, indicating that he meant the entire city. “When I have lunch with friends developing in the GTA, Ottawa, hell almost anyone, I’m the life of the party! I have all of these stories about trying to make you happy, and my friends just laugh and laugh at all the bullshit I have to go through to try and do anything here.”

The developer mood darkened, as he continued.

“So take it or leave it. Eventually nobody is going to want to deal with this circus, and I’m sick of making my friends pay for lunch.”