Originally Posted by raisethehammer
some great commentary from one of the few bright spots among Hamilton's "elites":
CATCH News – July 21, 2008
Businessman says focus on underutilized industrial lands
A prominent local businessman says bayfront lands north of Barton Street are an “incredible asset” that city officials are foolish to ignore in favour of using foodlands for new industrial growth. The city offers subsides for redevelopment of brownfield sites, but is assuming that none will be used for expected employment growth over the next quarter century.
Carl Turkstra, the CEO of a Hamilton lumber company with a dozen stores and several manufacturing divisions, told councillors last month that the older industrial area along the bayfront is a “potential gold mine with enormous employment potential is being turned into a disaster zone” by misguided city policies.
“I was astounded to learn that the huge potential for employment lands in the traditional manufacturing areas of our City has been almost entirely discounted by council and its planning department,” he declared in a presentation <http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=351> to committee of the whole. “It is very hard to understand why the City would ignore its potential for industrial and commercial development in favour of undeveloped land on the edge of the City.”
Turkstra was responding to a staff recommendation <http://www.myhamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/5930AD96-86A2-4954-9A1F-FF704AD75494/0/Jun23PED08066a.pdf> that 1134 hectares of prime agricultural land around the airport be converted to industrial uses to accommodate expected industrial growth to 2031. While supporting airport development, he contended that the city’s focus should be on existing underutilized industrial areas.
“Why would we throw away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of good infrastructure in a well developed area that is accessible to workers, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to duplicate this infrastructure in a remote area?” he asked.
Turkstra dismissed the brownfield label on these lands as “perjorative” and suggested that it blinded the politicians into thinking of this area as a liability. He said he had just purchased a property north of Barton and went on to list multiple advantages of re-developing this area, including transit accessibility and “exceptionally flexible zoning permitting a very large variety of uses”, something he said is very rare in southern Ontario.
“The area has a complete infrastructure of roads, water supply and sewage supply, in place,” he noted. “It is served internally by mainline railroads connecting to one of the world’s major industrial complexes stretching from Montreal to Toronto, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh – a population of over 120 million people. It is adjacent to a major port servicing the Great Lakes and European destinations. It has good major roads connecting to the QEW with ready access to all regional cities, the airport and major US cities.”
He also pointed to “a well established supply of electrical power, natural gas, telephone service and modern internet linkages” and land and buildings that are “very inexpensive relative to other industrial areas” with “many large underused industrial buildings, like mine, with high ceilings, cranes and loading docks ideally suited to all kinds of manufacturing. It has a good deal of land either vacant or with derelict buildings. There are dozens of for sale and for lease signs all the way from Wellington Street to Winona.”
The city has previously won accolades for its innovative ERASE program <http://www.investinhamilton.ca/brownfieldseraseprogram.asp> which assists companies to cleanup and redevelop older industrial sites. Earlier in the meeting that Turkstra address, it was reported that 103 acres of brownfields have been redeveloped over the last seven years, adding 350 jobs and $17 million in new assessment.
The brownfields coordinator, Carolynn Reid, said <http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=350> the city is currently processing applications for “well over 100 acres” of additional lands. The program is funded entirely by the increased taxes collected on the lands for ten years after redevelopment – about $6.7 million for the first 103 acres.
“We now have a brownfields office,” Reid noted. “We’ll soon have a manager who will steer this brownfields team. We have 3 people as far as staff right now.”
But she also pointed to obstacles to faster redevelopment of old industrial properties, including time-consuming cleanup regulations, and inadequate financial assistance. There are provincial and federal subsidy programs, but Reid argues they are both “totally underutilized”.
“The biggest is liability,” she emphasized. “It’s not just environmental liability issues, it’s also on a civil suit.”
“If that were to change and were somehow to pick up the long term liability,” asked Mayor Eisenberger, “would that change the uptake on the brownfield sites?”
“Definitely,” Reid replied. “The biggest part of that liability change, if it happens, is how it will affect financing and the ability for those people that can’t use their balance sheet to fund development to get funding.”
Turkstra’s presentation won applause from citizens attending the meeting, but generated no questions or comments from councillors. They proceeded to approve a resolution that “additional employment lands only be accommodated with the proposed Airport Employment Growth District only.”
In a letter <http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/download.php?id=60> received just before the meeting, provincial officials reiterated concerns <http://www.hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=344> they had raised as far back as mid-November about the assumptions city consultants and staff are utilizing to determine the amount of industrial land required.
The letter pointed out that provincial rules require that municipalities must “plant to accommodate significant amounts of both residential and employment growth in existing built-up areas.”
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