Moving ahead on aerotropolis

The Spec's Emma Reilly reports:

'Mayor Fred Eisenberger has convinced city council not to delay a decision on aerotropolis until 2011.

Eisenberger successfully overturned at last night's meeting a prior vote to shelve a decision on the airport development lands until after this fall's election. Instead, three public consultation meetings will take place over the summer and council will rule on the issue in late September.

"We have had a long and exhaustive process here, and I don't think anyone could argue we haven't been careful," Eisenberger said.

The move reverses a decision of the economic development and planning committee, which voted last week to rule on the controversial airport development next January. The move was intended to allow the public more time to digest the complex planning documents, as the committee felt holding public consultation over the summer would be unfair to vacationing residents.

However, after that decision sparked an outcry from members of the business community, Eisenberger introduced his revised timeline last night. It passed on an 11-5 vote.

"It sends out a signal to our business community that we're open for business," said Councillor Scott Duvall, who voted in favour of the mayor's plan.

The most vocal opponent of Eisenberger's proposal was Ancaster Councillor Lloyd Ferguson, who also chairs the planning committee. He argued the community liaison committee -- a group of city staff and citizens that provides feedback on the controversial development -- hasn't yet had a chance to challenge a proposal to shrink the park by several hundred hectares.

"The public has a right to look at this. This is big," Ferguson said. "They have a right to look at this and comment on this, because it affects their lives."

Councillor Dave Mitchell successfully moved that the community liaison committee should meet before the three public consultation sessions are held.

Councillor Brian McHattie, who voted against the mayor's timeline, compared the vote to council's decision to delay the debate on area rating, the city's controversial tax system, until after the election.

"I see a significant conflict between what we're doing here and what we did with the area rating discussion," he said.

The debate first surfaced last Tuesday, when staff made a presentation on the secondary plan for aerotropolis to the planning committee. The plan, which outlines future development for the airport lands, needs to be endorsed by council before it's officially released for public feedback.

How they voted:

In favour of moving forward before the election: Mayor Fred Eisenberger, Councillors Chad Collins, Scott Duvall, Tom Jackson, Sam Merulla, David Mitchell, Bernie Morelli, Robert Pasuta, Maria Pearson, Russ Powers, Terry Whitehead

Opposed: Councillors Bob Bratina, Brad Clark, Lloyd Ferguson, Brian McHattie, Margaret McCarthy'

What do you think. Does council need to move on this issue prior to the election? Are you supportive of this or some degree of airport land development?

Comments

[Mark]

I remember reading that electricity rates in the proposed area is 5 times that of other areas in Hamilton. Can anybody else confirm this? There is no way any light industry will locate anywhere that they will have to pay that much more for utilities.

[-Hammer-]

Don't do it, our airport is not yet successful enough to warrant it. Maybe in 5-10 years. Instead focus on getting the Pan-Am situation sorted out and reviving the North End of the city.

[G. Baker]

Once again the Mayor and much of Council are blinded by dreams of prosperity while not taking care of existing problems so very apparent throughout the city and Hijacked Amalgamates.
The Boom if there was one is over! Time for damage repair, not more exposure.

[Nadine Bernacki]

I do not support the development of farmland into more business areas - in the future we will need food, not an economy structured around the availability of cheap fossil fuels.

[Larry]

So in this morning's Spec, we have Councillor Ferguson saying he's not sure the city can support an arts incubator downtown, because "immediate financial pressures currently overshadow all decisions on how to use taxpayer dollars." Yet they can find $100 million (just for starters) of our dollars to provide infrastructure for an industrial park that has no better prospects for being filled than the Red Hill Business Park!

At the very least, the fact that Westjet cut over 60% of its flights out of Hamilton this week should have given them pause.

Ah, but wait! We're told that the businesses that will supposedly come flooding in won't just be based on an unstable aviation industry. This morning's Spec editorial tells us that there will also be "auto sales, veterinarian clinics, restaurants, fitness clubs, and hotels"! 'Cause you know all those $12/hr warehouse workers are going to need places to eat, and work out, and take their pets for check ups after work. Riiight. Well, at least they're finally being honest about what this is really about: more big box and residential sprawl brought to you by Hamilton's biggest welfare queens and political supporters, our local developers.

[BULLHST]

@Hamilton67 I believe the word you were searching for is "ridiculous"...there is no "rediculos".

@Mark, because a field is not in use one year doesn't mean it's never used. Crop rotation, keeps the soil healthy, unlike urban sprawl which creates pollution, traffic, traffic lights, increased dependency on fossil fuels, etc.

[BULLHST]

Great... keep spreading the filth of Hamilton outwards until it envelops all the remaining farmland. Next I suggest we bulldoze the escarpment...

[Dave]

The city can't even afford to maintain current infrastructure, yet staff and council want to commit countless millions of taxpayer dollars to another boondoggle based on questionable studies and rose-tinted projections. Meanwhile, more irreplaceable farmland is sacrificed on the altar of council's corporate masters.

No wonder nobody will own up to the cost.

[Hamilton67]

YAY! more Hamilton industry. This should be fun when it pollutes Hamilton even more and then collapses like most Industry in Hamilton has done. Im sorry but this is rediculous.

[Old Fart]

I think the city should stick to it's guns. Only offering smaller plots of land of questionable environmental quality scattered througout the lower city will certainly be attractive to potential industrial citizens who will then face unforseen restrictions to truck access from area transportation corridors as well as problems when expansion is necessary.

Look at where the more prosperous municipalities have their industrial tax bases located; along the major highways & close to the airports!

[Tom Robertson]

What about the other issues this Council was elected to deal with during their current mandate. Area rated taxation? Sludge incineration? An Integrity Commissioner's report? Ward rezoning? Where is the Mayors leadership on these issues?

[Mark]

Most new industries are settling in Brantford, Kitchener/Waterloo, Mississauga, and London. Without available parcels of land none of those industries will come to Hamilton and the ranks of the unemployed will never be reduced or will get larger. Wake up folks! This is not about saving farmland (which is hardly used anyway), it's about laying a framework for future businesses to locate here. As in cities like Mississauga, these big businesses will pay the brunt of the taxes and help to relieve the burden on residential taxpayers, not to mention the new jobs they will provide. This is a good thing, don't you think? Anything else will just prolong the stagnation and reduction of Hamilton's current employment and industrial base.

[carl gazzola]

Hamilton needs the industrial land for the jobs ... if all businesses have to choose from is brownfields they will go to Brantford where there is lots of greenfield industrial land available ... also manufacturing takes up a lot of space ... we should try to bring back out manufacturing base and need to have the land available ... also take note the land in the north end is all contaminated ... it would be too costly to clean it up and have it for manufacturing ... however it would be feasible to clean it up for office space ... so the north end should be cleaned up and redeveloped as residential in the west harbour and office space development in the east ... the land around the airport can be for future manufacturing jobs ... lets not give up on manufacturing and try to bring it back

[kathy Hagan]

I totally agree with the posters who feel that we should not be spending money to put money in the pockets of land speculators. I note the chamber of commerce and other business related groups are pushing and lobbying. Are they not aware that there are plenty of industrial spaces in Hamilton without sacrificing farm land and open space? I do not believe any jobs {or too few} to make a difference to the average person will come from development of these lands.

[Tom Robertson]

If we move the jobs out to this farmland the workers will be looking to live out that way creating more urban sprawl. If the jobs are created north of Barton St. the workers will be looking to establish housing in the already serviced urban areas.

[steve sheen]

I am all for making our city more economically sound.And if that means build to supply then whats not logical about that.I would also like to see the airport itself expand to acomadate more international flights,thus longer runways more airport facilities.

[Joe Minor]

Read today's story: Westjet slashes flights to Hamilton (again). The airline industry, and the air freight industry in particular, are clearly circling the drain. We need to stop throwing public resources at this failing enterprise. Public subsidies to this failing industry include money (higher taxes), lost farmland, and lost sleep (unlike enlightened cities, Hamilton allows air freight in at all hours of the night). It is time to pull the plug on this fiasco.

[Cary]

I agree with the economic planning and development committee that the decision should be put off till January so the public can digest the information. Holding public consultation meetings over the summer is a transparent attempt to bypass opposition to development of the aerotropolis lands.

[Waldo]

There is a huge amount of unused greenfield and brownfield industrial land in Hamilton already.

Why would we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to service more land? Air travel and air transport are not the future. This is another shortsighted decision from council.

If this goes ahead the land will become serviced, businesses will not locate there and all of the politicians' developer buddies will scoop up the land and build more crappy overpriced housing.

[Willem]

While long-term
(40-50 years)the city might look at growing the city in a smart way and expansion further south might be an option. It is simply bad stewardship to take some of the best agricultural land in the country and convert it into employment lands with no clear business plan. Especially considering the many vacant lots and buildings within the city's boundary. Let's first take care of the things within the urban boundary before we think about moving beyond our boundary.

[Robbie]

Hamilton has plenty of underutilized, serviced industrial land. Drive across Burlington Street. Travel up and down Wellington, Victoria, Wentworth, Sherman, Gage, etc. We don't need to convert farm land into industrial. Our city north of Barton Street needs a make-over that could be attractive to new business.

[Wilson]

How can this be good for Hamilton. Do we not pay enough taxes? One of the many problems with this plan is that the public is totally oblivious about how much this is going to cost the tax payers. This is a huge undertaking and we as the public really have no say as to how this will proceed. Any opposition to the Mayor's plan is not acceptable. There are many enviromental issues that have not been addressed by council and when asked about them, they never seem to have any answers. Hamiltonians need to start caring about things that affect them. We need to look beyond our front doors and educate ourselves about what is really going on in our city. I'm not saying there aren't some positives to this plan but the negatives greatly outweigh any good that could come of this. Why do they have to designate such a massive amount of property for this project. There are so many other properties that would be more suitable for a project of this magnitude, one that has the services already in place, or at least ones that won't cost the taxpayers as much to run services to. Don't be fooled because we will be paying for a very large portion of any development of the disignated property at the airport site.

[Gene Simmons]

I agree with Peter "Criss" Swire. What is city council thinking? This is sheer and utter nonsense...please focus on the things that actually need fixing first.

[Larry]

BTW, credit where credit is due. Thanks for the relatively unbiased poll question.

[Larry]

Yippee! As a taxpayer, I can't wait to subsidize the real estate speculators who've bought land around the airport. Then when the businesses fail to appear like in Glanbrook, there will be lots of taxpayer-funded infrastructure in place for the inevitable big box stores and sprawl housing, infrastructure that we'll also be on the hook for maintaining even though it is contributing nothing to our tax base.

Why are the citizens of Hamilton responsible for guaranteeing a bunch of real estate speculators a return on their investment?

[outtamyway]

I'll just use the words of Richard Gilbert, the expert who was solicited by this very council to provide advice on the long-term energy issues facing Hamilton.

"Air travel in the ways we understand it is doomed. It's a very dicey business."

"There is a certain amount of thinking [in Hamilton] of putting the land first and then wondering how to fill the land with jobs. What I'm proposing is an alternative way of going about it, which is figuring out what you want to do and then after you've defined it a bit, what the lands are for that particular thing."

"[Y]ou have a huge opportunity for developing lands for this kind of purpose between [City Hall] and the harbour. I've walked around there, and around the harbour, and I'm just impressed by the opportunities for the kinds of industrial development that I'm talking about, which is very knowledge-intensive, very rich in small-scale activity."

[Markalanwhittle]

Hamilton needs jobs, and the people that create them need a smorgasboard of choices that fit their needs.

Who goes to a restaurant that only has one item on the menu?

Nooo-body.

[Michelle Hruschka]

I am glad that the Hamilton Civic League held the forum on Aerotroplis, as many valid points were brought up, which really are never discussed by mainstream media.

The most important issue I found releveant is that there is no infrastructure in place, meaning sewer pipes and so on. It is approximately over 25 km to hook up to the water plant, the billions of dollars to be spend, which would not solve the on going issues due to flooding in the lower city due to the fact that the existing infrastruture is crumbling.

The one speaker who was for the expansion talked about Brantford but in Brantford, many are experiencing the growth of precarious work in these warehouses, where workers who use to earn good money are now experiencing low wages, no job security, no access to benefits, forget any saving for retirement.

There are so many in our community that are experiencing food security issues, it is actually quite bad for the many who struggle in poverty. It makes no sense that we would further cover up farmland in which we could grow food to feed people,as one of the most important basic human rights under UN covenants.

The concept of endless growth, only putting focus on profits, is having a very detrimental effect not only on people but the environment as well.

Pay attention people, become informed.

Look at the Gulf of Mexicio, that should tell everyone what really the emphasis is on. Who cares if people lose their livihoods, their homes, have no jobs or food and the environment, mother nature is destroyed.

[Peter Swire CMA]

Given the amount of space in the Glanbrook Industrial Park near Nebo Road, the space along the QEW in Stoney Creek and the number of potential brownfield redevelopment sites in the lower City, there does not appear to be any common sense in developing the airport lands as industrial.

The current time sensitive airport users, the cargo firms, seem to have ample space. We do not have a rush of passenger airlines trying to service Hamilton either. If these statements are true, then, how can we justify spending the money when we have a material issues with our water and sewer systems; decaying roads and sidewalks and the social poverty issues.

In my opinion, developing the airport lands is a questionable priority choice. Yes, it could create jobs but for what market. I would rather invest in things that we need such as potable water and creating jobs in that manner.

[Shame on us]

I personaly feel this is the right thing to do for hamilton. Face it we need the work, it is going to be very appealing to a business.