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September
2003
Newsletter
Economic
Arguments for the Expressway Don't Hold Water
The
economic reasons given for building a north-south expressway
have suffered another major setback.
Expressway suupporters have been claiming that the project
will increase industrial assessment in Hamilton and that
this will rescue the City from its financial crisis.
More
specifically they are claiming that the expressway will
generate 14,000 new jobs by opening up industrial lands
in the East Mountain Business Park and in the North Glanbrook
Business Park (that lies immediately south of it).
Both of these areas are already serviced by the Linc and
are closer to it that they will be to any part of the valley
expressway, but that didn't create any economic boom there.
The valley road allegedly will do the trick and the thousands
of jobs will follow in its wake. Note that 14,000 jobs is
more than Stelco and Dofasco combined.
There
are a number of flaws in this argument, some of which have
been identified by the City and its hired consultants.
-
the North Glanbrook lands are not serviced and it is unprofitable
for their private owners to provide the services to attract
new industry;
-
it will cost the City nearly $50 million to provide the
necessary services;
-
there is no current market interest in purchasing these
lands for industrial development;
-
the owners of the lands are actively demanding that their
lands be rezoned to much more profitable residential uses;
-
residential development in greenfield areas doesn't pay
for itself so more of it will simply make the City's financial
position worse;
-
even if the City refuses to rezone these lands to residential,
the owners would likely overcome this through an appeal
to the Ontario Municipal Board.
In
light of these facts, the Economic Development department
at the City has proposed a truly desperate gamble —
build the expressway AND provide enough subsidies to the
private owners to make it sufficiently profitable for them
to accept industrial development on these lands. The advocates
of this position candidly admit that it has two major problems
-
the City can't afford to subsidize the landowners, and
-
such subsidies are currently illegal under Ontario law
(in order to prevent cities from getting caught in an
increasingly expensive bidding war for new development).
In fact, the scheme is even riskier since it rests on a
unproven prediction that these steps will actually convince
companies to want to move to Hamilton.
In
early July, a provincial government decision unravelled
the argument. The City had been attempting to expand its
urban boundary in Stoney Creek out to Fifty Road in Winona.
This step was supposed to add enough land for residential
development to create a 20-year supply. Then the City could
argue that any attempt to convert North Glanbrook to residential
was unreasonable or premature.
Council eagerly approved the expansion into Winona, despite
the fact that these are prime agricultural lands, and much
of them are irreplacable tenderfruit lands found no where
else in Ontario. Like so much done in Hamilton, this move
broke the rules. This time it was so blatant that even the
Eves government couldn't stomach it. They objected to the
expansion and forced the City to back down.
This
leaves the North Glanbrook landowners in a much stronger
position to argue that their lands should be rezoned to
residential, and pretty much ensures that if the expressway
is built, it will simply generate (and subsidize) more unsustainable
and very expensive residential sprawl.
Will it convince the gamblers to back down? The only guarantee
is the November 10 elections for City Council.
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