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March
1998 Newsletter
City
Stumbles Over Sale of Valley Lands
The
City of Hamilton is selling 161.57 acres of the Red Hill
Valley to the Regional government for the expressway. Nearly
80% of these lands are going for the rock bottom price of
$5,000 per acre. Replacement parkland anywhere near the
east end cannot be acquired for less than $150,000 per acre.
The residents of Hamilton have not been given any say in
the sale of their largest park. They have not even been
notified of the planned sale. In fact, the lands have not
been officially put up for sale so no one but the Regional
government has been given the opportunity to bid on them.
There is apparently no law that requires the City to do
these things. However, there is a minor exception. There
are six small pieces of land in the valley that are "closed
road allowances". The Municipal Act requires that the
sale of closed road allowances is a public process. Consequently,
at the beginning of February, the City of Hamilton began
running a classified ad regarding the sale of these closed
road allowances. They were described in the most confusing
way possible. For example, as "Part of Part 9, Plan
62R-11165, being part of the Original road allowance between
Lots 32 & 33 Concession 4, closed by Township By-Law
No. 145, registered as Instrument No. 109231 AB."
Running the ads is required by the Municipal Act, and if
any person feels "that his lands will be prejudicially
affected" by the sale, that person has a right to address
the Transport and Environment Committee of City Council.
On Monday, March 2nd, over 60 individuals exercised these
rights. Their presentations went on for over five hours
and each person opposed the sale of these lands. Before
the presentations began on the Red Hill lands, two other
items were dealt with by the Council Committee. The first
considered the proposed sale of a closed road allowance
near Chedoke Hospital. Two individuals stood up and spoke
against this sale because they didn't want another house
on their street. As a result, the councillors voted unanimously
not to proceed with the proposed sale. The second item was
a proposed closure of an alleyway on the mountain. Two persons
spoke in favour of this and two spoke against it. Consequently,
the Committee decided to put off a decision until another
day. The third item was the Red Hill lands. After more than
60 people had spoken against the sale, and no one had come
forward to support it, the Council Committee voted 5 to
3 to proceed with the sale.
Two of the 5 who voted for this (Tom Jackson and Terry Anderson)
only attended a small part of the meeting, but suddenly
turned up again at 5 pm when the vote was taken. A third
(Mayor Morrow) also missed a large part of the presentations.
The three councillors who voted against the sale (Andrea
Horwath, Mary Kiss and Dave Wilson) were there for the whole
meeting and all spoke out and gave their reasons for opposing
the sale. But four of the five councillors who voted for
the sale didn't bother to explain themselves.
One of the presentations to the Committee was made by Mr.
Erik Gillespie, a lawyer representing two families living
near the valley. He pointed out that the proposed sale of
one of the road allowances appeared to be illegal because
it bordered on his client's property. The Municipal Act
requires that abutting landowners have first rights to buy
closed road allowances. Friends of Red Hill and Mr. Gillespie
held a press conference on March 9 at Hamilton City Hall
to explain these aspects of the law and to warn City Council
that it would be improper to pass the by-law selling the
closed road allowances. Mr. Gillespie also forwarded this
information to the City Solicitor, and it was distributed
to members of City Council before they voted on the matter
on March 10. Five councillors voted against the sale. They
were Geraldine Copps, Dave Wilson, Mary Kiss, Andrea Horwath
and Ron Corsini.
In response to Mr. Gillespie's intervention, City bureaucrats
changed the resolution passed at the Committee level on
March 2, before it was presented to the full council. The
Vice-Chairman of the Committee exposed this at the Council
meeting. The change involved cutting off a small part of
the road allowance so that it no longer abutted the property
of the private citizen. This manoeuvre to get around the
requirements of the Municipal Act does not appear to be
legal. In addition, by altering the boundaries of the lands
being sold, the City appears to have put itself in the position
of having to repeat the entire advertising and meeting process.
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