In
light of these facts, the Economic Development
department at the City has proposed
a fairly 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 convince companies
to want to move to Hamilton.
In
the last few days, a provincial government
decision has unravelled the argument.
The City has been attempting to expand
its urban boundary 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 have
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
sprawl. Will it convince the gamblers
to back down? The only guarantee is
the November 10 elections for City Council.
