Former Mayor Larry Di Ianni and Mr. Ecklund's daughter Erika

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LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

former Mayor of Hamilton, Larry Di Ianni Council’s Plan for Future Development

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted July 2, 2009)

This was a historic week for Council and for the City of Hamilton. A process which was started under my tenure as mayor of the city, called GRIDS, Growth Related Infrastructure Development Strategy (as well as other planning processes) culminated in the approval of the city’s urban Official Plan, the official blueprint for growth over the next 25 to 30 years.

First let me congratulate Council on approving this plan and doing the right thing. Secondly, let me give credit where credit is due and acknowledge the provincial policies, specifically the Places to Grow legislation, passed a number of years ago, for providing the framework for Council’s decisions. I am generally very happy with the plan.

Next, let me also recognize that what Council didn’t do is as important as what it did. The major bullet which was wisely avoided by Council was their threat to bump up the intensification targets downtown to 400 units per acre. They kept the number at 250 units per acre which is an increase over the current 200 per acre. What this means in layman’s terms is that council avoided having to build a major high rise on every neighbourhood street in the downtown to meet the 400 target. Residents already concerned about the increases in intensification will be pleased. Council will too in the long term because it will be difficult enough to implement the 250 target without exacerbating it any further.

The next thing Council stayed away from was to encourage sprawl on the mountain lands. As I wrote on January 22 and again on March 6 of this year, Council seemed bent on contradicting staff’s good recommendations to grow the city in the Elfrida node. Council seemed bent on bending to the lobbying pressures of other land-owners thereby sprawling future development along the so called Twenty Road lands. Even though the decision to stick to its guns may end up at the Ontario Municipal Board, Council did the right thing in encouraging orderly and sustainable development as we grow by 150,000 people over the next several decades.

Council also stayed away from reversing its position on the commercial designations which have irked the province’s bureaucrats; namely, those lands in Winona, Centennial Parkway and Ancaster which were industrial designations and have now become commercial. The real issue here is why are provincial bureaucrats butting in on local decisions? And who at city hall, on council or in the mayor’s office is instigating this kind of interference? These are questions deserving some answers.

Also on the positive side are the plans to implement pedestrian-friendly streets throughout the municipality. It makes sense to do so in Ancaster, Dundas, Glanbrook, Stoney Creek and elsewhere in Hamilton. Using this strategy is laudable even though it may be hard to accomplish in places like Upper James, along the so-called, Golden Mile strip.

All in all, this was a plan well-begun by previous councils and well-supported by the current one. Now, if Council can also attend to the Airport Employment Lands and bring it to a successful conclusion, they will have put a real stamp on the sustainable future of this community.

 

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