LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

Appearances Can Be Deceiving: the Case for the Elfrida Node

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted January 22, 2009)

Earlier this week the Spectator ran a story entitled: "Drawing the Line: the city won't challenge the province over the Elfrida development land". The story then went on to quote a number of Councillors who argued for and against an OMB challenge to the province. The vote to not challenge won by a 6 to 3 majority. It seems that the best rationale given was that a fight with the province would be expensive and might irk the senior level at a time when Hamilton is looking for favours. But what was omitted from the discussion has to do with the long term viability of our community. What are the implications for us over the next 30 years? I know that councils usually think in terms of decisions affecting an election cycle, but land use planning is about the long term, not the short term. Therefore, a lot is at stake for the city in this decision; and the decision merits some examination.

Elfrida is a community on Stoney Creek's mountain, abutting Glanbrook. It is now part of the city of Hamilton. Since 2003, anticipating a provincial mandate to think for the long term, the city launched a planning process to see where Hamilton would grow over the next 30 years. The process is called GRIDS (Growth Related Infrastructure Development Strategy) and is an integrated planning process that uses the model of sustainability to draw together land use planning and infrastructure investment planning (water, wastewater, stormwater and transportation). It is intended to communicate to private business and the public at large where growth will occur, what it will cost and who will pay for that cost. City staff has been working on this project for the past six years. Many Council discussions and public meetings have been held every step of the way.

The stakes are high for the city; and the stakes are high for those who own land they may wish to develop. The city made it clear as our population grows over the next 30 years that our borders can't accommodate sprawling growth everywhere; and the areas of growth would be identified early to ensure orderly and sustainable decisions being made along the way.

As Mayor I supported the process and asked staff to keep politics out of decision-making, and present to Council only options which were sound in land use planning principles. We stuck to this model even though when drafts were presented for public viewing, individuals whose lands were left out of the process were very upset and lobbied Council to include their properties. A number of Councillors came to me indicating they had received delegations and I dutifully spoke with a number of land owners with appropriate staff present to review their cases, but staff stuck to the principles which were articulated and did not vary their decisions appreciably. Neither did Council.

Why was it important to do a GRIDS process in the first place? Because by 2031 projections indicate that our population will grow by 150,000 people. The city needs to figure out where these people will live and where they will work. The GRIDS scenario presented three options: no expansion-where all of the additional residents or 62,000 units would be put into the existing urban boundary; distributed expansion- where any of the growth would be spread out among three growth locations; or nodes and corridors growth; that is, intensifying growth along existing major corridors and creating a 'node' to accommodate the remainder of the growth. Corridors were identified as the major existing streets we have in the city, and the Elfrida lands were presented as an ideal node. These two were selected for transportation, infrastructure and sustainability reasons. Council chose this third option with the nodes and corridors strategy as the most responsible and practical of the three, almost unanimously if I recall correctly.

Council has stuck by its guns until the province bizarrely indicated that they were rejecting the special status given the Elfrida node. This seemed to come out of left field because Council had met earlier concerns expressed by the province and the city was following the province's 'Places to Grow' strategy all along. I am told by sources that a particular provincial bureaucrat, drunk with his own importance, has been creating problems for Hamilton in a number of key areas. But that's a story for another day.

The point is that this decision by the province is crying out for an OMB appeal, as expensive as that might be. Hamilton's future is at stake. And I say this knowing that those whose lands were in the two other areas, not in the Elfrida node, are probably quite happy thinking that now they have a chance to include them in the development area. And I am quite sure that the many landowners, who are in the node and now find themselves out, are equally unhappy.

Why is the node concept good for the city? For one, it prevents the kind of sprawl that a 'distributed model' suggests. Concentrating development in a contiguous environment, or node, allows for the kind of density that makes transit possible and infrastructure less costly. For another, the zero expansion solution would mean, as a senior planner explained to me, that all of the 62,000 residences put downtown say, would intensify every single neighbourhood in that area, a near-physical improbability and certainly a political impossibility. And yet Council, by rejecting their staff's recommendation, and not appealing the provincial decision, is opening the door to sprawl in the distributive model, or neighbourhood fights in the intensification model. Council is also not avoiding an OMB hearing which is sure to be triggered by the current landowners. These owners will surely subpoena city staff to explain their reports (and Council's support of those reports) in justifying the Elfrida node. Council may also be in the un-enviable position of having to now hire outside experts to support their political decision against staff recommendations because they and their staff are now at odds with each other. See how complicated it can get?

What is the best bet? For Council to support an appeal and have staff negotiate shared costs with the developers. Then a deal can be worked out with the province that will protect everyone's best interests. This would serve the dual purpose of avoiding exorbitant costs and growing our community responsibly over the next 30 years in a sustainable way.

BACK TO LARRY'S CORNER

HOME