Six Homes to be Demolished for Parking Lot
September 5, 2004

Applications to demolish six homes on Upper Sherman Avenue will go before the city's planning committee on Tuesday morning. The demolition is to make way for expansion of a parking lot across from Henderson Hospital. The ownership of the houses is unclear, but appears to be associated with a law firm that has close ties to the city.

The homes are currently surrounded by plastic fencing but appear to habitable. Concerns about the loss of affordable housing have generated opposition to demolition permits in the past. In the central area of the city, house demolitions are not permitted unless a replacement home is built.

All of the houses are listed as owned by a numbered company with the address 120 King Street East, Suite 560 in Hamilton, but there is no building at 120 King East. The law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson is located in Suite 560 at 120 King Street West.

Gowling is the firm that represented both the city and the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce in the court actions related to the environmental assessment of the Red Hill Creek Expressway, and Gowling has continued to act for the city on other Red Hill issues. A member of the law firm was recently re-appointed by council to the Board of Hamilton Utilities Corporation, the wholly-owned city subsidiary that runs Hamilton Hydro. Gowling made a $250 contribution to the election campaign of Mayor DiIanni.

The six demolition applications are among 19 items in the "Consent" section of the committee's agenda. Consent items are normally all adopted together without discussion, but can be shifted to the discussion section of the agenda if a councillor requests this.

The total population in the older parts of Hamilton has declined by over 60,000 people in the last three decades partly as a result of the permanent loss of existing housing. The city has an official policy "to increase the supply of affordable housing" and has been funding a Hamilton Affordable Housing Partnership Initiative since April 2002.

A May 2004 city report noted that "the need for new affordable housing supply in Hamilton has been growing for several years" while a 2002 study estimated that 13,000 Hamiltonians were experiencing homelessness at some point during the year.