Committee Members Present: Bill Kelly, Terry Whitehead, Dave Braden, Sam Merulla (left at 3:40 pm), Bob Bratina, Maria Pearson, Dave Mitchell, Murray Ferguson.

Also present: Larry DiIanni (left at 4:10 pm), Chad Collins (left at 3:30 pm), Tom Jackson (left at 3:30 pm), Phil Bruckler (left at 4:20 pm).

Changes to the Agenda: Clerk reported that item 7.2 would not be considered for a decision today, but there would still be a report from Tradeport.

Chair Kelly: ".so we'll get the oral report. Folks are here from Tradeport so we'll get the Q and A on that, but the actual documentation on that will be forthcoming at a future time, okay. And at which time we'll probably have them back and we can do some questions and answers then. This will just be an overview today in keeping with the practice that we've determined some months ago of having Tradeport coming in here on a regular basis to update the council on activities. . Are we handling item 12.1 still on confidential matter, madame clerk?" [response off-mic] "Okay, we'll deal with that at the appropriate time."

7. PRESENTATIONS

7.1 2004 Revised Economic Development Strategy (ECO04008) (City Wide)
http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Clerk/agendas-minutes-reports/
Planning-Economic-Development/2004/Oct20/
ECO04008%20Revised%20Economic%20Development
%20Strategy%202004.pdf

Kelly : "Item 7.1 is the 2004 revised economic development strategy and this is something that we've been working on for quite some time. Just a couple of comments on this before I turn this over to staff [note Kelly did NOT step down from the chair to make these comments]. This of course is an update on the clusters and corridors policy the council adopted some years ago for our economic development strategy. And we promised at the time, of course, that we were not going to carve this in stone. That our economic development strategy was going to be a living document, it was going to change with the times, it was going to change with input that we received from stakeholders in the community. Clearly that's what's happened here as our staff will tell us in just a couple of moments. Over 90 stakeholders, and there's a list of them. I think it's in the report that you've just distributed, isn't it Neil [Lumsden]? A list of over 90 stakeholders who've been given input into this whole circumstance of what we've been trying to do here and input on how effective it has been. The landscape has changed economically, not just here in this community but of course in the world markets as well, and we like to think that's that reflected on this as well. . You'll see some changes over last year as well, and one of the ones that we want to highlight was the focus on education. Earlier today, of course, the mayor was at the education breakfast at LIUNA Station along with the Industry-Education Council. The focus on education is two-fold. Of course it comes from the mayor's education conference that we held in Dundas, that I was fortunate enough to co-chair with the mayor a couple of months ago. And to hear from various stakeholders of course from the education system. The focus on education, as I started to explain, is really two-fold. First of all education is the second largest employer in this community now, so certainly because of the education facilities that we have we wanted to focus on that. Second of all, as we move towards our economic development strategy and our goals of obtaining higher employment for this area, the education policies that we adopt along with our partners, of course, in these education facilities are going to be a key towards developing the technologies and the people who can work in those technologies. There are obvious tie-ins with McMaster and biotech and Mohawk College and skilled trades and things of this nature. Staff will highlight some of those as we go through the policies this afternoon, as we prepare for the tools for that. The other factors of course you'll notice that some of the clusters remain the same. Others have been downgraded a bit as a result of some market factors, and Neil and Dave will explain those as we go through the program.

Arts and culture has been highlighted. That was a council directive that we talked about some months ago, very much in keeping with what's happening in this community now, and we've also, of course, revised that strategy based on economic development theories that indicated that a thriving arts and culture community within the greater community can actually act as an attraction to high tech industries and some of these natures very much in keeping with the Richard Florida theory that we've talked about in some of the documentation. So you'll see a highlight on that too.

Agriculture and food - councillor Mitchell, councillor Ferguson, councillor Braden of course - we've talked about that. The numbers are staggering, probably unknown to an awful lot of us. Agriculture and food grossed over $220 million in this community in 2001. It clearly is a major driving economic force in this community, and our ec dev strategy will include that as well.

Ports and Aerotropolis - two key elements that we've already identified as two of the key factors in our economic development strategy. The airport, of course, and we'll take about servicing land and things of this nature. The port is something that's has come to our attention in the last little while as well, and councillor Collins and councillor Merulla are working very diligently on that. You have a meeting on Friday, I believe about that, about some of the Pier 8 developments. The port is under-utilized. The seaway is underutilized. And when we start talking about intermodal transportation, Hamilton is placed in a very strategic position to take advantage of some of the federal and provincial initiatives toward intermodal tranportation between the airport, the roads transportation and the ports, so we're going to focus on that and I'll let Neil expand on that in just a couple of moments.

The other point that I wanted to make, and we talked a little about this yesterday morning at the Chamber of Commerce breakfast. Neil and I were commiserating about some of the strategies and some of the directions that are going on and how we want this to be a living document. And one of the key elements, of course, is that we can't just track where we are, where we want to go on this, we want to build on this. And not withstanding the fact that we're moving toward attracting new and innovative technologies such as biotech, education and things of this nature, we also have to remember that things like manufacturing always have been and will remain a key developer in our economic development strategy, especially in light of what's happening in the Stelco situation and the steel industry in general. And we want to maintain that strong bond with manufacturing. It's still a key developer of what's going on in this community. Councillor Whitehead and myself and councillor Morelli were involved in the steel commission working with that industry to try to create a liaison and see what we can do. And of course Mayor Di Ianni himself has rolled up his sleeves and gotten involved with the Stelco circumstances as well, and we hope that comes to a fruitful end for all of us.

So at this point I will turn it over to Neil Everson and his staff. And I'll let you identify the other folks who have worked on it. It's been a TOTAL team effort over the last couple of months to develop this strategy, so Neil, the floor's yours."

Neil Everson: ".thank you for accommodating a special committee meeting . the good news is that I don't intend to go through all 111 pages of the strategy this afternoon. What I thought I'd do is just provide you with an overview of some of the highlights and the changes we've made to the strategy.

[powerpoint presentation] Just to refresh your memories. The first comprehensive ec dev strategy was prepared by staff with the assistance of external consultants on only two of the clusters, and what we did is we employed focus groups in each of those clusters, we researched cluster models in both the U.S. and Canada, but most importantly this strategic plan was built on the inherent strengths in this community and with considerable stakeholder input of those groups and organizations involved in economic development.

One can differentiate Hamilton's economic development strategy from those of other communities, is that we include a short, medium and long term deliverables in each cluster. And so as a result, this is more than just an economic vision. What it is is an action plan for this community with some measurables and some deliverables. And Mr. Chairman, let me tell you this afternoon that we as a department did deliver along with our other departments in the corporation. You can see that we've 19 completed in terms of short-term and medium-term deliverables, 11 that are in progress and should be completed by years end, which gives us 30 out of 34. That, in my opinion, is pretty good for a limited staff and resources. So let's take a look at a few of the highlights and I'll just let you read them for yourselves. The important issue here is that these are the building blocks for the foundation for economic development that didn't simply exist in this community before amalgamation. What this department had to do was get in place these types of deliverables in order for these identified clusters to flourish and grow in the community. As you stated, Mr. Chairman, we did not prepare the strategic plan with the intention to leave it on the shelf. It was intended to have periodic revisions and be brought back to the community stakeholders and to council. And in my opinion, and in the opinion of staff, what we have done is taken a good strategy and we've made it even better.

The process we employed was similar to the 2001 strategy. We took five months for the research and re-write on the clusters. We had a three month circulation period to stakeholders and Mr. Chairman I can tell you the reason you didn't get a copy to read until this weekend was we were still getting comments back in as late as last week [the actual revised strategy was not circulated, at least to the public, prior to the meeting]. And then the final revisions took five or six weeks to put in place, and you now have the draft strategy in front of you.

In appendix C as you said you will see that the draft strategy was circulated to approximately 90 agencies, groups, organizations and individuals related to economic development, and that's both within the City of Hamilton, and external to the corporation and external to the city. And the department received back 35 comments that we then incorporated into the draft plan in front of you. And when I talk about comments, it's just no one line. We had three and four pages from some groups and some organizations. And not everything was incorporated in. Certainly some of the points were very valid and those we put in place. Other ones we had the discussion amongst staff and with some of our partners whether or not they were relevant to be included.

So here is a graphic representation of what the new economic development strategy looks like and it's the one I believe the mayor placed in his IEC reference this morning. And this is much more sophisticated than the 2001 model that we put in front of you. The proposed changes to the strategy address the dynamic changes to the global economy. As you said, Mr. Chairman, we are undergoing a globalization of production and this strategy is an attempt to deal with the dynamic changes within the global economy. It also reflects council's input and the input of our stakeholders and community partners.

So let's take a look at what's changed. We have three new clusters in comparison to the 2001 document and that's just stated. Two are as a result of council directions and one is simply out of necessity. This spring council directed staff to give full cluster status to the downtown, which we have, and tourism/culture industries which did not appear in the 2001 document. This department then added the port as an individual cluster, and that was done for basically three reasons. One is the level of economic activity at the port. Two is the intermodal capabilities that the port brings to this community. And three is the working relationship that the economic development department has with the Hamilton Port Authority. Mr. Chairman I can tell you in comparision with municipalities like Toronto and their port, Hamilton has an extremely good working relationship - something that doesn't exist in other municipalities. We also added for the first time a quality of life component, recognizing that this factor is important, has an important role in growing the clusters and making Hamilton a liveable city. And you can also see that education, and I'll discuss this in a moment, we also placed in underlying each of the clusters perhaps basically to show how important the role of education is in growing the clusters. And that's from things like research and development, skills training and intellectual property. Without education it's very difficult to grow any of the clusters.

So what we did is we segmented quality of life into four areas. And believe me that was a difficult decision. We could have certainly included more areas. Education, as I've mentioned, has a role in economic development, but it's also a very important quality of life factor that we have world-class educational institutions to send children and to graduate that human capital we need. In terms of housing, this includes the entire spectrum of housing, just not the estate high-quality housing for skilled workers and management, but also affordable housing for lower income groups. And that's just as important in terms of the labour supply for the clusters. In terms of health care, this is a real strength of this community to have five teaching hospitals and a regional cancer centre. I was making a presentation earlier this morning and between the five hospitals and the cancer centre we service 2.2 million residents, er 2.2 million people, not only in Hamilton but in the surrounding regions. So, you know, that is a real important feature for this community. The last one in terms of environment, what we did here is we pulled two together. Not only are we talking about the physical environment and the importance of the physical environment - our parks, our trails our recreational facilities - but we're also talking about the importance of a social environment and that's things like sporting teams and theatre companies, and Opera Hamilton. These are all important factors that make up an environment in a liveable city.

Finally at the bottom of the chart, you'll see the economic development tool section. And quite simply this is how we as an economic development department deliver the strategy. These are the tools that we employ. Our business retention program - there is a theory of economic development that 80% of economic growth is created from within your own community. It's really why attraction is only devoted to 20% of our time, and it's why we chose the cluster strategy. Because once we've developed the clusters to a critical mass, then there's a really good reason for us to go and attract companies, because we have a reason for them to be here. Otherwise we're just going to be like every other municipality and we're all going to be chasing the same limited number of companies. But if we have an established cluster here, and we're already seeing that Mr. Chairman, we're seeing interest in this community. A big part of this business retention program will be a formalization of our current retention program, and one of the features is a corporate calling program, where we'll be visiting, along with yourself and the mayor when he is available, each one of the clusters and the key companies and key clients in each one of those clusters. We're going to be promoting things like export development, sourcing products locally, try to address the human resources skills issues, and looking how we can as a municipality grow these companies and grow the clusters.

Information, communications and technology - this was a cluster in the previous model. It really, certainly because of the dot.com crash in late 2001-2002 was not the cluster that a lot of us expected it would be and we soon realized that we weren't going to be able to make it happen. But information, communications and technology has a very important role in this community, and don't doubt that for a minute. What we did, is that we've moved it down to one of our economic tools section, because we understand, and certainly getting back to my globalization production argument, we can't compete with low cost countries. We simply cannot. But where we can compete is with higher skills and higher technologies, and we believe the application of technologies in this community, especially things like our fibre network, that really are going to give our companies and our clusters competitive advantages.

The last one is an electronic business directory. This is something that we did with the community stakeholders, and right now it's in our GIS system. It's also on our websight. But we are bringing this back in house along with our information technology department, and what we intend to do with this is we're going to have more control over updating that electronic directory, provide better information to our customers, and also developing more applications on how we can use this 17,000 company database.

I won't go through all the deliverables of the eight clusters, but what I would like to do is bring to your attention some of the short and long-term deliverables included in this revised strategy. The goods movement study is something that came out of the mayor's airport summt and when we first looked at this we were looking at a good movement analysis simply for the airport. Well we realized we wouldn't be doing it justice if we did not include the entire community, the entire intermodal community. So what we have done is expanded this study to include road, rail and port and we have representations from each. We've also included funding not only from the municipality, but from the federal government, the province and some of our private stakeholders in getting this. And the importance of this is it is going to show us how goods move in and through this community and the surrounding region, and their impact on the clusters and how we, especially when we look at clusters like the airport, how we capitalize on the benefits of having the logistics companies in this community. And how - one of our strongest locational features is our transportation advantages - so how do we as a community increase the performance of our clusters and how do we capitalize on this.

The growth development clinical trials centre of excellence - this came out of the $200,000 funding we had from the province in the biotechnology cluster innovation program, and what it is really doing is looking at expanding upon our excellence in Hamilton in clinical trials. How do we now take that and build our cluster?

I've discussed the business retention program. Industry profiles - we're going to be - again, for a small department, we leverage our resources pretty well. We have received 50% funding from the federal government to complete the last profiles on individual clusters. And again when we're selling the community and selling the clusters, this is the kind of information that we have to provide to companies, not only to companies that are existing within the clusters, but companies that are considering Hamilton. So these will be industry profiles on the food and beverage sector, the port and the advanced manufacturing sector, specifically auto parts and a few of the other higher tech manufacturing operations. The digital film library will be completed early in the spring. Now the sports tourism action plan, probably Dave can answer this better than I can if there's questions, but this is building on the strengths of the world cycling championship, the Canadian open and the rugby championships. I believe David has a report coming in November on this very issue coming to committee.

And the last point Mr. Chairman is the cultural plan and economic impact study. Like what we did for agriculture, we did not have a baseline document and a reference. We knew that agriculture was important in this community, but we did not have any idea of the magnitude. This is going to be the same effort we should have placed for cultural industries. We know they're here. We know theatre groups and arts industries and artists are here. We don't have a product inventory similar to what David has done in tourism for the extent and the size of this cluster, so we have to find out what we've got before we can take this farther. So that's going to be one of our lead issues in terms of short term deliverables.

In terms of long term deliverables, the airport master plan I'll leave for our colleagues from Tradeport to discuss that next in their presentation. A science and innovation park - and this is not only for biotech applications, but this is for advanced manufacturing applications. When we talk about science too often we think of just biotechnology. No, this is advanced manufacturing, it's materials, it's composites, it's all of those things that are going to give us a competitive advantage.

A film studio, and I just want to take a second to mention this. The film studio in the original cluster strategy was a long term deliverable and that's what we were building for. In the new strategy, again it is a long-term deliverable. We are growing the industry. We are growing the number of shoots here. We even have council members that appear in movies. But what we have to do is we have to increase that volume to get to again, just like the other clusters, to get it to a critical mass in order to attract that studio, and that's what we're doing. This year should be equally as good as last year, if not better.

A gateway to visitors centre - again this is one of David's long-term deliverables in the strategy. How do we capture some of that rubber tire market and those millions of tourists that go from Cleveland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York into Toronto, and back over from Toronto to Niagara Falls? One of our long term deliverables - where do we strategically place those?

And the last one again is the stable funding for the cultural sector. Is there a way that we don't have to have these groups coming back to council for the grants process every year, especially when we know that our resources are so severely constrained? How do we make this a sustainable industry cluster, realizing that quality of life, the importance it has in this community?

So Mr. Chairman what I'm looking for from yourself and committees approval today is for three recommendations. The first is approval of the revised economic development strategy. The second is authorization to incorporate the strategy into GRIDS and the work related plans of other departments such as Public Works, Planning, Finance, Social Services and Public Health. And the last one is to request a budget enhancement to deliver the revised strategy and the responsibilities we've been given by council. And you'll find that the additional complement that's required is included in the financial implications section of the report. Mr. Chairman, I believe, my staff believe, this is the right strategic direction for the city. We believe it's a very ambitious plan, but most of all we are convinced that it's definitely do-able. I'd be happy to entertain some questions."

Kelly : ".we'll do that in just a couple of seconds. You referenced GRIDS a couple of times and Guy Paparella and Steve Robichaud from staff are here too, and have been liasing with the province on this as well. As we know around council of course everything is interrelated and intertwined in these whole circumstances, and what we're doing here very much has an impact on GRIDS and that's why one of the recommendations is to try and incorporate this. The provincial minister of infrastructure, we know is Mr. Caplan is aware of the concept of corridors here. He hasn't seen this draft, but I know he's . an earlier draft and he's aware of what's going on. And in our discussions, he's very enthused about what we're doing here in this community as far as innovation with economic development strategies and incorporating it into our growth plan. And if you remember the Places to Grow document that the minister released back in March [actually July] the Minister went so far as to say that he's sort of looking at what we're doing here with GRIDS and with our economic development strategy is somewhat of a template for growth pattern and growth management plans for other communities as well, so they're encouraging us and very very excited about what we're doing here. We're really on the cutting edge here as far as what's happening in this community as opposed to other communities as well. So I think that's something that we need to be proud of and I congratulate our economic development staff and of course our staff that are working on GRIDS as well. With that, any questions, comments on the presentation this afternoon? Councillor Braden."

Braden : "Is this the first time that we've seen this document." Kelly : "It is. . It's an update of course on last year's really." Everson : ".we circulated the document to all committee members back in June and we took the comments received from all the groups and what you see is the final draft today in front of you." Braden : "Is it the expectation of the committee to receive this document today?" Kelly : "There are, at least the recommendations from Mr. Everson. Anything else councillor? Councillor Collins."

Collins: "Mr. Chairman, in regards to the waterfront and port authority, I noticed within the strategy - and this has been a topic of discussion before - the profile of future businesses in the cluster. Included in that, I'm looking at page 46, 'liquid storage for fuel, petrochemicals and industrial chemicals'. Understanding that there's an assessment that comes with those operations, in regards to image and the number of jobs that might come with them, in my mind, and looking at what's happening in the golden horseshoe area and the GTA, most communities are shying away from those, especially along high visibility, high traffic areas, the QEW for instance. You won't find another community between here and Toronto - Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga - who are taking up the torch with these industries. In fact they're going in the opposite direction and they're looking for commercial office space, some maybe different types of light industry, manufacturing plants. I'm just curious as to why we might be taking a different direction than maybe some other communities are taking, in light of the fact, I believe, and you've noted here, that the Port Authority has not fully utilized the strength of their assets, I fully believe that the QEW visibility in that location, in the area of Eastport in particular, is an area that's been under-utilized for decades. And it sort of concerns me that we're endorsing that concept when others who have been very successful are not taking that path. And so can I get a comment on that?"

Everson: " The councillor makes an excellent point. This particular cluster was prepared in concert with the Hamilton Port Authority, and uh, and the reason we're here today is just for approval of the draft. The final draft, the final report isn't going to be prepared until we have the comments. That's an excellent comment, and I'm happy to bring it back, and meet with the Port Authority to look at, at modifying that, because you're correct. It is an excellent point."

Collins : "And I would ask that when we are examing the issue, to possibly look at the alternatives such as prime office or commercial space, as others have done, and I would ask if there are discussions to have with the Port Authority, then I would like to a part of those discussions if possible. If not, I can wait for the report to be released later and we can have the discussion at that time." Kelly : "Sure. Any other questions. Oh, councillor Bratina. Sorry, Bob."

Bratina : "On page 82, the downtown Hamilton section, the Hamilton Downtown Transportation Master Plan - the key piece in the ongoing revitalization of Hamilton's downtown will guide transportation planning so the goals of the plan include diversion of through truck traffic, etc. Mayor Di Ianni mentioned in his State of the City speech the efforts that we hope to make towards re-establishing Via Rail service to the downtown. I've also talked about all-day GO service, using the Hunter Street station and perhaps a new station on James Street. There's no reference to any of this in the transportation master plan. In the other part of the downtown, the short term strategy. The insurance industry is an impartial body that assesses the viability of businesses manifested by how much they charge those businesses, and our downtown businesses pay higher premiums for the privilege of carrying on business in our downtown. And among the reasons that they pay higher premiums is vacant buildings and space, not to mention the social problems that we also know exist down there. And I don't see any reference to the fact that our downtown businesses on James Street North, on King Street, and so on, are in fact paying a premium to do business there. So just a quick, I haven't had an opportunity to see this until now, been trying to, maybe I missed something, but, I'm concerned about these omissions."

Everson : "If councillor Bratina would, and David just brought this to my attention, on page 71 the Via Rail is mentioned under our tourism section, but it's a very good point. We should probably incorporate that under downtown as well. Councillor Bratina from the second paragraph from the bottom of page 71. And I'll make reference to incorporate that into this document. And as for the insurance, issue, uh, that's a good point. I would like to take that back and revisit that with Mr. Marini's staff and we'll look at incorporating that into the document as well." Kelly : "I can tell you that Mr. Marini and Mr. Moodie from our department are aware of this and have had discussions with the industry about it as well. I have to find some common ground on this whole situation. It is one of the great inequities, I know, and we've had a number of successes over the last couple of months in spite of that, not because of that. I know Gord and Ron arew orking with the industry now. The short answer to the discussion is that success breeds success, and as we continue with more of these small successes, the industry is starting to take note. But I know Mayor Di Ianni's been involved in those discussion too. Mr. Di Ianni, you may want to comment on that."

DiIanni : "I may and I'm trying to remember now who all was involved with that, whether the Chamber was there and the BIAs were there. A couple of months ago we brought together, councillor Bratina and members of council, we brought together members of the insurance industry. And not only the local brokers but the individuals with whom they do business" Kelly interrupts: "The provincial rmembers were there too, Mr. Mayor, if I recall". DiIanni : "on behalf of our businesses and all of these issues were raised, and in fact we put together a plan to sort of continue communicating. And the message was that we want people to treat our businesses fairly and have faith in the city as we go forward, as we move forward. Uh, we, I, let me personalize it, I certainly learned a lot about how they assess risks and what they base their therefore their business plans on, and we've got some work to do and we know all about that. But the point though is, as the chairman has just mentioned, we're trying to deal with this. And in the same way that the banking industry at one point wasn't lending to downtown business owners, we turned that around. I'm hoping to make some increased, all of us hoping to make some increased advances in terms of these businesses as well."

Bratina : "Through you Mr. Chair, thanks Mr. Mayor. I just got this document and I'm sorry I missed, I'm usually pretty good at seeing Via or Rail on pages, and I'm sorry I missed that. And I think we really need to look at the insurance issues, as a way of either providing relief because there's someone who's outside and impartial and reliable who's saying 'here's what we think it will cost to run a business there. But anyway, thanks."

Kelly : "Just on the transportation issue too councillor, you should be aware of the fact that I know the mayor has had conversations with a number of provincial representatives about rail and about intermodal transportation in general. A number of us, councillor Whitehead and myself were in Ottawa for the AMO conference back in August to talk with our federal representatives about that. Uh, I can see some Chamber representatives here this afternoon, and they are heavily involved in working towards a gateway concept which is going to include an intermodal transportation concept as well to try to marry all of these together, both the port, the airport, rail and road transportation as well. Discussions are ongoing with both levels of government, provincially and federally, and the industries themselves. I can tell you that when they had the meeting at the Chamber about two or three weeks ago, there were members from Via Rail, from all methods of transportation there as well. So those discussions are happening. And I know economic development, Neil and I were there of course representing economic development so as soon as we get some positive news on that, certainly we'll bring council up to date on it."

Bratina : "Thanks Mr. Chair. I would just say though that a downtown developer, who has a project that is completed and full, and who's working on another one, told me that the biggest impact on the downtown, easy and immediate, would be all-day GO service. And once again I didn't see any reference to it. I may have missed it but I just feel it should stand out more in the document. Thanks."

Kelly : "Well thankfully Mayor DiIanni now has a seat at that table at the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority meetings and the golden horseshoe meetings as well, so with his voice at the table, certainly we can move along those lines. And to be honest about it I expressed it in meetings with the minister as well, and they're aware of it. Mr Mayor?"

DiIanni : Just on GO and over the next and I'm not sure when exactly. I'll let you know. In fact I would like to see you involved, Bob, if you've got the time. We are having here the chair of GO and his staff to talk about Hamilton's needs. And I'm a member by virtue of my position on the GO Transit board as well, and I'm reminded when I go to those meetings, we have a responsibility as members of that board to that board, a corporate responsibility. And of course I'm wearing my Hamilton hat, that's why I'm there. What other communities have been doing, Mr. Chairman, which I've spoken to some of our staff that we need to do, is presenting their needs to the GO Transit board for reaction. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to do that in the next little while, and that's why we've invited Dr. Chong [chair of GO Transit] and staff to Hamilton to have a discussion about that."

Kelly : "There are ongoing discussions with the province now about extending the GO service up through to Brantford now too, and what the Minister told us is that he may want to hold discussions with Mayor DiIanni about extended service here in Hamilton along with those discussions as well. In others words, instead of doing this and then coming back and talking about this, he may just want to do it all in one fell swoop too. Those are ongoing. Any other questions, comments?"

Whitehead : "Yeah, I think this is an excellent development with regards to this report. And like you said, it's a good start as a work in progress and I'll withhold further comment and change will be made for the final draft. You touched upon some really key points that I really enjoy, bring music to my ears. You talk about enhancing the export opportunities, take a look at how that could be done . film of course is dear to my heart as I was in the beginning stages of this new plan for bringing film to Hamilton and I hear that we're about 90% finished with the digital library and that we are still long term looking at the film studio. I think that's excellent. And I like the fact that we underline everything with education, because I think more and more . individuals and skilled work force is really important. And having those educational insitutions already give us a head start relative to other communities that we compete with, and we have excellent institutions here in Hamilton. The question I have is specfic to - well there's two issues -obviously image is important because whereever I go across this country it's still an image issue, and I don't see it sort of fleshed out in the report. The second one is strategic infrastructure. I mean there's infrastructure to meet the everyday needs. I know you have this ongoing process with GRIDS but I don't believe it's fleshed out in this report. I think that it's important that there's a synergy, there's a relationship with strategically on the dollars that we've spent on infrastructure to ensure that we're getting value. What I mean by value is that there's economic opportunity that will come from that. So if you can just make some comments on that, Neil, I'd appreciate it."

Everson : "In terms of image, this document is only meant to focus on cluster development. We didn't include it. But that is something that we do intend to include in our war plan, and hopefully along with the Chamber of Commerce and it certainly comes out of the Power Conference, we want to see what we can do in terms of an image program that's just not delivered by the municipality, but by the community and our partners. So that's something to look forward to . our work plan. In terms of strategic infrastructure, I know there's some references to the airport, but again, no, we didn't include that. We felt that that came under GRIDS, but it's certainly something we can cooperate, if that's what you feel has merit ."

Whitehead : "That's great. The only other thing that I could add is I guess in my experience since moving to Hamilton, is that there's a lot of silos that continue to operate in the community and its not, it's all vertical thinking and there's not a lot of horizontal cross-over in regards to looking at opportunities and synergies. .McMaster University and the power it has relative to the international community and whether or not we're fully exploiting that opportunity in the business community in regards to retention and opportunity here. So again, it's not really captured in this because we're talking clusters, but I want to share that there's a cross-pollination taking place in the community."

Kelly : "Yes and we're starting to do that too, and that's something that we've noticed with the Industry Education Council, the Mayor's Roundtable on Education, and other things. What we're trying to do councillor, and what we're starting to see happen now, is that cross-pollination, that integration between industry, and as a matter of fact there'll be a report coming out in the not too distant future from one of the major social groups here in the city simply saying 'listen we've got to start finding employment for people, before we can find them jobs, we have to educate them'. As so they understand now the interrelationship between the education cluster, the manufacturing sector and the employment sector. I mean you can't just have one without the other. And those discussions have already started. As a matter of fact that was one of the things that was being discussed at the breakfast this morning where former Premier Rae was talking and talked about that interrelationship. You can't have thriving economy if you don't have education, because those people have to be trained so McMaster and our other key players here in the education sector are playing a key role. It was gratifying this morning to see so many people in industry there, not just education, because they're starting to understand. That's a good point, and you're right, we've been lost and we haven't been doing much of that lately, but I think we're starting to get the message. Councillor Mitchell?"

Mitchell : ".want to thank our staff for the work they have done. And I see . here in the agricultural component in here is a big one for me, and its highlighted, and some of the future of the city in both processing and being able to ship agricultural products I think is definitely going to help the city in the future. I look at the Aerotropolis part of this and that's got a pretty big . but I also have a second airport in that same ward, the Stoney Creek agricultural airport that's doing very well. I'd like to see us support that airport and at least recognize that it is there. And that isn't here, and I think it should be. . I'd like to have highlighted in here as well if I could please."

Ferguson : ".agricultural sector cluster. If anything, what's happened in the last 12 months is we've become more aware of that cluster. However, and I don't believe I'm saying this, but I gotta warn people if you anticipate any growth in that sector, if you anticipate 1000 more jobs in that sector, it's not going to happen. It's a mature industry. It certainly should be recognized for what they are and supported in any way we can, but we're not, that sector is stagnant.. There's value to add opportunities, primary producer could become a processor as well. There's growth areas there, but agriculture by and large is impacted more by the Chicago Board of Trade, the BSE mad cow issue, or certainly beyond the municipal boundaries, and more times than not beyond the provincial or federal borders, so it's a strong industry. I'm just not sure how much the municipal government and jurisdiction has impact on it. If I could, Neil, wave a magic wand and overnight we find a half million dollars for your budget, what would you do with it?" Everson : "Um, I think I was only asking for $300,000 in the report [laughter]. Um, again councillor Kelly asked me this question back in 2001 - 'how much do you need' and I said I wasn't ready for it. I'm ready for $300,000 now to give us a few more bodies to deliver on some of the cluster responsibilities we don't have and to do some of the things that we've lost budget for such as trade shows, and some of the marketing that we haven't had, to spend some money on promotion that we simply don't have budget for. I could sure find a use for the other $200,000, but right off the top of my head, I'm not sure I could give you an answer to that councillor Ferguson."

Ferguson : "I apologize for springing it on you, but I'm just sitting here thinking. Okay, another magic wand. You've got $10 million for infrastructure. Where's the best place to invest it? What's the return in realty tax? What's the return in jobs? And what's the timetable?" Everson : "I should ask Mr. Paparella to come down here. I'm not sure that I can give you those numbers off the top of my head, but you know, I mean, you can just take a look. A 100,000 square foot plant on 10 acres is going to bring back, you know, $300-400,000 in taxes, and depending on what cluster you're going to see the employment levels increase. $10 million would service a lot of land for us, and that's the one complaint or problem I've sung for the last three years is lack of industrial land. I know our neighbours to the west of us, Brantford has an official 1000 acres if not a little bit more. We have to be in that market. Where? Again this is an issue in terms of urban boundary expansion, but it better be near a 400-series highway - be that either the Linc up in North Glanbrook, the Red Hill or somewhere near the 403 or QEW. That is where the land has to be, serviced and ready for us to take advantage of and boy" interrupted by Ferguson : "I didn't say $100 million, I said $10 million". [laughter]. Everson : "Well anywhere. Just as long as I had product I would be happy councillor because our enquiries are coming . actually we had a large GTA realtor in to see us and he said he can't find a 6 to 8 acre parcel anywhere between Mississauga and Burlington and" interrupted by Ferguson : "A 68 acre?" Everson : "A six to eight acre, and I cannot tell you how many enquires to our office on a weekly basis for the five, ten, fifteen acre chunks of land. If we had the product, getting them here would be absolutely no issue, so if I had that $10 million bonus that would be going straight to servicing land as close to the QEW as possible. Maybe even some that are as close to the 400 series highway and maybe even expansion of our urban boundary in some areas where we, where it makes a logical expansion."

Ferguson : "Which is a good segue into a question for Mr. Paparella. Is GRIDS on track and what's the timetable for GRIDS?" Kelly : "Come on down, Guy." Paparella : "Through you Mr. Chairman, yes GRIDS is on schedule and we're delayed somewhat by the events in the provincial level if they keep on the same timelines, but both Steve and I assure you that we're moving very hard to meet our timelines for next fall. So public meetings will be probably next summer. We're hoping to set that up. The management plans are on schedule. There's been some changes with one of the management plans but that's been rectified and we're moving hard to get all that information, get the growth options done, get the advisory committee up to speed, and move onto the public to see what their views are. So unless there's other unforeseen issues, we should be on schedule. Ferguson : "That's six months later than I thought. . to Ms. Coveyduck: assuming the Greenbelt legislation is resolved by the end of the fiscal, calendar, what is the . for urban boundary expansion for commercial industrial expansion with GRIDS or is GRIDS indeed.?". Leigh-Ann Coveyduck : "Yes, I'm hoping that the province will complete their work by the middle of December as theyplanned, and GRIDS is going to be the critical piece that is required to do the urban boundary expansion. And the province is actually looking at our whole process as the chairman mentioned, because we're the first ones out of the gate and we're much further ahead than the other muncipalities, so they're looking at ours as a model to use. And I do believe, although you'll be going to the public next summer, there will be some growth options that are going to be looked at, I believe, early in the year. Is that not correct, Guy?"

Ferguson : "So there will be an opportunity for expansion of the urban area for commercial and industrial prior to the .GRIDS." Paparella : "I wouldn't go so far as to say that. What we're trying to do with GRIDS is a comprehensive view of the whole area. There are options for residential development. There are options for industrial/commercial development. That is the direction that is in the terms and the mandate right now for GRIDS. We'd like to see it done all at once. If council is suggesting that we look at industrial primarily, or do it first over the others, I think it could throw the other kinds of issues we're looking at in terms of alternatives and growth options into a bit of a tailspin. So I think our approach and our recommendation is still to maintain the comprehensive view that we've looked at; to look at everything from a community-wide basis and provide the best options, growth options, for all the types of land use, as it were, that we're promoting all at once, as opposed to individually."

Ferguson : "From my perspective, I'm not interested whatsoever in any more residential greenfields. We need somebody to pay the bills. We need commercial/industrial. If it takes a motion from this committee, from council, to put a focus on commercial/industrial, i.e. assessement growth, would that help? Narrow the focus?" Paparella : "Through you Mr. Chairman our recommendation still stands. I think we need to have a comprehensive view. If you want to promote our existing parks as Neil Everson has indicated, we've got a lot of unserviced land that if we want to focus on trying to get those primarily on the market, that's really what we should be spending our time on in the short term. One of the things Mr. Mallory's working on through the Mayor's office and through the City Manager's office is a shovel-ready initiative where we're moving towards prioritizing all the projects through the various departments to try and gear and focus the capital works into those particular areas. I think we'd be far better off focusing on that initiative in the short term than trying to get a quick fix out of the GRIDS process. . that's just my view, but at this point if you want shovel-ready land, which I think is your objective, we can try and move the capital works projects in the short term through this budget process to the areas where we can focus on, like Stoney Creek along the QE, like finishing off the Ancaster industrial park in your community, and the Glanbrook Industrial park prior to Red Hill being developed and finished in 2007. And I think those would be really good concepts and ideas to put forward now and give them hard results, rather than trying to cheat the long-term process, the GRIDS process, which is going to be a 30-year plan, to do a quick and dirty and try and throw some options out that may undermine the long-term goals. I think wouldn't be a good idea. I think we should focus our money and our efforts maybe on the others." Ferguson: "Okay, best guess to whomever wants to answer. How many acres within the existing urban boundary are zoned industrial and are waiting servicing? How many acres?" Paparella: "Based on my preliminary estimates, just from the three parks that I've been focusing on, there's about 1000 acres that we could probably bring on stream if we had the money to do so. Obviously that can't happen all at once."

Ferguson : "How much do you need for 1000 acres?" Paparella : "I think Mr. Chairman, if I bring back a full report on this issue, you'll get a breakdown, because it varies, depending on what park and what alternative we're going to use to service each park. So in some parks it's fairly nominal. In others we need partnerships with private sector people. In others we can put public dollars to it, so its not a simple question of saying if we put the money up. We need help from other levels of government. We need help from the development community, and there's a whole strategy that we can bring forward to deal with that in the short term, and I think that was one of things we were going to bring forward to the economic development department and the City Manager's office and the mayor's initiative in terms of a short term fix to our shovel-ready issues." Ferguson : "So what do you need from this committee in terms of pushing that forward?" Paparella : "Well if we bring back a report that says we need, you know, $6-10 million in 2005, I think support for that would help us get a long way to putting a few hundred acres on the market in a very short period of time and that is really what we need, what we should be focusing on, to get your objective. I mean that would be much more prudent on our part, as opposed to trying to change a GRIDS process that is really intended for a longer term objective." Ferguson : "I can buy that if we can develop 1000 acres within the existing urban boundary for commercial/industrial. Great. If it all it takes is $10 million dollars to do it, let's do it." Kelly : "Well let's ask for the report first so he can do."

Ferguson : "ERASE uptake, how's that been?" Kelly : "Neil, you want to touch on that." Everson : "Actually we just had a report on that. We have eight applications, currently right now in the hopper and four of those, er, and three more pending the expansion of the ERASE boundary to include the full urban area." Ferguson asks for clarification. Everson : "Four more that will be coming to you for approval, pending the expansion of the ERASE boundary to include the entire urban area. Right now our CIP(?) is just restricted to the north end." Ferguson : "Okay, what percentage of the brownfields now have enrolled in ERASE? Ten? Five?" Everson : "Can you clarify that for me?" Ferguson : "Well if we have a couple of thousand acres that qualify within that area, how many acres have applied for ERASE?" Everson: "Uh, I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I do have it back in the office. I can send it to you by email, councillor." Ferguson : "Okay, has the . person been replaced yet?" Everson : "Yes, we have Peter Mikudes (?) in that position."

Ferguson : "Airport activity . what's the passenger traffic doing, what's the cargo traffic doing, and what's the prognosis?" Kelly : "Tell you what councillor, if you can hold that till they make their presentation in a couple of minutes. That's included in their work too." Kelly asks the clerk if they need a motion to get the report from Paparella. "How soon Guy?". Paparella : "I was hoping I could get it early November, but it looks like it will be early December before I guarantee it." Kelly : "Okay. Notwithstanding, I understand your enthusiasm for this, and obviously Guy and Steve are working at the administrative level, the bureaucratic level with this, and the Mayor and I have been talking to some of the folks at the political level. Minister Caplan was quite explicit about this. He understands our circumstance here and our need to move ahead to industrialize, or to service industrialized land, but if you read the Places to Grow document, they're very adamant they don't want anybody moving forward until they have a strategic holistic growth plan. And that's GRIDS for us and they know that and that's why they're working with us to try to move it forward. They don't want us to do it piecemeal, understanding the fact that they understand how important it is. And there are other elements we can do." Ferguson : "If we have a 1000 acres in inventory, why" Interrupted by Kelly : "I know. I understand that but that's why the minister is encouraging us to move forward on this GRIDS process as soon as possible. It's the growth plan, and as staff have already told you we're still, we're light years ahead of other communities on this too. So as frustrating being this is, they're all under the same parameters these days."

Ferguson : "One final question?" Kelly : "Sure". Ferguson : "McCormick report - 2.9 million people in 20 years, they're telling us. Are we ready?" Kelly : "That's what GRIDS is all about." Ferguson : "Can I?" Kelly : "Mayor DiIanni, go ahead, and then councillor Mitchell."

DiIanni : ".first of all just a word of congratulations like the others on a good report from Neil and his team and the consultations have been very good and I've spoken to some of the members of the community who've been consulted and they are very appreciatiive. I'd like the fact that we've divided the report into deliverables, as well, on the short term and the longer term and we'll modify those as we go forward. But that keeps our feet to the fire, as it were, and keeps us accountable. In terms of what councillor Ferguson was saying, I missed the first part of it. I agree with councillor Ferguson that the absolute priority for our community is to increase our employment base. I think our staff has been saying this to us consistently. We need to increase our employment base in this community. And that can be done by retaining business, allowing businesses to expand appropriately, and of course attracting business here. And to do that we need these shovel-ready lands that Neil's talked about so well. Just anecdotally, I can tell you this and I was quite disturbed by this. I was in a high school class just the other day, talking to a group of grade 10 students - civics class - 30 kids - and I asked what they wanted to do when they graduated from school. And they all had their response. I asked them how many of them thought that they could do what they wanted to do in the City of Hamilton. Four of them put up their hands. Twenty six of them, or most of them, some didn't put up their hands, but most of them thought that they had to leave Hamilton in order to be employed in their chosen field. And they weren't talking about exotic things, Mr. Chairman, they were talking about just the normal things that kids aspire to do. So I think it's a massive responsibility that we have to focus on employment in this community, and I want to be able to push that as hard as we can. The GRIDS process will allow us to key in on those areas and the report that Guy's talking about, some of those initiatives hopefully we'll come forward, will need some commitment from us in terms of resources, financial resources. We also need to work with the other levels of government because we can't achieve everything, they can't do it alone and we can't do it alone. And that's why I'm glad to see your enthusiasm, but we need to work in partnership with the others as well. So thank you Neil and team for a job well done."

Kelly : "Thank you. We want to hear from the airport folks too, so we'll have a couple more brief comments and then we'll look for a motion. Councillor Mitchell, then Braden and Whitehead?"

Mitchell : I've met with Mr. Everson several times. Maybe he can give us an update. I've been led to believe that the sewage treatment plant in Caledonia, Haldimand County, is maxed out and the Mt. Hope airport area probably gravity feeds that way, and to do a joint venture for a new state-of-the-art plant with Haldimand County and Caledonia would probably be an excellent idea in light of the fact I've heard it's $30 million worth of dead pipe to service that area down to the Woodward sewage treatment plant. I don't think we can afford $30 million in dead pipe. If we put it into that type of technology up there. Neil, I know you've been doing some homework on that. Any updates for committee on the progress of that? I think upper levels of government might be more supportive when you have two municipalities working together for a common cause." Everson : "I wish this was next week because my meeting is the 27 th at noon. Public Works, myself are going to meet with two former Hamilton employees - Betty Matthews-Malone and Bill Pierce who as you know is the CEO out there. So that meeting's the 27 th so I can update the Planning and Economic Development Committee with the results of that meeting." Mitchell : "I think Mr. Chairman that no doubt GRIDS is going on information from that, and along that we got the new #6 servicing the airport, but that #6 is also supposed to be a bypass all the way through to Caledonia, which creates an industrial sector all the way along there. And I think that's some of the future of the two municipalities as well. So I look forward to that report coming in."

Braden : "Very quickly because I know you want to move ahead. First of all, I like the documents, I like where it's going. But like everybody else, or like me in particular, I'm very frustrated that this document has no wheels underneath it. And the staff have reminded me I got it a couple of months ago or something. I don't remember reading it. I'm always a little bit uneasy about passing something cause I like to look at it for a while. . it talks about priorities. There's one page that talks about the airport as the number one priority. We need to have some discussion on that point. Was it actually that's where we're going to put all our money, or does that mean there are a number of priorities which it merely is one of the pockets that's going to share the money. I think it's clear by councillor Ferguson - well I'm drawing this conclusion - that we need some more money, and we need to be focused with that money. I agree with the mayor completely. I've been trying to say this for four years, not very effectively, we don't need more houses, we need more jobs. We can't afford to be having fifteen priorities with the amount of money we've got. We need one or two that we can get and win. That's what we really need. We are desperate here. And I agree, and I'm sad about the conclusion that the mayor's come to. But in fact it's the same in my family. I'm very sad about that because it's really hits your heart's when your family is going to leave. Going on a little bit, there's some things that I think we can do - I'll just give you an example - without a whole lot of money. In Flamborough at Clappisons' Corners we own an arena there. We got a lot of land. It's right in an industrial designated area, I believe. We could, I think, move that land. It's a priority. Councillor McCarthy has mentioned this before and I would agree with it. There is land, while there's a window of opportunity, while people are confident about investing, we're not near a 400-series highway, but a four-lane highway. We could capitalize on that. And I'm sure if you are an investor, and you've gone through recessions, you know that now's a good time. One or two years from now may not be such a good time. You gotta go with the window of opportunity when it's there. The last thing I want to say is this. It isn't really an industry, but there's going to be dramatic change in the next five or ten years. And it's about energy conservation. Now I don't think that energy conservation will actually become an industry, but it will affect very much the priorities we're talking about. It's reasonable to assume that the energy crisis is going to be very good for rail and for shipping. It's also clear it's not going to be so good for airports. We want to have our eyes wide open to understand how this is going to play out. And I mention this because I fly, and I want this airport, in fact, to fly. But we need to be careful and realistic because change is coming that's radical. And I can't say that any stronger. But we need to be prepared and not be planning for the past."

Kelly : "Thank you. Final speaker, councillor Whitehead." Whitehead: "One thing I failed to mention earlier, is understanding what we have and understanding how that can be leveraged to attract other businesses. And you do talk about profiling and corporate profiling in the report, and I think that's really important. Not just about profiling but actually understanding what they do, who their customer base is, what they manufacture, what in fact they do, because there lies an opportunity. And I think one example of this is this teleport (?) just an example of many businesses . nobody understands what they do and whether or not things can be leveraged from what they do in the community, and I think we need to explore those kinds of opportunities in the future. Thank you."

Everson : "Just in response to that?" Kelly : "Final word, Neil." Everson : "You don't get that often. Just in response to councillor Whitehead. That's why we're asking for the business retention programs and the resources to do it. I only have seven staff and each one of us work with the key companies in a cluster. We can't get to all of those. That's why as a department, we need those extra resources to get out there and get into ."

Kelly : "Members of committee, can I have a motion? Moved by Ferguson, seconded by Whitehead. All those in favour? Opposed? Motion is carried. Thank you Neil. Special thanks also to senior staff ."

7.2 Hamilton International Airport Master Plan (ECO04010)
http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Clerk/agendas-minutes-reports/
Planning-Economic-Development/2004/Oct20/
ECO04010HIA%20MASTER%20PLAN%2004.pdf

Kelly : Item 7.2 As we reminded you so many hours ago when we started the meeting there won't be actual recommendations from 7.2. There'll simply be a verbal update. And I believe you're still going to do the AV presentation, aren't you Richard? Okay. And we'll get you the hard copy as soon as Tradeport gets it over to us too. So now I'd like members of Tradeport to come down for the presentation. Members of committee you may remember that council decided about a year ago to have a closer dialogue with Tradeport, to have more updates about what was going on with the airport because of course they are our partner with John C. Munro International Airport. So to that end I will welcome Richard Koroscil and Stewart Steeves from Tradeport."

Richard Koroscil [President and CEO of Tradeport International]: ".Thank you for allowing us to come down and join you today and just give you a bit of an update of where we are at the Hamilton International Airport. We are in the process of updating the master plan as we're obligated to do, and it's also the right thing to do, and as part of that process we have been working with city staff to get the draft that we've put together to get their feedback, and we've made some changes as a result of that. Our intent is to give it to you so we can to get feedback from you so that we in turn can get your feedback so that we can then take back to our Board in December. It's important that we have approval from our Board before it goes to City Council for their approval. It is very much an update. It's not a significant change within the document .and it really is reviewing the original master plan that was done a few years ago, and just taking a look at where we are in the industry today, where we believe it will go, the thinks that we need to do, and just a rethink around particularly the terminal complex development that we had identified at one point being a greenfield site and saying that's not realistic and we really believe expansion within the existing terminal area makes a lot more sense. ." Turns it over to Stewart Steeves, Vice President and CFO.

Steeves: "As Richard mentioned this is the draft plan, so we look forward to your comments once you get a chance to read the document . [available] in a few days. The Master Plan updates the document adopted by council in December 1998 and some of the key changes within it are the statistical projections within the document, the revision of the airport itself, a twenty year development concept for the airport, and certainly the recommendations that are contained within the report.

The airport, or HI - Hamilton International - as we're now calling it, will become one of Canada's five busiest airports and the number one air freight carrier gateway in Canada and we feel this is supported by the market opportunity. There's 7.2 million Canadians within a 90-minute drive of the airport, 8.4 million if you include upper New York State which are also within a 90 minute drive. 2.4 million people live more conveniently or equidistant to HI than to any other airport and the regional growth tends to be west toward HI - Hamilton International. In fact, within our catchment area, 4.9 million trips originate annually by air, most of those taken through Pearson. Of course in the spring of 2004 we saw some setbacks at the airport with Westjet, but the market has been proven - 1.1 million passengers in 2003. There is an opportunity to diversify better, now, in fact, . by Westjet and with the introduction of CanJet and we honestly feel in the long term that will work out in our favour.

The airport is a significant economic generator - currently over 3600 jobs directly and indirectly, $120 million in employment income and a $170 million contribution to GDP. And the economic importance of the airport is reflected by the investment within it. Tradeport's tenants are responsible for over $100 million investment in infrastructure and facilities. $40 million of that Tradeport's responsible for individually, and the potential for even more economic generation exists as the airport realizes its full potential. Independent third party . consulting have estimated that the airport can achieve between 15,000 and 20,000 jobs and over $1 billion contribution to GDP, over $200 million in tax revenue per year. And certainly this opportunity hasn't been ignored by some others in the marketplace. Certainly Pearson is a prime competitor. They already exist. So we can compete by being what Pearson isn't - uncongested, we have a lack of nighttime restrictions, we're convenient and easy.

But other airports are emerging threats, in large part because they have identified the economic potential that airports tend to be. Pickering airport, certainly a threat. It doesn't even exist today, but it's a key initiative of local government out Pickering way and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority who are charged with developing that airport. They have 15 full time staff working on the Pickering project right now, even though the airport doesn't exist. Well that compares with 20 full time professional staff at Hamilton managing an airport which does exist. And any diversion of attention to Pickering becomes diversions of the role that HI can play within the region.

The Region of Waterloo airport is another threat. Last year approximately $15 million was invested in the municipally owned airport by the municipality . and they did that on spec with no passenger service whatsoever or scheduled cargo service. As a result, they managed to secure passenger service to Montreal, Ottawa and Detroit. The Detroit service is on Northwest Airlines and connects to international Northwest service. . Buffalo airport is another competitor on the radar. In fact, 500,000 passengers per year from our marketplace are diverted through Buffalo. London airport, a little west to be competitive to the golden horseshoe market, but certainly one for southwestern Ontario traffic. Recently invested $20 million in a new terminal facility. But in spite of this HI has a competitive advantage. We have a . service facility on jet aircraft, but we must not let the other airports catch up. . realizing that in fact it is a competitive business. We must maintain a low cost structure so the master plan here addresses the incremental economic expansion of the facilities when demand warrants. There must be a provision of development ready air-side employment lands, and of course access is important, both air-side and ground-side.

The slide on the screen right now indicates one of the more significant changes we've made to the master plan, and that is the location of the future, well actually the current terminal where the future terminal expansion is occurring. . The previous master plan showed a greenfield terminal site over to the west of the site, but our assessment indicates that if you push to the airside, which is really incompatible to any other use because it's landlocked, if you will, that in fact the current site could support a passenger terminal capacity in the order of two million passengers per year. And we feel that's well within the development horizon of the airport. And it allows us to do it on an incremental basis as demand warrants, keeping costs low and remaining competitive. But the one restriction of this site is that the terminal support land is limited. Flight kitchens, car rental facilities, parking all rely on that land. The other thing we noticed within the airport boundary is that limited land remains for development. Effectively we've only got serviced land remaining for one hangar site at the extreme east end - on the map the finger that points out on the east. . But only effectively one site remains. The land to the west end of the airport is unserviced and more difficult to develop because of its undulating nature. So one of the recommendations you'll find within the master plan is that the city play a role in the expansion of airport lands to deal with some of these issues.

Surrounding lands including the highway 6 corridor provide the economic development opportunity and the prime economic benefit of the airport is associated with industries that happens on these lands. And it's important to growth of the airport. [Overhead shows series of concentric circles around the airport] Little hard to tell but there's a green circle around the airport where the airport specific development would occur - the airside development. As the development radiates out from the airport, we get different types of development. The next circle would involve development that isn't specific airport infrastructure per se but supports the airport but requires airport access such as airplane hangers, maintenance facilities or cargo facilities. As we move out from that circle we get airport-related development that requires close proximity to the airport . such things as just-in-time shipping . sometimes called stock warehouses where shippers place product at the airport for last minute delivery; could include hotels, commercial, that sort of thing. And when you move out to the most outward ring, the facilities are commercial development that supports the inner most circle and that can be general commercial, mechanics, restaurants, all nature of general industries that supports other commercial activity.

And it's important that airport development or development around the airport occur more or less in this fashion to maximize the potential. So the recommendation . in the master plan, include that the employment land servicing be expedited to tap into the economic benefit of the airport; that the development around the airport be in airport-consistent fashion and incompatible uses not be permitted such as housing. And in fact we recommended an airport vicinity protection area which preserves certain corridors to maintain airport compatible development so we don't get housing or other noise sensitive development in key areas that may affect the future potential of the airport.

Ground-side access is another key requirement. Now the Highway 6 corridor is a great improvement towards the airport, and focus groups as previously mentioned show that many passengers in fact can get lost or did get lost on the way to the airport. Recommendations within the master plan is that we look for some form of connection where the Red Hill Creek Expressway will meet up with the Lincoln Alexander to provide a seamless connection from the east. Right now for Niagara originating passengers, there's an issue of convenience. Certainly the mid-peninsula highway corridor is something that we're interested in the longer term through the movement of goods and people, as well as the upgrading of Highway 6 to four lanes and complete grade separation connection into the 403. As well, other ground-side improvements that we would see would include connections to the GO Transit system including in the long term even a rail connection to the airport.

Airside access is equally important, and recommendations you will find in the master plan include expansion of runway 06-24 which is the one that's running from the upper right to the lower left, to accept all aircraft types. Right now the runway is of a length that all international aircraft full size couldn't use it under all conditions. And also it would provide some noise relief on north-bound departures. The aircraft would begin their takeoff further to the south and be at a higher altitude as they cross the noise sensitive areas to the north of the airport. Upgrading of the instrument landing facilities is something else the airport is working aggressively on, and this provides for better all-weather capacity at the airport and better operational reliability. A parallel taxiway is also shown on the drawing here . more efficient use of the airside infrastructure and relief of any possible congestion delays. ."

Whitehead : ".thanks for the presentation. It's exciting and I'm always excited about what is happening up there and I know that it's a moving target cause things get more competitive. We've heard it with respect to Waterloo, and not so much with London but . directly compete with it and we have the ongoing issue of Pickering. Question I have, . is the stability of operating a passenger service in Hamilton relative to the weather conditions and you talked about all-weather services . I know that planes can be landed through instrumentation through thick fog or whatever. Where are we at at this point in regards to all-weather service?"

Koroscil : ".the provision of NavAid to airports across Canada is the responsibility of Nav Canada and they provide the category landing system that we have today. They're the firm that we would be going to to expand the service or sort of improve the service to what we call a category two. We have a category one service which allows about a 97% reliability if I can put in that terms. . would take us up to almost a 99% reliability, and as we move forward, particularly in our cargo business where the ability to come and go is absolutely essential for their business, and in turn for low-cost carriers who are trying to hub out of a particular airport, it's very very important that we improve the reliability. We're not in bad shape. What this does is really helps us improve . so we can compete more effectively with Pearson which is today a category three facility. But again, to put it in perspective, because I know this question came up when WestJet made the decision to move some of their flights out, I think we had four flights out of 7000 that could not come over a year period because of weather. So it's not significant, particularly for those kinds of carriers who operate during the day. Our weather is an issue more early in the morning when we're dealing with the cargo operators, and if we want to try to continue to grow the business it's important that we pursue that. So our goal is to improve it so that it's even better than it is today. So we have all-weather capability with certain limits. What this does is give us better."

Whitehead : "Interestingly enough it sounds like one of the four planes the mayor was on (laughter). That's great. When do you anticipate the move to the next level on. I'm glad to hear that there's only four. Obviously part of your marketing is that you be able to provide a high standard product to your client, that would put you well ahead of newer developing airports I guess it took you a length of time to get to where you are today and you're now making that next transition . The next question I have is on the transportation network. We've touched upon the Highway 6 extension. . Interesting it's the first time I've seen at least on paper the proposed idea of linking, I guess it's the Red Hill Expressway directly to the airport. I guess I need to understand how's that tie into for example the Mid-Peninsula - cause both are years away. If you can give me some more thoughts around how you perceive this coming, what time frame."

Koroscil : "This is something that we, even from our perspective, was generated probably within the last six or eight months as we started to really begin to understand - and part of it is that both Stewart and I were new to the community, so it's a learning process for us. But it became evident pretty early for us that the connection to the Niagara region through the QEW coming up Centennial Parkway is a big problem. Of course the city has viewed that clearly and is moving ahead with the Red Hill which will solve the majority of the problem. But then linking from that point to the airport means still going through traffic of Upper James. And as we started thinking over the longer term, the Mid-Pen, which we would hope and anticipate is not that far from the airport that it would provide a natural link then from the QEW right to the Mid-Pen, and at the same time providing the direct service that we would believe is necessary to make that routing more efficient for our potential passengers coming from Niagara, St. Catharines servicing area."

Whitehead : "I know that in Ottawa they have a two-lane, basically . are you anticipating then for that linkage a four-lane road to the international or would a two-lane direct linkage to the airport suffice?" Koroscil : "We haven't determined what it should be. All we're indicating at this point is that we see that as an issue. I think it would certainly take more discussion and more thought, but in our view it's something that needs to be discussed and reviewed. We haven't got to a point of what it should be yet." Everson : "That east link into the airport is something that Mr. Paparella and GRIDS are looking at. What and if the road is extended then we're looking at the eastern connection to address exactly what councillor Whitehead was talking about."

Ferguson : ".Just to be clear, councillor Whitehead, that Highway 6 bypass is two-lane uncontrolled access. I don't know why MTO went for two-lane. They acquired some land for four-lane but now all the bridges . it's open next month as two-lane uncontrolled, so it's not a panacea by any means, but the opportunity is there to expand. Through you Mr. Chairman to the presentors, where exactly on the radar screen do you think - I realize some of this is conjecture on your part - but why, who has interests in Pickering ... What's your read there?" Koroscil : "The Pickering project, while airports are a federal responsibility, has really been handed over to the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, and they're really the driving force behind it. I can tell you, though that the Durham region is a very big supporter of it and are also pushing the process, and I know that Pearson will be taking the view that they need to build Pickering because they're closing Oshawa and Buttonville to move that traffic into the Pickering area. But in our view that is the start, the opening of the door, and I can't believe that the GTA is going to invest the kind of money that is necessary to build Pickering just for general aviation traffic. Now the timeline. I wish I could answer that. I don't know. I know that probably the folks at GTAA and Pickering would be happy to see it happen as soon as possible. How real that is, they have . issues to go through, I don't know. Ferguson : ".Pickering just does not make sense ." Kelly : "If you walk through Mr. Caplan's Places to Grow document, they identify Pickering as one of the future growth areas too. So it is on their radar. That's not saying they're going to say it's a priority, but they're getting an awful lot of political pressure."

Ferguson : "Any idea what the passenger projections for 04 would be?" Koroscil : "I think we'll be around 6 or 700,000 . Cargo is up a wee bit - about 95,000 tonnes. . as a result of WestJet's change of service. Ferguson : ".the water looping [Hamilton spent $8 million adding increased water service to the airport] - what did it do for the development of the airport this year, other than legalize the pressure?" Everson : "I think it's a little premature to answer that question, but I know CargoJet was happy to see it when they put the 40,000 square foot maintenance cargo facility in there. I mean what it did is it gave us redundancy - something we didn't have before." Ferguson : "It gave us what?" Everson : "It gave us redundancy, something we didn't have before. I mean, what it did, the looping basically improved the supply."

Ferguson : "Just for Richard. .information. Council passed a motion last week . that we redirect people from QEW Niagara around 403 up to 6 to the airport, rather than they go up 20. I would suggest now that a . going to the airport would be quicker now to go 403 and 6 rather than up Centennial and across the Linc and up highway 6. So that should make it easier. Do you have any idea of the price tag for a link from Red Hill to the airport, and the rail connection to the airport? . What time period do you see that happening?" Koroscil : "I would suggest that the rail link is a much longer term. I think the short term solution is potentially a GO bus type of link from the GO Transit network into the airport would make the most sense short term, build the business, and then .the rail would probably be 15 years, 10 years out for the rail link. The highway, we haven't set a time. We have no idea of costs again. There may be alternatives. It may not be a dedicated route. All we're identifying is that we see a need for the city to think about getting an efficient route from the Red Hill to the airport and ultimately to the Mid-Pen."

Ferguson : "Can you highlight . plans for 05 and beyond? Are we still talking elevated.?" Koroscil : "We have a plan to expand the terminal building to about four times the size it is today which would include, the first phase anyway would include I think seven bridged positions. That plan we have put on hold as a result of the WestJet change of strategy. However, we are going ahead with some minor modifications that we're hoping to kickoff within the next month to address, you know, to enhance the building a little bit. But we have sufficient capacity today, and I would suggest for at least the next year unless we can see some significant uptake, in which case then we have the plan on the shelf ready to go when the visits are there to drive it." Ferguson : "Any new carriers on the horizon that you can share with us?" Koroscil : "Not that I can confirm. I can tell you that we are talking to many many carriers."

Ferguson : "What's your passenger judgement for 05?" Koroscil : "05, I think, because of the planning period for the air carrier business, usually 8-10 months in advance, I would suggest that 05 would be pretty flat. Towards the end of 05 our target is to see some significant change. The long term, Stewart talked a little bit about the long-term strategy and the long-term growth. We very much see the opportunity for long-term growth and the opportunity to go to a 5 million passenger facility is there absolutely in our mind." Ferguson : "And what time frame?" Koroscil : "I would say within the next seven years."

Mitchell : ".I see the Hamilton International Airport as being an economic saviour for this city. I've got a HI t-shirt on and I'm a little disappointed that you didn't bring the HI golf shirt. I'm excited about that and I'd like to see a lot more people wearing that.. I have one concern, as you know, representing the area, you just presented a strategic plan that shows a possible new ring road or a possible new route as councillor Whitehead mentioned, to get you from the Linc or the Red Hill Creek Expressway to the airport. My phone will be ringing off the wall tomorrow about where that is going to go. So what you just presented was interesting, a good thing to talk about, but we don't have any answers to give anybody. So I see Phil Mersky up there and some other planning staff, public relations, so on, I need some answers. Where are we going with this, how's it going to be built? Is it just a pie in the sky dream? .In principle the idea is very, very good. Councillor Bratina just mentioned something. He just showed me a map years ago of Hamilton with 20 Highway, 53, 403 and Burlington was supposed to be a ring road around Hamilton. Well we've far surpassed all those. They all got new names now like Garner, Rymal, Upper Centennial, Lower Centennial, so on. So staff better hear it that I need info on that because my phone's going to be ringing. . I'm excited about the airport and I think it's very, very positive for the future growth of the city of Hamilton and its economic recovery, and I just like to thank the gentlemen for coming out but be aware of what they've done with that road issue, because I'll be hearing about it."

Kelly : "And as you alluded to councillor, it's a concept. You know they're simply saying as your partner who manages the airport it would be neat if we had a road ,. the shovels will not be in the ground tomorrow. That's not happening. You'll have some discussion and we and staff will talk about this at some point. Yeah, it probably would be prudent to consider that. But we're years away from that. So just to make sure your constituents are aware of that."

Braden : "I think the idea, not to be driven by other things, but the idea of Pickering is one we have to consider strongly. And I guess that's the other reason I want to get at shovel-ready land at the aiport now, because we're already in business now and we have a pretty good reputation. It's there now. That's why I'm afraid to wait. I play hockey with a lot of people that are involved at the airport. Most of them as air traffic controllers, and you can never trust the locker room chitter chatter, right, it's like high school kids. But, apart from that, I walk out of those rooms assured that Pickering's coming and its going to take off. And I'm no dummy. That's information you get clearly. If that's going to come, there's only so much demand really for passenger traffic. We need to be optimistic, but boy we need to spend money right now to get the shovel-ready land. The worst thing we can do is wait for the Red Hill to be finished. Right? Wait for 2009 till our budget numbers are a little bit better, and have Pickering, not on the radar screens but in operation. Please, let's be prepared to take some reasonable risks right now to get going. And I think this is all about the concept of comprehensive plans, right, versus window of opportunity. We're here at the window of opportunity . you guys have to make this work now. Please don't wait. And just for the record, if we had invested money in shovel-ready land way before we built that road, cause there's only so much money around, so . we need land now. . "

Kelly : "Thank you. Can I have a motion to receive the report. Moved by Whitehead, seconded by Braden. All in favour? Motion is carried."

8. DISCUSSION ITEMS

8.1 Destination Marketing Fee Program (ECO04009) - (City Wide)
http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Clerk/agendas-minutes-reports/
Planning-Economic-Development/2004/Oct20/
ECO04009%20Destination%20Marketing%20Fee.pdf

Kelly : "Let's move on to item 8.1, the destination marketing fee program. David, actually the next two items will be yours so I'll let you take it away." Kelly leaves and Whitehead takes over as chair.

David Adames : ".we're going to invite two members of the tourism board, our board president John Gibson and our second vice-president Oscar Kichi to join me here." Report from tourism board regarding voluntary destination marketing fee. Decision to not take presentation because councillors wanted to end meeting quickly. Moved directly to questions. Ferguson : "To Oscar. Is there buy-in from the industry? And where do the funds go?" Response indicates that the monies go to marketing. Adames indicates that downtown hotel properties and a number of bed and breakfast operations have signed on to the fee. Sent information to about 79 accommodation properties, but didn't get buy-in from "perimeter properties" Ferguson : "What percentage of rooms available contribute to the fund?" Adames : ".about 70%". . Mitchell raises issue of tourism gateway facility in east end. Mentions Kittling Ridge as current one, asks if staff are working on getting a facility in that area instead of Confederation Park. Adames says discussions are underway. Also gateway strategies in the economic development strategy. Will look at all options. Ferguson praises Hamilton Chamber but also notes the positive role of the Stoney Creek Chamber and how they feel how badly needed the gateway is. Adames says borders don't mean anything to tourists so they will look at partnerships with Niagara. Motion moved by Ferguson, seconded by Pearson and carried.

Kelly asks committee if they want to move the recommendation for 12.1 on Hamilton's bid for the 2007 curling Brier without going into camera. "Obviously we're not going to talk about the dollar figures in that because they're still outstanding, but if everybody's comfortable we can simply move recommendations A and B and be done with it." Some discussion off-mic. Moved by Whitehead, seconded by Mitchell. Carried.

Meeting adjourned.