After four days last week, the Ontario Municipal Board hearings on the aerotropolis urban boundary expansion have reached at least the halfway mark. They are scheduled to resume Tuesday morning at 10 am in the convention centre and to wrap up no later than Friday, with Wednesday being set aside for presentations by about 25 citizen participants.
The contentious issue of how much land, if any, should be added to Hamilton’s urban boundary dominated the first week, with evidence presented by the city and a group of developers as well two citizen groups who are opposing the expansion. In a surprise agreement, the city and developer group agreed that a slightly smaller area is needed for employment land around the airport.
The developer’s witness Sameer Patel had examined the actual usage of new industrial lands by the city since 2004 and concluded it was less than 20 hectares per year, suggesting that there is already more than enough land within the city’s existing boundaries to accommodate growth to 2031. But in an “agreed statement of facts” released on the Friday before the hearing, it was announced that Patel now agrees with the methodology used by the city’s chief witness Antony Lorius and that they both support a reduction of 20 hectares from the 575 “net developable” number put forward earlier by Lorius.
That 555 net number translates into 695 gross hectares of developable land, a drop of 173 hectares (427 acres) from the 868 gross hectares approved by city council when it adopted the aerotropolis plans in late 2010. Both Lorius and Patel testified this past week in support of the lowered number.
Gary Davidson, the planner for the citizen groups Environment Hamilton (EH) and Hamiltonians for Progressive Development (HPD), also testified this week – but only after a two hour battle over his designation as an expert. The challenge launched by the city’s lawyer, and supported by lawyers for both the developer group and airport management company Tradeport International, resulted in a Board ruling that recognized Davidson’s planning credentials but not an expertise in land budgeting and economic development.
The testimony of Lorius and Patel was heard first on Monday and Tuesday, followed by Davidson on Wednesday. The city and Tradeport spent Thursday morning challenging EH-HPD witness Richard Gilbert, but after nearly two hours agreed to a compromise designation that recognized his expertise in aviation and statistical analysis.
Gilbert’s presentation and cross-examination by Tradeport lawyer Peter Tice was followed by non-expert testimony provided by Tradeport president Frank Scremin, with both focusing on the future prospects of the airport. Thursday ended with brief testimony by city planner Joanne Hickey-Evans, who is expected to appear again this coming week, along with Anne Joyner (a city consultant) and Lynda Lukasik, the executive director of Environment Hamilton.
The city’s lawyer Nancy Smith has given notice that she will challenge Dr. Lukasik’s right to testify, arguing that she cannot be independent in her expert testimony. Lukasik and Joiner are expected to focus on the conformity – or lack thereof – of the city’s plans to provincial policies.
That was also a major theme in the land need arguments heard last week, especially from Lorius and Davidson. The former contends his methodology is the most commonly used way to determining whether a boundary expansion is needed and how large it should be, while Davidson maintained that the province’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and its updated Provincial Policy Statement require redevelopment and intensification of existing industrial lands first, and prohibit several aspects of Lorius’ approach.
The two men clash on whether or not a municipality can: deduct a 10 percent vacancy factor from its industrial land supply; use a 20 percent “net to gross” factor in determining need; and is required to achieve a density of at least 50 jobs and/or residents for greenfield development.
Lorius maintains that Hamilton’s future development will be much different than the past and requires a significant greenfield land supply to attract growth. Davidson believes the airport employment growth district proposed by the city is low-density sprawl that is what provincial policies are trying to prevent, and that the first priority must be re-use and intensification of they city’s older industrial areas whose availability he believes have been significantly underestimated by Lorius.
The full proposed boundary expansion includes the 591 hectare airport and a 138 hectare airport expansion zone that the two men also disagree about. The city now maintains the airport is not the reason for the location of the growth district, and that the central logic is to take advantage of the highway six extension opened in 2004 and the 403.
The hearings are open to the public and are taking place in the Albion Room on the second floor of the Convention Centre. The OMB chair is Ms Joyti Zuidema.