In closed session this week councillors endorsed a secret settlement offer from the two biggest aerotropolis landholding groups that could sacrifice more agricultural lands and substantially increase infrastructure spending. The brief public motion identifies some lands being added in order to maintain the previously approved size of the aerotropolis, but doesn’t indicate what lands are being subtracted.
The details will likely not be made public until the proposal is presented to the Ontario Municipal Board hearings scheduled to open at 11 am on February 2 at the Crown Plaza conference centre at 150 King Street East. However the objectives sought by the landholding groups – Silvestri Investments and Twenty Road West Group – have been made clear in their earlier public presentations to city council.
Both groups have large landholdings along the north side of the aerotropolis they want to be developed for residential purposes rather than the industrial uses allowed in the aerotropolis. The Silvestri group also has sought addition of a 35 hectare parcel on the west side of the Highway 6 extension which it argued was more likely to attract industries because of its proximity to the 403 and would compensate for some of the lands it sought to reserve for residential development.
There has long been concern that the aerotropolis boundary expansion would lead to more suburban sprawl on prime agricultural lands, but city councillors and staff have repeatedly issued assurances that this will not happen – despite the efforts of landholders that date back to before the 2005 city adoption of the aerotropolis plans.
If the still secret agreement approved by council last week meets some or all of the objectives of these two major landholders, it would create a highly unusual urban boundary that leaves large rural islands completely surrounded by lands designated for urban uses. Such an arrangement could complicate and increase the cost of several aspects of the city’s aerotropolis plans including the roads, water and sewer pipes and other new infrastructure that would have to cross these rural areas.
Silvestri Investments owns lands on the south side of Garner Road, much of it included in the city’s current aerotropolis area reserved for industrial uses. In its presentation to council in March 2014, Silvestri argued that 154 hectares along Garner east of Southcoat Road should be used instead for residential and institutional purposes. It also wanted 46 hectares west of Highway 6 to be added to the aerotropolis.
The Twenty Road West Group holds 172 hectares on the south side of Twenty Road between Upper James and Glancaster Road. They issued a “concept plan” in December 2013 to exclude 90 hectares of this from the aerotropolis so these properties could be developed for much more lucrative residential and commercial uses.
If elements of these plans are part of the settlement and it is approved by the OMB, the effect would be to substantially increase the loss of agricultural lands by shifting the aerotropolis further south and leaving up to 250 hectares on its north side along Garner and Twenty Road for non-industrial uses. While the city has no need to consume more rural land for residential development, the creation of these islands surrounded on all sides by urban uses would result in a much larger de facto boundary expansion.
The cost implications could be severe. City staff have calculated that there is sufficient water and sewer capacity to service about a quarter of the aerotropolis before installation of very costly trunk pipes would be required. That currently excess capacity could be required instead by residential uses on the developers’ lands – especially if industrial interest in the aerotropolis is slow materializing.
In addition, any shift of the industrial lands to the south increases the area which drains south toward the Welland or Grand Rivers and consequently would require pumping sewage uphill before sending it to the city’s treatment plant on Woodward Avenue. A 2013 OMB decision limited the aerotropolis size to 555 net hectares (approximately 695 gross hectares).