Population changes in the former city of Hamilton over the last half century reveal one major reason for the ballooning infrastructure maintenance deficit. While massive growth took place on Hamilton’s formerly rural unserviced lands, a huge decline was taking place in older parts of the city.
Population has dropped by over 66,000 in the oldest parts of the former city of Hamilton in the last half century. In the same period, hundreds of millions have been spent to accommodate 96,000 new occupants on formerly unserviced farmland.
In 1966, the urban area of Hamilton had only extended southward to about Mohawk Road, and there were also rural areas east of Red Hill Valley. Between 1966 and 2016, the number of residents living in that former urban area fell dramatically. In the lower city between Dundas and Red Hill Valley it dropped by 36,000 and on the older mountain between the edge of the escarpment and Mohawk Road it fell by over 30,000.
In the same fifty year period, the previously rural area of the old city south of Mohawk added 84,000 residents. Another 12,000 were added into the pre-amalgamation portion of the former city east of Red Hill Valley as far as Grays Road.
The net result of a half century of apparently robust growth was only an increase of 32,000 people – about ten percent more than there were in 1966. In effect, of the 96,000 expansion in new areas, two-thirds was actually internal migration moving from older parts of the city already serviced, to newer ones where new infrastructure was constructed to accommodate them.
These enormous population shifts have left under-utilized infrastructure in older parts of the city that could make intensification a much better financial choice than more urban sprawl. There’s a similar message in the recent revelations by the city’s finance chief that residents rather than developers are being forced to cover a third of the costs of the new roads, pipes and other services in greenfield developments.
Thus the growth has meant an urban infrastructure that has expanded far more than the number of taxpayers available to pay for its maintenance. In effect, the urbanized area has jumped by about 50 percent while the population grew by barely ten percent.
There was similar enormous sprawl in the former suburban municipalities that also required huge municipal investments in new infrastructure. Each of Ancaster, Flamborough and Stoney Creek nearly tripled in population, and the formerly fully rural Glanbrook area saw an even faster expansion. Growth in Dundas was more constrained but still climbed from 15,000 to more than 24,000.
Today, council is grappling with how to accommodate projected additional population growth – including a proposal to put 80,000 people in the Elfrida area east and south of the intersection of Rymal Road and Upper Centennial. While this expansion onto farm fields would achieve much higher densities than previous sprawl development due to more stringent provincial rules, it will still require tens of millions in new infrastructure spending.
The 2019 capital infrastructure budget includes more than $20 million in spending on new roads and $30 million more in other new assets – while acknowledging an accumulated deficit of $3.7 billion in maintenance of existing infrastructure that continues to increase.
“Annually, the city should be investing approximately $150 million on roads, bridges and traffic capital improvements,” states the budget report. “In 2019, the city is spending approximately $75.8 million gross on the roads rehabilitation capital program.”
Provincial policies that require more and more population increases to occur within the already built-up area are specifically designed to reduce municipal growth costs. But for city councillors moves to higher density in many parts of the city are met with fierce opposition from existing residents – mainly articulated as a fear of inadequate parking spaces.
The clash is part of the reason that city planners are advocating high rise apartments and condos, especially if they can be located along higher order transit corridors like the planned Eastgate to McMaster LRT. Growth along that route will also require some upgrading of infrastructure but that cost is supposed to be part of the provincial funding of the LRT project.