Councillors push ahead contentious program

06/20/2007

Final vote expected next week on plan to help develop former quarries

BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD

City councillors moved closer to approving a special incentives program for mined-out quarry lands, that could give a tax grant for King and Benton's proposed $500-million industrial and commercial project called Oak Park North.

In a lengthy, often lively, debate Tuesday, council's committee of the whole endorsed 6-3 the so-called northwest extraction area rehabilitation community improvement program with several amendments. The amendments are designed to tighten the rules on eligible costs and protect the city against windfall profits being won by an applicant.

Those changes, plus a recently accepted innovative method of moving earth around the Oak Park North site in a more cost-effective way, would lower the amount that King and Benton could receive to $3.6 million from an original maximum of $15 million.

The report and King and Benton officials themselves noted that the developer may not even have to apply to the program, even though it was developed with their project in mind.

The revised program was supported by Mayor Mike Hancock and councillors Mark Littell, Vince Bucci, James Calnan, John Sless and John Bradford.

It was opposed by councillors Greg Martin, Marguerite Ceschi-Smith and Jennifer Kinneman.

Coun. Dan McCreary declared a conflict of interest.

Coun. Richard Carpenter participated in some of the debate, but left the council chamber to attend another meeting and wasn't present for the vote.

Council will consider final approval on Monday.

The debate attracted many of the same players and comment as in other past council sessions about the program and King and Benton's development.

Lawyer Stanley Stein, representing competing developers, made a fourth presentation in which he criticized the program as an administrative nightmare that will add to staff costs and will distort the market by giving one competitor an unfair edge.

"And why is this whole program even being considered if King and Benton might not use it?" he wondered.

Scott Higgins, vice-president of King and Benton, said the company supports the program as amended and deplored the comments of some competitors, whom he said called unfairly into question the reputations of some city staff and other players.

"It's unfortunate that sometimes the development community resorts to mud slinging and fear mongering as a means to prevent a competitor's project from moving forward," said Higgins.

"These competitors are only interested in that which benefits their holdings."

He also acknowledged that King and Benton could wait for the value of the quarry lands to rise enough that it would be feasible to develop Oak Park without the grant, "but we will lose a global presence in ProLogis," a company that proposes to build the industrial complex component of the project.

Martin said that he is even more convinced from the lastest report to oppose a program that will benefit one company, two at the most. Carpenter pointed out that Brantford is due for major growth as a municipality in the provincial government's Places to Grow strategy, which will cause land value to rise.

"Just because we've been identified in Places to Grow doesn't mean we can sit back and everything will come to us."

He said the main principle behind the program remains "jobs, jobs, jobs."

According to the rules, King and Benton will have to pay for the cost of upgrading first, then go through a process to demonstrate that those costs really were higher than could usually be expected. After that, the company would receive for up to 15 years a grant covering 40 per cent of new taxes the owner would have to pay on the development.

Councillors also endorsed naming a new street in the development to cross Oak Park Road as ProLogis Parkway East and ProLogis Parkway West.