Brownfield plans falling behind schedule
04/11/2005
BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD
After a year of measured progress in the quest to clean up 15 designated brownfield sites, the march is beginning to stall and murmurs of impatience are rising in the ranks of the alliance between city hall and the private development sector.
In a council meeting last Monday, Coun. Greg Martin wondered when an agreement between the city and the agent for the Sternson property at 22 Mohawk St. will be announced.
“We’ve been hearing for several months now that an agreement is just about finalized,” he said. He wondered what the holdup was.
Mayor Mike Hancock said a meeting between the city and the agent was being held that week. Although that statement cut short the discussion, Martin will expect more tangible information tonight.
Getting an agreement over 22 Mohawks St. is an important step in the city’s critical path to the conquest and cleanup of the Greenwich-Mohawk brownfield area. With Belko Contracting well along in its contract to demolish most of the Cockshutt-Go Vacations complex next door at 66 Mohawk St., the city’s attention should be turning to the takeover of the Massey-Harris site across the way at 347 Greenwich St.
But it can’t do that until arrangements for the Sternson property are finalized. Underground contamination running from 347 Greenwich to 22 Mohawk could expose the city to liability and litigation from the Sternson agent.
FOUR MONTHS BEHIND ON TAX SALE
In its critical path through the Greenwich-Mohawk area’s treacherous legal minefield, city hall was supposed to have reached agreement over the Sternson property by last December so it could launch a tax sale on 347 Greenwich and take over that property by February. That’s when it was supposed to be in a position to issue a request for proposals on the whole area.
That’s the plan, but with the Sternson component unresolved, the city is now four months behind on the tax sale, due mostly to this impediment. A deal with the Sternson agent has been imminent now for the past six months.
Meanwhile, the private sector is beginning to wonder why the city hasn’t implemented its community improvement plan (CIP) for brownfields, with its arsenal of incentives for developers.
A preliminary document was ready in December 2002-January 2003 when council was armed with its Brantford Brownfield Strategy and ready to set out on its assault. The document was approved shortly after that by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
But two years later, the final implementation document still hasn’t been brought forward.
Steve Charest, president of King and Benton Redevelopment Corp., which already has a number of rejuvenated brownfield projects to its credit, wanted to know at a community update meeting last Thursday why the CIP still hasn’t been implemented.
He said the CIP with its incentives could have helped him in the redevelopment of the former Harding Carpets property on Morrell Street, or his ongoing project to turn the Work Wear property at Wellington and Clearance streets into the Y’s new Family Program Centre.
Charest’s frustration is more than understandable, considering the CIP will most definitely be needed for the Greenwich-Mohawk and Sydenhem street brownfield areas, where remediation costs are too high for a completely private sector redevelopment.
Why the city is behind on this matter has much to do with bureaucratic intrigue. When the overall brownfield strategy was approved a little more then two years ago, a brownfields community advisory committee made up mostly of citizens was established. But a standing brownfields technical committee that had been working on the background aspects of the strategy and gathering files on all the sites was suddenly disbanded by senior administrative order.
Under the new organization, staff were supposed to report separately to the new advisory committee “as needed.”
The technical committee contained key staff members from all departments of the city administration. It had held regular meetings where all technical matters from different disciplines could be tackled in concert to keep the various departments on the same page.
Coun. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith, who chaired both that group and the new community advisory committee, tried to get the staff committee reassembled, arguing that it was needed more than ever. She got nowhere and very little administratively was accomplished on the brownfield front for the next year.
MAYOR KEPT PROMISE
During the 2003 municipal election, Ceschi-Smith got then-councillor Mike Hancock to promise that if he won his challenge against former mayor Chris Friel, he would re-establish the technical committee.
No sooner was Hancock in the chair after the election that Ceschi-Smith was in his office reminding him of her request. He immediately saw to the committee’s re-establishment.
Since then, the implementation document has been written, with the help of a new brownfield planner hired by the city. The draft report is being circulated among members and will be brought to council shortly.
Ceschi-Smith says she shares Charest’s frustration and still resents the time lost until Hancock could intervene. She says she knows the plan in an important component of the strategy to engage investors like Charest and Dalip Multani, who has given new life to the former Barber Ellis factory on Grey Street and is rejuvenating the Solaray site on Grand River Avenue.
But enough of explanations. City hall will have to move more quickly from here on in to maintain momentum and engage the private sector.
Belko contracting is expected to finish its work by July. By that point, the city has to have the other components in place to keep going.
Meanwhile, plans to redevelop the Northern Globe and Crown Electric properties on Sydenham Street are proceeding, and the private sector is waiting to be called into the fray.
There is no time to waste.
