A Second Life for Industrial Site
04/26/2004
Hamilton has some catching up to do in matching Brantford's brownfield projects.
BY LISA GRACE MARR
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
BRANTFORD. An old oak armchair sits in the middle of the blown-out room. A desk rests a few feet away. They're among the last vestiges of the 70-year-old Harding carpet factory that closed about 10 years ago.
Harding Carpets employed up to 400 people during the 1960s and '70s. The plant now exists only in memory.
Some of those memories rest with Chuck Montgomery, who worked at the plant during its heyday. Now he's charged with bringing order to the site, long a scene of chaos and decay on Brantford's south side.
When Montgomery stepped onto the property four months ago last fall, he had to prowl around piles of tires, wood palettes, barrels of toxic waste, broken glass, bricks and garbage.
"It was a disaster... an above ground land-fill. The potential for a fire was horrendous. The emotional range (when I saw it) was 'Oh, my God'- to frustration, anger because of the way things were let go. Then it was OK, that’s it, let’s do something.”
That can-do attitude makes Steve Charest happy. He's the president of King & Benton, a
Toronto - based real estate company that bought the site in November. Montgomery was retired when Charest, a friend, asked him to head the cleanup of the largest brown-field redevelopment in Brantford's history.
King & Benton ended up paying $263,000 for the Harding site and plans to spend $3.2 million on the cleanup. Charest intends to keep some of the original buildings and use the property as a warehouse facility.
On the advice of a community advisory committee, there will also be a public meeting space, a day care and space dedicated to former Harding employees.
The transformation is to be completed by May 1. Charest estimates it will take about five years for a return on investment.
This brownfield redevelopment at four hectares is the largest so far in the city, but there have been several smaller projects, including the charity casino which has injected thousands into city coffers.
When it comes to brownfield redevelopment, Brantford has something Hamilton has had so far only in fits and starts.
"Momentum," said Sergio Manchia of Hamilton's Planning and Engineering Initiatives Ltd.
Manchia, an urban planner, is also a brownfield developer. He and a partner are turning the old Eaton's warehouse at James and Rebecca streets into 40 funky lofts.
He got the brownfield bug after being approached by the Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA) to act as a planning consultant on the Liuna Station and Liuna Queen Street nursing home redevelopments. Manchia said Hamilton has made some progress on brownfields, but needs more action as well as more provincial and federal funding.
"When we did that Queen Street (redevelopment), all of a sudden the ERASE (Hamilton's Environmental Remediation and Site Enhancement) program came about, economic development was onboard, everybody was go, go, go. Now, all of a sudden, it's dying off. The fact is the province and the feds have to kick in some coin.”
There appears to be some momentum building at the senior level of government. Prime Minister Paul Martin promised $3.5 billion over the next 10 years to clean up contaminated federal land. Often, however, some of the worst sites in the country are in private hands. This raises complex legal issues as obstacles to redevelopment.
The Canadian Urban Institute and Remediation.com launched the Canadian Brownsfields Network last month. It’s hoped that the network will be a way to disseminate ideas among those interested in developing brownfields and act as a lobbying force for pushing brownfields on the national agenda.
Back at the Harding site, Montgomery has a momentum all his own. “I’m pretty happy to be here, pretty excited. I don’t have a hard time coming to work every day. And the guys, “ he said, gesturing to about 20 workers, “they are motivated, too. They see what a difference they’re making.”
A worker removes asbestos from around pipes in the ceiling of one of the former Harding buildings. People involved in brownfield development say a greater financial commitment from the federal and Ontario government is needed
Marguerite Ceschi-Smith is a Brantford city councillor and chairs the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ brownfields committee. She said that in Brantford, where industrial development has occurred at a blistering pace, most of the marketable brownfields have been snapped up. “Municipalities have to deal with the dogs, the ones no one else will touch.”
Two years ago, Brantford conducted a historical review of potential brownfields. That kind of information, coupled with Brantford’s own community and staff committees, has been crucial to developing a strategy to deal with Brownfield problems.
Hamilton does not have an inventory of brownfields, but Paul Mason, long-range planner for the City of Hamilton, said he plans to apply to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for funding to conduct a similar historical review.
With the provincial Brownfields Act passed in 2002, municipalities finally have a tool to take action on site with absentee landlords who fail to pay taxes. The new act also gives cities an out when it comes to taking ownership of difficult brownfields.
But Ceschi- Smith said that in the end, "we still have to deal with them. Ten years from now it will still be there and that's where people live."
The act allowed Brantford to sell the Harding site to King & Benton. Brantford plans to take five other properties for tax sale this spring.
In January, Ceschi- Smith appealed to the senior governments for help with the most difficult of those sites a 20.94-hectare parcel with an estimated $12-million cleanup bill.
In Hamilton, Luc Piccioni, the city's brownfield development co-ordinator, said council took two properties last fall and put them up for sale through the Brownfields Act. One, a small parcel on Princess Street, has been sold and another set of larger sites at Wellington Street and Ferguson Avenue is under negotiation. He said the city plans to put five other properties up for tax sale in the spring.
Piccioni said there are three main obstacles to brownfield development. "One is education and awareness, getting the message out to the investment community. The stigma that's attached to these sites is really undeserved, a lot of these sites can be remediated. The second thing comes back to liability ... the legislation provides some protection, but it still has a way to go. The third thing is financing. With brownfields development costs are always higher. We need to find ways to level that playing field."
Hamilton is trying to level the playing field through programs like ERASE, which offers grants to companies that want to clean up brownfields. Piccioni said ERASE has been used to develop five sites in Hamilton since the program was introduced in 2001. He said the program may be expanded and/or modified, perhaps to exempt development charges for commercial or residential projects on brownfields.
Hamilton has also embarked on a private/public partnership with a residential developer to clean up an old gas station on Beach Boulevard. That required the city to chip in $175,000 of a $450,000 soil remediation as well as offer some planning and rezoning assistance. The builder plans a 93 -unit townhouse/condo complex.
Charest said municipal programs such as ERASE may be well intended but often fail to meet developers' deadlines or financial requirements. "Sometimes they're a bit of window dressing. The bottom line is somebody has to deal with these problems," he said. "If you can redevelop a project like this, make the community a better place, that’s what successful development is all about."
Montgomery stops to watch a bobcat tear steel beams down in one of the cavernous, ice - cold warehouses. Some of the material from demolished buildings is being used to lay the floor of two new homes in a nearby subdivision. Anything archival from the site, like a car insurance slip for a 1926 Plymouth or the canvas stretcher from a first-aid kit, will be displayed in a portion of the original offices dedicated to former Harding employees.
In this way, the ghosts of the industrial past are being put to rest.
