City’s brownfield progress outlined

04/08/2005

BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD

Local politicians, city staff and developers traded information about brownfields with each other and the public in a community update Thursday on the city’s quest to clean up and revitalize old industrial sites.

It was also a chance for developers – in front of about 50 people – to ask city councillors pointed questions on the continuing slowness of city hall in setting the program that is supposed to forge the public-private partnership needed to conquer all sites, especially the worst – Northern Globe and Crown Electric on Sydenham Street, and Cockshutt, Massey-Harris and Sternson in the Greenwich-Mohawk area.

“Why is it taking so long?” Steve Charest, president of King and Benton Redevelopment Corp., which has converted and revamped a number of city sites, wanted to know of a community improvement plan the city began writing nearly two years ago but hasn’t implemented yet.

That plan contains the approach the city wants to take in cleanup and redevelopment and an arsenal of incentives for developers who join public-private partnership, such as tax credits.

Councillors Marguerite Ceschi-Smith and Mike Quattrociocchi responded that the city is overcoming hurdles with the Ontario and federal governments in getting the necessary regulations in place to make the plan work.

“It’s a fair question,” Ceschi-Smith told Charest, acknowledging the frustration developers are feeling, but insisted the plan is imminent.

The two councillors said progress is hindered by complex issues of ownership, liens, heavy contamination and complexes of derelict buildings on the worst sites, and the need to spend a lot of brownfield program funds on paying for expensive demolition after fires, environmental studies, and other background work.

But much of the agenda, and discussion were devoted to a spirit of camaraderie as staff, the politicians, a brownfields community advisory committee and developers gave progress reports and their experiences since the city embarked on its brownfield program in December 2002.

Ceschi-Smith talked about progress in the city’s plan to assume control of the Greenwich-Mohawk area, with seizure and demolition of the first site, the Cockshutt-Go Vacations complex underway.

Quattrociocchi explained how the city has levelled all buildings at Northern Globe and Crown Electric and has held public meetings to engage the community in a housing redevelopment.

Developers talked about the sites they have been able to do on their own, while expressing gratitude about assistance from city hall staff attuned to brownfield issues.

Dalib Multani, owner of Multani Custom Homes, took the audience through his experiences redoing the former Barber Ellis factory between Grey and Marlborough streets, and now the Solaray property on Grand River Avenue.

King & Benton showed a snappy video presentation of its transformation of the former Harding Carpets from a dangerous factory loaded with problems to a state-of-the-art facility with warehousing, distribution offices and light product assembly companies.