Harding plant tour 'Blows my mind'

Developer gets first look at mess inside former factory
10/23/2003

BY MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION AND SUSAN GAMBLE
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD





Mayor Chris Friel and Coun. Larry Kings were scrambling Tuesday to keep together the city's controversial deal with an industrial developer to buy the Harding Carpets Brownfield site for a warehousing operation.

The mayor was also making arrangements to install security around what has turned out to be, not a vacant 334,300-square-foot building, but one full of piles of products, debris, scrap tires, illegal activities and evidence everywhere of squatters. .

It's something city councillors and the developer, Steve Charest, president of Toronto-based King and Benton Development Corp., had not seen before a hastily arranged tour with the media Tuesday.

"If we had seen this we would probably have handled it differently," Charest told Friel and Kings at one point during Tuesday's tour. "How all this got here and where this is from blows my mind. We weren't aware of this when we made the offer. If the city wants to reconsider, well reconsider, too."

"We'll work with you," Friel responded. "We didn't kill anything."
The mayor was referring to a council decision at Monday's meeting to get legal advice after councillors Marguerite Ceschi-Smith, Richard Carpenter, Dave Wrobel and Greg Martin tried to move a series of resolutions to rescind the sale.

The city agreed last week after a closed bidding process to sell the bankrupt Harding Carpets proper-ties on Morrell Street to King and Benton for $100,000 and wipe out $3.8 million in tax arrears.

As part of the deal. King and Ben-ton would take the site "as is," and accept all liability, while the city would dear all outstanding legal is-sues concerning the site.

Friel said in a telephone inter-view at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday that he got a call earlier that morning from Charest, who was upset after reading in Tuesday's Expositor that city council is seeking a legal opinion on the repercussions of killing the Harding sale.

Friel arranged for Charest, Kings and two Expositor reporters and a photographer to tour Harding at 10 a.m. in which conditions inside the nearly 10-acre building would be brought to light and some details of King and Benton's plans would be revealed.

The tour began in a loading area where a company has been storing carpet products for distribution. Al-though the area was dark with no lighting, stacks and piles were orderly.

But as the entourage continued walking through various sections of the sprawling building, aided by flashlights, it immediately became apparent that Charest had not seen any more than the first tiny portion of it before making his $100,000 bid more than a month ago.
It was clear that was all Friel and Kings had seen, too.

The tour progressed through rooms loaded with flammable materials, piles of skids, barrels of chemicals, rusted out cars, the remains of a chop shop recently busted by the police, piles of scrap tires, a room full of old lawn mowers.
Charest, Friel and Kings remarked periodically about their worry of a major fire that would threaten Homedale community, maybe even the whole city.

Charest, who has redeveloped other old industrial sites including a former Stelco property, the former Keep Rite building on Elgin Street and 148 Mohawk St., appeared almost overwhelmed at encountering something he was not prepared for.

During Tuesday's tour, Friel and Kings sought to reassure Charest that city council was still committed to the deal and would work with him.

Charest wondered how strong opposition on council was to the deal.

Kings said only one councillors was really opposed Marguerite Ceschi Smith, also chairwoman of the Brownfield’s community advisory committee. No mention was made that three other councillors Wrobel, Carpenter and Martin are having second thoughts.

"The message I got is council is committed and, whether it's King and Benton or the next guy, what's needed is a good corporate citizen and we need council support," said Charest.

Charest also confirmed for reporters he would conduct an environmental assessment if the deal goes through a matter of concern to die neighbors.
But he acknowledged he would have to reassess immediately his redevelopment plan.

He explained that King and Benton intended to begin by transforming a small area in the building's southwest corner into a distribution site for a third party, including reinstallation of lighting and heat and provision of other necessary features.

"At this point, though, looking at this, I don't know what the starting point would be," he said, looking around I’ve never experienced a site like this before. We have to consider what work has to be done before trades people could even come in here. I'm a bit apprehensive about what's here."
Then he added: “I had bid without getting onto the site we will move forward on this project unless we have the full support of the city."

The city still must clear federal and provincial liens on the property, then take formal ownership for a brief moment in time and then transfer the property to King and Benton, which would take possession after 30 days. How long all that will take is still unknown.

The pending sale has raised a host of concerns from realty, storage and warehousing operators angry at the dosed bidding process.

KEPT IN THE DARK

Neighbors are also complaining that they have been kept in the dark about the site and the prospective owner's plans for a warehouse. They also want an environmental assessment conducted to find out the real state of contamination.

Ceschi Smith was not invited to Tuesday's tour. When informed of the results later, she said the discovery of the full magnitude of the site's problems was a product of moving too quickly for council to really consider all the issues, and not following processes set out in the city's Brownfield’s strategic action plan.
She said she was shocked that the buyer hadn't thoroughly checked out the site before buying it, and that the city would sell a building "as is" without knowing what that meant, and not seeing to its responsibilities.

"I know it's not fair that we have been stuck with this place, but at the end of the day we are, and we have to deal with the issues,” she said.

"We have a Brownfield’s strategy and what we're doing is not walking the talk."

Ceschi Smith also noted that the city has just won a "brownie" award from the Canadian Urban Institute, in the category of sustainability and community building.

Contrasted with a lot of the good work the city has done to date on Brownfield’s, she said, "what is being done at Harding is just a cheap quick fix."