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.