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Interventions by two citizen groups last week helped convince the planning committee to defer a decision on rezoning rural agricultural land for another airport parking lot. Opponents argued the “temporary use bylaw” would permanently render the land unfit for food production, and that the rezoning is an “end–run” around the aerotropolis public process ordered by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).
Parking for 779 vehicles is being sought by Tradeport International for either employee use or to attract the bankrupt FlyGlobeSpan airline back to Hamilton, and is on land outside the urban boundary that the company wants the city to buy.
“As you may recall, we had tried to purchase the property ourselves for that purpose, to invest it in the airport property, but council felt that that was not the right thing to do at the time, so Tradeport stepped in because the need was there for this extra parking that they needed to attract and keep passenger service at the airport,” explained Guy Paparella, the city’s director of airport and industrial development. “Globespan has suspended flights for this year, but it’s fully intending to come back next year, and that’s what’s being negotiated with them at this point.”
The airline company declared bankruptcy just before Christmas leaving stranded passengers, but even when their summer and fall flights to the UK were operating, airport passenger numbers were 300,000 less than the peak in 2003. Neither city staff, nor Tradeport’s agent James Webb, were able to clarify why existing parking is insufficient, although Webb said the application for a temporary use bylaw is tied to delays in planning for the controversial airport employment growth district known as the aerotropolis.
“They don’t want to be in a situation of having to wait for the secondary plan to take effect,” he told the city’s planning committee. “What this bylaw allows them to do is to have some degree of certainty that they can in fact develop a portion of this property for that use through the benefit of a temporary use bylaw.”
That approach was challenged by Joe Minor, a representative of Hamiltonians for Progressive Development whose 2005 OMB appeal blocked the city’s first try at an aerotropolis boundary expansion, and forced the initiation of a public consultation process that remains incomplete. Minor submitted 20 pages of comments on the draft secondary plan last February, but says he has not received any response from city staff.
“It seems like this is an end run around something that I have volunteered my time to participate in [and] I don’t think it’s fair,” he stated. “And in fact I think that it’s an attempt to pre–empt the public process that the OMB has said must take place.”
He warned councillors that any move to rezone the lands may lead the OMB to conclude that “the city’s been acting in contempt of the OMB ruling – which I think may not go well for you.” He also noted the city may end up having to purchase the lands.
“The question I’ve got to ask you is if you approve this today, will that increase the value of this land to Tradeport’s sister corporation, and then are you going to be asked to buy it, in the near future, for now far more than it costs right now?”
Bob Bratina said he’d “never had any trouble finding a parking spot” at the airport and asked for information on actual usage levels. The committee agreed to defer a decision on the rezoning application until the “next meeting that [Tradeport president Richard] Koroscil can attend” to answer the outstanding questions. V
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