Issues

There are as many bends and twists in the province’s EA study of a proposed new four-lane highway from Hwy. 403 in Ancaster to Hwy. 407 as there are in Snake Road.

Last Wednesday, as Ward 14 Councillor Robert Pasuta joined with members of Citizens Opposed to Paving the Escarpment (COPE) to host a community meeting about the highway, residents learned that the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) recently sent a map to Halton Region showing a route for the 407 connection that has never been seen at public meetings hosted by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO).

Sue McMaster, co-chair of COPE, says the new route, presented to Halton in connection with its Regional Official Plan Amendment No. 38, shows the proposed 407 connection point falling well beyond Walker’s Line as far east as Appleby Line near the Burlington/ Oakville border and the possible route running farther north, nearer Kilbride and Lowville, than has previously been indicated on maps presented at public meetings looking at the Mid-Pen route.

The province dropped plans for the full Fort Erie to Hwy. 407 route in July and downscaled its proposal to deal with projected traffic congestion in the Niagara to GTA corridor, presenting instead a long-term plan for a new 33-km corridor from Ancaster, through rural Flamborough to north Burlington.

While the new mapping has raised concerns for COPE, which is opposed to any roadway cutting across the escarpment, Roger Ward, a MTO planning official, said after the meeting that it’s “not uncommon” for the government to make people aware of proposed highways in planning documents, such as Official Plans (OPs), for Ontario municipalities. The province reviews all OPs to ensure they conform to provincial growth plans, he said.

But Ward, who has been off work with an injury in recent weeks, wasn’t familiar with the recent MMAH correspondence with Halton Region, and couldn’t shed any light on the new mapping. McMaster has asked MPP Ted McMeekin to make inquiries about what the mapping means for the proposed highway.

The 403-407 highway has also caused friction between Pasuta and his Ward 15 counterpart, Margaret McCarthy, even though both are opposed to it. Earlier this summer, when the MTO revealed that the full Mid-Pen route would not be proceeding, a City of Hamilton staff report indicated the city had a number of concerns with the scaled-down route, including the impacts of the 403-407 route proposed to run through Flamborough. But a later report by the city said it supports the full Mid-Pen plan primarily to spur economic development for Hamilton through its Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD) plans, also known as Aerotropolis. It also deleted the section related to concerns for the 403-407 route.

McCarthy, who didn’t attend the Oct. 13 Hamilton city council meeting because she wanted to “make a political statement” about her longstanding opposition to Hamilton’s involvement with the Pan Am Games, asked Ward 2 councillor Bob Bratina to present an amendment to the city’s position on the highway plan, basically re-inserting the city’s concerns about the highway through Flamborough. Pasuta seconded Bratina’s motion his action was challenged on a point of order before council voted.

McCarthy criticized Pasuta this week, charging, “Everything I move (make a motion on), Pasuta opposes.”

The Ward 14 councillor explained that he seconded Bratina’s motion because he wanted to open up discussion at council about the highway through Flamborough. Ward 9 councillor Brad Clark challenged the seconding of the amendment, indicating that it substantially changed the intent of the motion, which was to elicit council’s support for the full Mid-Pen highway – including the section running through Flamborough. Clark’s challenge was upheld.

Pasuta also took criticism at last week’s meeting when recently retired MTO official and Flamborough resident Will MacKenzie accused him of talking out of “both sides” of his mouth when the councillor said he doesn’t equate support for economic growth around the Hamilton Airport with support for the new highway. MacKenzie indicated that trucks transporting goods from the new employment lands will want to go to Toronto and will pick any other route available to them rather than the congested Hwy. 403.

“I believe we can make the airport lands work without a highway through Flamborough,” said Pasuta, who voted with the majority of council to accept the AEGD plan at the October 13 council meeting. He said he voted for Aerotropolis because jobs are needed in Hamilton and new growth means more assessment and less taxation pressures on homeowners.

Several residents asked how farmland can be protected if the highway is built through some of the best agricultural land in Ontario. One woman said the area has lost 43,000 acres of farmland since 1971 and if the loss continues at the same pace, there won’t be any farmland left in 100 years.MTO consultant Patrick Puccini, who earlier in the evening outlined the MTO’s plans to mitigate traffic demands by widening existing highways and expanding local rail and transit, as well as looking at a new highway through Flamborough, answered the questions about agriculture with basically the same words each time. He assured residents that the government places “a high value” on agricultural lands and impacts on them have been “factored into” the highway study.

Also participating in the discussions were City of Hamilton staff and a representative of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce who spoke in favour of the full Mid-Pen route.
In addition, John Best, executive director of the Southern Ontario Gateway Council, a goods movement group that also endorses the longer highway, suggested that rather than have it cut across the escarpment it could extend from Hwy. 403 to Hwy. 401.

A spokesman for COPE, Pete Zuzek, criticized the highway study on several fronts, questioning the population and growth projections used by the government to show the need for a highway and not placing enough emphasis on a number of factors including the highway’s impact on agricultural land and the environment.

He also suggested that an independent peer review be done of the transportation study’s recommendations.

McMaster, a Rockton-area resident, told the Review this week that she hopes COPE can build a better relationship with the City of Hamilton as the study proceeds in the months ahead.

“We do need our city to be taking care of us and watching our backs,” she said.

The province continues to collect feedback on the transportation proposal but expects to present its draft report on the transportation study later this year.

On April 20, 2007, the Committee of the Whole adopted the 2007 Tax Capital Budget and Financing Plan (Report FCS07022, Item 39(c)), supporting certain Phase 2 capital improvements to Joe Sams Leisure Park including the construction of an asphalt driveway to a proposed parking lot, an asphalt multi-use trial creating a connection for users from Centre Road to the park's trail system, and the installation of a two (2) inch PVC Electrical Duct over the pipeline easement to provide lighting to the proposed parking lot.

To view a plan of the park, click this link

McCarthy pushes for trust fund
Cash would boost local projects
Flamborough Review
Kevin Werner
Published on Jan 28, 2010

Now that the city of Hamilton receives all the revenues from the Flamboro Slots, Councillor Margaret McCarthy says the city owes her ward about $500,000.

McCarthy proposed the city create a trust fund for Flamborough that could provide a funding boost to local projects. The cost of the fund, which would operate similarly to the Taro Trust Fund in the former municipality of Stoney Creek, would be about $500,000. McCarthy even had a motion prepared, supported by Mountain Councillor Terry Whitehead, ready to be introduced to council last week. She said she had at least five other councillors ready to endorse her proposal.

“It would be a trust fund for Flamborough,” she said.

During a special committee of the whole meeting last week, councillors were compiling a wish list of their high-priority capital projects that could be funded from a special $5-million fund. Last year, the city used the money to build a recreation facility in the downtown Beasley neighbourhood.cil.

In 2007, when politicians threatened to eliminate the area-rating of Flamboro Slots revenue, McCarthy argued if Stoney Creek is allowed to keep its tipping fees from Philip Environmental (now called Newalta) after amalgamation to support the Taro Trust Fund, Flamborough should keep its casino revenue.

In 2007, $3.1 million out of the $4 million in total slots revenues was taken from Flamborough and used by the city and Ancaster to soften the expected higher taxes that year. The next year, the entire slots revenue that had been used to pay down the former town’s Borer’s Creek debt, was instead removed from the area-rating policy and dumped into the city’s general revenue stream.

The move reduced taxes in Hamilton in 2008, but caused Flamborough residents’ taxes to balloon by, on average, 10 per cent.

The Taro fund is overseen by the Heritage Green Trust board of directors; the money is distributed to various organizations to help the local community.

McCarthy has argued that in 1999 Flamborough signed a written contract with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission that suggests council can’t take the slots revenue away from the town without receiving approval from the gaming commissioner.

Whitehead, who initially opposed McCarthy’s idea, now supports the idea of providing some compensation to Flamborough. He said the money would be used for local improvement projects.

McCarthy’s motion wasn’t accepted by councillors last week. Instead, city staff will review the idea, along with a number of other proposed infrastructure projects.

But Councillor Chad Collins urged staff to use the city’s own criteria for infrastructure projects as it reviews the requirements of the ideas. Under Collins’s suggestion, McCarthy’s proposal would not meet the city’s requirements.

Approved by City Council was a motion to update our Aggregate Resource mapping. The reason behind this move is because the old mapping has not been updated since 1984. Described by FORCE as being misleading, confirmed by City staff as being inadequate and now approved by Hamilton Council to rectify, this motion directs staff to undertake and finance the extensive studies that will identify incompatible land uses as well as identifying other areas that have significant resource potential with few land use conflicts.

This is critical to us on several fronts. It speaks to the need to identify incompatible uses in, on, and around the potential Quarry site on the 11th Concession in Flamborough. " The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has traditionally been responsible for producing this mapping but have refused to produce the updates leaving the entire cost and associated justification studies to the City", stated in their Planning Report (PED06207) June 26/06.

Conversations with Mike Stone at the Ministry of Natural Resources led me to investigate the work done by the County of Huron where they worked on updating 9 Municipality's Aggregate Resource Mapping. They undertook the work through their own City Staff and completed the updates in one year for the entire County. Working in conjunction with Provincial Representatives, G.I.S. mapping experts, and community groups the team set out to identify Primary, secondary and tertiary (third) calculations of how many constraints were identified as obstacles to quarry extraction. They then made recommendations based on those findings to the municipalities to adopt into their Official Plan Policies identified as Primary or Prohibitive.

The transferred responsibility for the mapping of geological factors took place in 1986, moving the responsibility over from the Ministry of Natural Resources to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. In talks with Cam Baker of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, he confirmed that the only updates that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines would be solely based on geological factors and as stated before the other "identified land uses are the responsibility of the City to uncover and finance."

So my gratitude goes out to my Council Colleagues who approved the support for this essential work to be undertaken to update our Aggregate Resource Mapping. This is a good news story for the City as a whole!.

Click Here to view the motion
Margaret McCarthy, Flamborough Councillor Ward 15
905-546-2713 Fax: 905-546-2535
mmccarthy@hamilton.ca www.margaretmccarthy.ca

New twist in mapping for proposed highway route