Waterdown/Aldershot Master Transportation Plan Moves Forward

Many of you might  remember the Waterdown/Aldershot Master Transportation Plan which dealt with  the Waterdown Bypass from back in the days when we were still Flamborough. The creation of the Hamilton supercity put the whole bypass plan on hold for a few years but now it has resurfaced.

The upshot is this: we are required to create an east-west transportation  corridor to accommodate the future growth of Waterdown. Once the Province  passed Official Plan Amendment (OPA 28) in June 2002, it mandated that the  transportation corridor be revisited by Hamilton staff. OPA 28 opens the  doors for 6,500 new residential units (or upwards of 15000 new residents) in  Waterdown all of which will be built within the next 10 years, if not, sooner – and we are in the position where we have to provide a road  transportation network to accommodate that growth.

Study groups have been evaluating the process, technical information, social impacts, costing components, and environmental issues have all been evaluated and presented to the public in the form of both presentations and public meetings. The work is not over yet, we are now in the process of further environmental studies with a report to go to Council this November.

Please remember this – we are legally required by the Province to create this transportation corridor based on the development the Province sanctioned when it passed OPA 28. The city has no say in the matter other than trying to accommodate this new growth in Waterdown. My introduction to  OPA 28 was in my first term as a Flamborough Councillor over 12 years ago and it had been in the works prior to that for the previous 7 years. The  planning department at that time was dealing with the requirements set down by the Province for development land. The province required back in those days that a 20 year supply of land be available for development purposes.  The Province having jurisdiction on all Municipal affairs set the wheels in  motion for OPA 28 with those provincial policy statements. In fact OPA 28 was started in the late 1980s. Flamborough town council wishing to have a  more controlled and phased development plan fought to have a slower growth strategy implemented but eventually was superceded by both the Ontario Municipal Board, and a challenge at the Cabinet level. The battle is now  over, we fought and lost twice. Now what is left on the table is the approval of what will translate to the doubling of the population of Waterdown over the next 10 years. What is crucial from my position now is to get on with the new road networks and other infrastructure in order to facilitate the development.

We can not absorb 6,500 more homes on our existing roads corridors without new roads being built. I will be supporting the new road corridors which widens Waterdown Road and runs along up the mountain brow and down through the lands east of Flanders. I will be supporting the East West corridor which runs primarily between the forth and the fifth concession. I do  realize this is an extremely politicized contentious issue but I also realize that if I don't take a position on devising new transportation corridors that we will be left with a doubled Waterdown population to be absorbed on our existing roads and I will not let that happen.
 
Anyone who has been following my political career will know that I have  never taken a financial contribution and that I am self funded, the  relevance here is that I do not owe the development industry or anyone for that matter special consideration or favors.  Rest assured my position in  support of these new roads is because I know that there is nothing the development industry would like more than to go back to the OMB and say you have approved our development but because it is so contentious the Council  will not deal with the transportation corridors. The fallout is that we will  end up absorbing the growth on our existing roads without the developers having to pay for new roads and Dundas Street and Parkside Drive will not, and should not, be expected to absorb that kind of intensity. Other roads need to be built, and have been identified as such and I will be supporting those new road networks.
 

Sincerely,
Margaret McCarthy