Warehousing main aerotropolis use - loss of farmland to "employment lands" will be for low wage trucking and wharehousing

copied from CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) report - for more articles on all issues affecting citizens of Hamilton visit www.hamiltoncatch.org)
There’s surprise that more than two-thirds of the aerotropolis lands are earmarked for low-wage trucking and warehousing companies, along with concern about the impact on farmland and the city’s finances, as well as the implications of the cancellation of the mid-peninsula highway on the proposed airport employment growth district (AEGD). But the authors of a financial-economic impact analysis are defending their report.
Mountain councillor Scott Duvall pointed to the forecasts in the financial-economic analysis of the AEGD prepared by consultants and formally presented to the planning committee yesterday. The study predicts 458 hectares of the 662 hectare area will be used by “wholesale trade / transportation and warehousing” that will provide nearly 11,000 of the 24,360 jobs the city hopes will locate there by 2031.
“We’re looking for manufacturing jobs,” declared Duvall. “We’re looking for jobs that people can live off of, and yet, now I’m hearing that we’re going to be basically concentrating on warehousing, which will employ maybe four or five employees, and they’re not very high paying jobs.”
Consultant Jamie Cooke responded that the city could try to “aggressively target advanced manufacturing”, but has little hope of getting much except perhaps in the longer term. He suggested there is a growing demand for “flex space” that might combine office and assembly work with warehousing, but that it would be “misleading and irresponsible … to just project a best case scenario and say well we’re going to assume the AEGD lands are going to achieve nothing but high order advanced manufacturing and major office and we’re going to project really healthy fiscal impacts.”
Instead he emphasized the lands “will be quite competitive to the warehousing and distribution sector” of the market. “And due to the cost of land in the city of Hamilton, it will be attractive for those kinds of uses that just aren’t viable in areas anymore like Mississauga and Brampton for example.”
Duvall was not impressed.
“Hamilton’s going to become a warehouse for businesses down the street in Toronto who are warehousing in Hamilton because it’s a lot cheaper to purchase the land,” he concluded. “I’m kind of disturbed at that and I don’t think that was what people were expecting, and I thought we were having real jobs.”
Bob Bratina went on to suggest that council “may have the wrong focus” in its search for new jobs, pointing to Hamilton’s strengths in heavy industry and recent expansion on bayfront lands by Bunge, Biox and Steelcare. He reminded councillors that new contracts for National Steel Car can generate an immediate “thousand guys with jobs” are argued for more emphasis on filling empty locations like the former Lakeport brewery.
“We have that heavy industrial capability; we have the lands; we have the employees who live near those lands and a lot of them that walk to those jobs,” he declared. “ we’re looking at maybe a lot of warehousing which isn’t a lot of jobs, and the resulting income from those jobs.”
The consultant study gives the following predicted breakdown of land use and resulting employment for the AEGD:
Employment sector Jobs Percent Land (ha) Percent
Utilities and construction 850 3.5% 25.3 4%
Manufacturing 1950 8.0% 47.1 7%
Wholesale trade / transportation and warehousing 10960 45.0% 458.2 69%
Business services 5170 21.0% 41.9 6%
Retail, accommodation and food services 3660 15.0% 52.9 8%
Public administration 600 2.5% 9.3 2%
Other services 1220 5.0% 27.2 4%
TOTAL 24,360 100.0% 662 100%

A footnote to the above table says “business services include information and cultural industries, finance and insurance, real estate and rental and leasing, professional, scientific and technical services.”
Questions from Bratina and Brad Clark at yesterday’s meeting confirmed that the $351 million stated cost of the AEGD servicing does not include the trunk sewer and water pipes from Woodward Avenue or any portion of the planned $700 million upgrade and expansion of the city’s wastewater treatment facilities.
“This study identified the infrastructure within that AEGD district, but absolutely there’s infrastructure that’s required that’s outside that area,” said the city’s head of finance, Rob Rossini. He said further study is required on how fast the AEGD might proceed, “what infrastructure has to go in first”, and whether the city will have to and can afford to front-end some of the costs.

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