Perspectives Virtual Panel- on "Aerotropolis"

We asked our Perspectives Virtual Panel, the following:

"There’s been lots of media attention on $5 million velodromes and $50 million stadiums, but a strange silence about the $500 million plus aerotropolis. The first two affect the re-use of a few acres of already urbanized Hamilton; the latter covers 4576 acres that are still rural, relatively clean and a significant food source"

That's a quote from one of our readers, Don McLean on the topic of "Aerotropolis" and the lands surrounding the airport. It is perhaps true that the amount of attention so far on "Aerotropolis" is incongruent to the significant impact of this initiative and the potential investment that is required.

Some argue that the investment is not necessarily in the public interest and will only serve to benefit land owners who wish to exploit its use for profit making ventures such as commercial development and/or residential development.

The city has submitted that there is a dire shortage of lands that will sufficiently support anticipated industrial employment growth through to the year 2031.

The Hamilton Civic League concluded a questionnaire which determined that 82% of 349 households around the Aerotropolis boundaries, do not support the city’s plan to rezone thousands of acres of farmland for industrial purposes. 85% of those surveyed do not accept the city’s claim that there is a shortage of industrial lands to support industrial employment growth to the year 2031.

Are you satisfied that we need to move in the direction of "Aerotropolis" or are you of the view that the concept is unproven and/or unneeded? Please explain your answer as concisely as possible.

Here are the answers from our panel members. Note:  The answers vary in length, but each is worthwhile reading:


When the City of Hamilton undertook its Growth Related Integrated Development Strategy (GRIDS) planning exercise in 2005, all six development proposals included a 3,000 acre urban boundary expansion around the airport - even though the expansion violated seven of the nine GRIDS Directions.

The boundary expansion was called “Aerotropolis” after a model by John Kasarda, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. According to Kasarda, eighteenth century cities grew around shipping ports, nineteenth century cities grew around rail nodes, and twentieth century cities grew around highways. He believes twenty-first century cities will grow around airports, as people demand the speed, flexibility, and convenience that only air transport can provide. In the aerotropolis economy, the three As ("accessibility, accessibility, accessibility") replace the three Ls ("location, location, location"), as high-tech companies leverage proximity to the airport.

It sounds impressive, and Kasarda's description is nuanced - a dense, diverse, well-planned, and even aesthetically pleasing mix of complementary facilities and amenities. However, the city's plan, now called the Airport Economic Growth District (AEGD), doesn't do this. Instead, we get a collection of large, low-density, single-use lots used mainly for warehousing and logistics (two-thirds of the total land) with a little bit of high-tech manufacturing and some coffee shops, gas stations and strip plazas.

A large part of the area is dedicated to so-called prestige business uses, which include: building and lumber supply, motor vehicle sales and service, convention centres, couriers, equipment and machinery sales and service, hotels, administrative offices, laboratories, union halls, manufacturing, offices, private power generation, repair services, research and development, surveying and planning, trade schools, skilled trade shops, transport terminals, transportation depots, and warehouses. Yes, according to the city, warehousing and transportation qualify as "prestige business".

Even that proposed land use is optimistic. A number of land owners have appealed the city's plan to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), either because they want their land rezoned for residential development or they want their land added to the AEGD area and rezoned for residential development.

While City planners and councillors insist we need thousands of acres of highway-accessible industrial employment land, the fact is that we have spent the past several years caving into developer pressure and rezoning existing highway-accessible industrial employment lands for residential and big box commercial use.

The most likely result if the AEGD goes ahead is that taxpayers will shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs and then turn the land over to home builders as a way of recouping some of that money.

After decades of unsustainable suburban expansion, Hamilton remains committed to a policy of ongoing sprawl, and the AEGD is part of that policy. Our density targets just barely meet the absolute minimum under the Provincial Places to Grow mandate, and most of the intensification is back-filled into the latter part of the 2015-2031 period.

In 2009, councillors rejected a proposal by Councillor Brian McHattie to increase the city's downtown density target from 250 people+jobs per hectare to 400. In responding to the request, city planner Bill Janssen came out and admitted that a higher density target would threaten the city's plans to expand the urban boundary:

“The one concern that we have with increasing, or having a target in the plan that we don't know we can achieve, it may impact what other development can be undertaken, particularly in greenfield developments.”

Even worse, the City's official position is that we have hardly any available brownfield lands in the existing built area. A study by Hemson Consulting that was presented to Council in 2007 concluded that there weren't any brownfield opportunities to speak of and that the city's only economic development option was to focus on warehousing and logistics around the airport.

It was so one-sided that even Council noticed, and they directed staff to come back with a more realistic assessment of the city's brownfields. A follow-up study, also by Hemson, redefined the city's approximately 1,400 brownfield properties almost entirely out of existence, concluding that only two percent of the old industrial area is available for redevelopment - 91 sites totalling less than 75 acres. Despite its mandate, the report excluded underutilized lands like parking lots, scrapyards, and empty warehouses.

Let me close with a quote from Richard Gilbert, who prepared a Peak Oil report for the City in 2006:

“There is a certain amount of thinking [in Hamilton] of putting the land first and then wondering how to fill the land with jobs. What I'm proposing is an alternative way of going about it, which is figuring out what you want to do and then after you've defined it a bit, what the lands are for that particular thing.”

Any business case for airport-oriented development evaporated with the end of cheap fossil fuel energy. The only economically sustainable way for Hamilton to move forward is to make much more effective use of its existing land, already serviced by municipal infrastructure and currently under-performing. AEGD is a red herring, an excuse to expand the urban boundary so home builders can squeeze a little more money out of sprawl. It's an economic dead-end that will preclude sound investments in increasing the economic productivity of the city we already have.

Ryan McGreal

The aerotropolis plan should not proceed without the full public discussion that has never occurred. That discussion – far more than the one over a stadium in the west harbour – is essentially about what kind of city do we want to have and can we afford to have.

The aerotropolis will beggar redevelopment of the older city, make LRT financially impossible, and destroy large amounts of prime agricultural land precisely at the time when climate change is threatening our food security and the demand for local food is growing.

City finance staff describe servicing the aerotropolis as one of the two biggest financial challenges facing the city (the other is the $2 billion plan to expand and upgrade water and sewer infrastructure – and that’s partly for the aerotropolis). The city already has a $2 billion shortfall in maintenance of existing infrastructure, and that deficit is rising by $195 million per year according to public works staff.

The alleged need for a massive expansion of greenfield industrial land is based on growth rates which no one believes Hamilton will achieve, and on a decision to ignore the re-development possibilities on existing industrial land along the bayfront. The official “needs analysis” says less than 2 percent of the bayfront land is available for re-use now or will become available by 2031.

This “analysis” also pads the “need” by assuming 10 percent of business parks will never be developed; another 10 percent will be used for non-industrial facilities like gas stations and coffee shops; and that 20 percent of the remainder should be subtracted to accommodate roads and utilities, etc (the net to gross factor). Even with this padding, the analysis admits there is well over 1500 acres of vacant greenfield land currently available without the aerotropolis. This includes 93 percent of the Airport Business Park that was established in 1992 and has never attracted a single new entrepreneur.

The aerotropolis also assumes 9.5 million passengers a year through the airport – a fantasy even when the aerotropolis was proposed in 2001 and oil was less than $25 a barrel. Not surprisingly the private airport management company is its biggest cheerleader and was part of the “focus group” that came up with the scheme.

Why is it being pushed by city planners? Because it serves the developer-driven agenda to get as much land as possible into the urban boundary before provincial anti-sprawl rules get even tighter, and then to rezone those lands to residential and commercial uses in the same fashion council has carried on for decades.
Don McLean

I am entirely dissatisfied with the Aerotropolis plans. Don McLean is absolutely correct when he points out that it would destroy thousands of acres of rural, food-producing land, which is especially galling considering the amount of acreage already available in Hamilton for developing in brownfields or in other business parks which still have plenty of capacity.

I am simply unconvinced that the project makes sense or that it needs to go next to the airport. Consultants for the city who reported on the AEGD wrote that "Given its attributes, the AEGD's employment lands development potential is anticipated to be concentrated in advanced manufacturing, warehousing, transportation and logistics, business services, and accommodation and food services."

However, the attributes they identified are mainly ones that have nothing to do with proximity to an airport, namely: it's a big chunk of land, it's close to highways and the US, Hamilton has unskilled and skilled labour available, and the price of land is competitive. Which of course begs the question: if proximity to an airport is just one of many benefits, why is it so necessary to put the AEGD next to the airport?

I believe we would be far better served by focusing on redeveloping our brownfields which are already served by extensive infrastructure. Many of the most desirable types of companies, such as high-technology companies, view downtown locations very attractively, because their employees value dense, urban, walkable neighbourhoods that have good public transit connections. Business parks by the airport are not the future of economic development in North America.

Adrian Duyzer

At the present time, I don't have much faith in this Council (which is almost identical to the last one...and the one before that...) to lead. To lead with any semblance of vision. At almost every turn, it seems to display an awesome ability to snatch failure from the jaws of possibility. Most often this is witnessed in us taking what is given us, out of a benign sense of desperation rather than making solid decisions based on the kind of perspective and context displayed by mature entities.

So putting on my 'pithy' cap: No, I do not believe we should be moving in the direction of AEGD. I do not believe the project is warranted; even now, our population growth has come nowhere near projections for the city, so one of the fundamental 'reasons' it's been so dogmatically touted as a solution doesn't hold water. 

What grieves me the most in this situation is typical of the status quo in Hamilton, something that is the companion of the dearth of visionary leadership: we're not even having a proper discussion about what is inarguably the most pivotal aspect of our future, far outstripping the importance of LRT, and equal to our infrastructure deficit.
M Adrian Brassington

My views on the Airport Industrial Lands should be well known, since the study to assess the potential job-creating investment of some of these lands began in my administration. Here is what I would say:

1. Many in the group opposing jobs in this area called it the 'new Red Hill Expressway fight' when the city began to investigate options. I think this analogy is accurate at least in terms of the benefits to the city. The RHVP has brought economic benefit to the city, has won environmental awards, and has provided much needed congestion relief to the eastern neighbourhoods. The Airport employment lands will bring benefits as well.

Remember, the city will make investments, but the majority of the costs will be borne by the developers who will benefit from the developments. Remember, the city needs to create opportunities for jobs. The Parkway
allowed us to finish servicing the Red Hill Industrial Park. That's why Canada Bread and others are going there. Without the road, no park; without the park, no investment and jobs.

We have a road in the Airport area. We need to get on with the servicing plans so that companies will have the option of locating there as well. and create jobs.

Larry DiIanni

The "Aerotropolis" has not quite turned out to be the economic driver, nor has it created the expected local employment. Since this scheme was introduced, the area has been shrinking, as housing increased, rendering the "Aerotropolis" even less able to deliver what was promised. With $500 million hanging in the balance, I would expect that city hall planners would re-think the whole idea. More telling is the partisan surveys offered up by opponents, hardly a rational analysis, as nimbyism is alive and well in Hamilton, especially residents who live near the Airport, which has been there for a very long time. As a homeowner paying high taxes I'm left wondering how much more I can take, while getting very little in return, just the basic services like everyone else. The city has about 180,000 taxpayer accounts, who pay all of the costs for services that Hamilton's 520,000 residents enjoy. Businesses also contribute huge taxes too, just to open their doors, never mind expand and employ more people. Hamilton council should hold off on this development until everything else that can be used, is used. Brownfield's first, as they are the most expensive, compared to Greenfield development. We already landed two big fish, Canada Bread and Maple Leaf Foods, without the costs of the Aerotropolis attached. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Mark-Alan Whittle

To achieve real progress in Hamilton, we need to develop a broader repertoire of 'building types' than we are currently used to. It is from this ability that new uses and new types of jobs will be created.

My views on the immense potential for the AEGD lands were shared in 2010:

The AEGD as presently conceived is contrary to all best practices in planning and is simply unsustainable. If our city is to achieve economic and ecological sustainability, it is imperative that the HamiltonGreenPort (see: http://goo.gl/ThthU) be used as a base reference to undertake a community re-visioning of the AEGD.

In keeping with the spirit of HamiltonGreenPort, our airport and surrounding lands form an highly critical node of the north-south green axis, hence innovative building types and alternative forms of development need to be studied in greater detail to avoid further stressing our resources with unsustainable models of economic development.

Below are two innovative project/building types which are far more relevant for visioning the AEGD lands:

Educational: Innovative Farming & Ecology Institute with ancillary facilities - which use the surrounding lands for developing large export niche-markets for strategically grown local produce, plants, flowers and herbs (see: http://goo.gl/JhMsl). This should be developed in strategic collaboration with the HIA corporation as a hedge against drop in air passenger traffic. HIA can use this approach to confidently reinvent itself as the world's first true sustainable airport with captive green cargo traffic (see: http://goo.gl/Oll6V), and develop many more such path-breaking innovations (see: http://goo.gl/bmHnY) to redefine airport sustainability in light of diminishing fossil fuel supply.

Eco-Recreational: A very large scale all season eco-recreational facility (see: http://goo.gl/PWTqV) based on the Eden Project (see: http://goo.gl/4Fhm6) in Cornwall, UK. This building type (see: http://goo.gl/afnUy) can establish the rational for year around regional & international tourist traffic, resulting in sustainable air passenger traffic for the HIA, and a dependable market for hotels, bed & breakfasts and ancillary commercial/service use, on the south-east part of the airport along the Upper James axis.

With the potential of large scale local employment creation on the already serviced lands (on the upper James Corridor) of the HamiltonGreenPort north-south axis, the AEGD lands around the airport can be used far more creatively by the construction industry to position the City of Hamilton as a serious contender for the title of a true sustainable city, with a thriving clean-green economy.
Mahesh P. Butani

Over the next twenty years, the population of Hamilton should grow by 100,000 to 150,000 people. A "sustainable" city offers its citizens local employment. While there will be some growth in the public
sector (hospital, schools, colleges, universities, etc.), there will need to be growth in the private sector. Where will those companies locate?

Clearly, one strategy is to "recycle" existing industrial lands - so- called brownfield redevelopment. However, I think there is a hope to see the waterfront (where much industry located when Hamilton had its boom) redeveloped as a place for people to live and recreate. Thus there is a need for "new" or "greenfield" industrial land. In that sense, I support growth around the airport. Locating businesses near the airport makes more sense than locating housing nearby. Some of these new businesses will take advantage of Hamilton's transportation base - roads, harbour, airport. This is a natural fit. Some people worry about "peak oil" and whether there will even be air travel in 25 years. To date, "we" have found ways to keep producing the energy society demands. In the U.S., both presidential candidates have pledged to make the U.S.A. energy-independent by 2020!

I think calling this "aerotropolis" scares people (much like calling the amalgamated City of Hamilton a "megacity"). To the naked eye, I don't think there will anything "tropolis" about this development.
Concern is a natural reaction from neighbours. However, development will happen slowly, in fits and starts, with plenty of environmental assessment and public meeting, and, likely by 2031, there will still be plenty of land being used by agriculture. It is prudent planning to be looking decades ahead - one does not wait until there is 100 acres left before beginning the hunt for more land. It is sustainable development to think about local employment for a city's citizens (rather than perpetuating a commuter mentality). This is not a scary
thing.

Marvin Ryder

When I ran for Councillor in the 2010 election, this very topic was discussed by myself and a wonderful gentleman who was employed by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce...
Aerotropolis/AEGD was (and still is) a huge concern for myself; it was by far~ the one issue~ that we did not agree on and here is why...

VALUABLE, PRODUCTIVE FARMLAND WILL BE ABOLISHED!
Unless you have physically been on many of the farms that are in this area; it would be hard to comprehend the detrimental loss and impact it will have on our local food base!
The soil and landscape of the area that will be destroyed~ FOREVER ~produces (was producing) large quantities of vegetables, grain, soya bean etc.
Do we want LOCAL produce OR do we want to look to other Communities for our FOOD?

A comment that came from one of my favourite Councillors, still echoes in my head "They are tired" (referring to the Farmers, that wish to sell)... He knows first hand just how difficult it is to make a living as a farmer in today's society. ( A topic for another time; yet worth mentioning because until ALL levels of our Government wake up and ensure that viable land is not turned into 'EMPLOYMENT AREAS' ~ THAT LEGITIMATE FARMERS DO HAVE FINANCIAL SECURITY ~ WE will be choking our future generation of fresh grown produce...

Alas, we apparently have a 'GREENBELT PLAN' that should ensure that our 'class soils' are not developed...This proposed area of 'new growth' is in contradiction to the very crux of this legislated plan. Why is Council/Staff so quick to ignore the BASIC GUIDELINES? Instead of using the "$500,000,000.00" on obliviating our productive greenspace; they should be concentrating on our dilapidated industrial buildings and brownfields that are in the core...

If a committed company needs more property (larger parcels may be necessary); then in fill where the lands are already being developed. ~ A prime example of this faux pas is in Flamborough...Prior to amalgamation, Clappison's Corners was considered one of the most prestigious areas in Ontario for Commercial/Industrial lands. It has easy access to 403, QEW, 401 and now 407...The corner itself, now looks like a ghost Town with the exception of a gas station, Tim Horton's and Wendy's...
The new City decided that 'Big Box' stores would be the way to go on the North East/South East side...The visual corners are being converted into a Cloverleaf of bypasses; the pre-existing 'Innovation Centre' is tucked into the SouthWest corner. Further along on the NorthWest side, a large industrial plant was allowed and has ample acreage for industrial uses (still not to capacity. It too should have remained agricultural in the North end ~ too late...).

Ironically enough, another 2.8 km away to the West is my business...less than another km away is a private airport, then another 1.5km an Industrial Park...YET, my commercial property that was site specific (possibly less constrained) for a Flea Market (paying huge commercial taxes) is being told that I must convert back to Agricultural. My company has been at this location since the mid 1960's ~ it is a Tourist destination, commercial mercantile/storage and yet I am now in this Greenbelt? ~ I am being told that my best usage is a farm...No consultation nor visits until I spoke up...If the City ROP has their way I CONVERT FROM COMMERCIAL TO AGRICULTURAL...on a King's Highway, in between two Industrial Parks!

Don't get me wrong~ I do not want to harm my back 49 acres ~ it is not flat land ~nor farmable ~ it is a beautiful, virgin piece of land that I intend on preserving If I could uproot my 5 acre gravel and asphalt driveway, demolish my nine buildings that sit on 10 acres, flatten the entire property, add fertile soil ~ farm it and make a decent living ~ I would do it.

What would and should make sense is for me to maintain my Commercial status (giving $38,000.00 year in taxes for moot) ~ grow my business responsibly ~ have small commercial Tenants AND grow my already established Antique & Flea Market. Instead, I am getting the EXACT OPPOSITE of Aerotropolis ~ from the SAME people ~ that are trying to plough over thousands of food based land!

To answer this question more precisely (sorry for the rant)~ The entire plan is "unproven" and IMHO "unneeded" at this time...We have areas ~ pockets ~ in LESS rural areas that can compete better...the proposed Aerotropolis (I don't buy "Employment") lands will need millions of dollars in infrastructure...

Our core NEEDS to be rejuvenated ~for any of the smaller companies with mixed usage/ family friendly/productive parcels to be enticed and proud to be in the core...For the few larger companies that need acres to build monster factories, build them on our existing "shovel ready" properties...

Until we get our downtown up and running at at least 90% occupied and thriving ~ we need to stop with the 'planning' wishes and dreams...

Our 'old City' is the heart...our surrounding 'rural' areas are the arteries...until the heart is pumping strong ~ the arteries will not flourish.

" Our product is steal ~ Our strength is people " is long gone... " Our product is diversified ~ Our strength is people" should be our goal.

Hamilton has the chance to revitalize, rejuvenate, RE-INVENT and RE-PURPOSE the properties that are now 'antiquated' ~ so similar to my motto for all of the merchandise that my Vendors bring each week to sell~

WE HAVE IT, LET US USE IT! LET US MAKE BETTER OF WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE...do not discard it nor dismiss it, just because it is considered old and not useful...

I applaud everyone who has vision for our future growth in all sectors...I stand by and support only the ones that make long term sense.

Danya Scime

To read what Mayor Bratina had to say about Aerotropolis, click here. 
To read what Clr. Brenda Johnson had to say, click here.

And, of course, if you would like to contribute to the discussion, feel free to post your views on this thread.