Mayor Brockman? Liberal Leader Ignatieff forgets Mayor Bratina's name

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff forgot Mayor Bratina’s last name, referring to him as “Mayor Brockman” at the “Working Families” tour last week. 

“I don’t want to drag Mayor Bob in. It sounds like (the question) has his name on it too,” said Ignatieff. “I’m saying I want to sit down with Mayor Brockman and say what the federal government can do. I have to work with Mayor Brockman to make that happen. I don’t want to put you on the spot. You might have something to say.”

Stoney Creek Resident frustrated by flooding, blames heavy development.

In the flood back in the summer of 2009 my entire street, which is Teal Avenue, flooded.  As the youngest homeowner on the block I was devastated to find out that our basement was filled with water and many of our belongs as well as the foundation to our home was ruined.  I was bailing water for hours until my parents came to help and it wasn’t until I went outside that I saw every single person in the same situation.  New homes that were just built on my street had even flooded out.  People who had backup emergency pumps still flooded. That day was the worst day ever.  Not only did our whole community flood (Church Street, Green Road, Frances and Teal) but our beloved Turtle Pond swelled from all the water rushing down to the lake and it burst out into Lake Ontario.  Standing there at the mouth of the pond watching half the water drain out like Niagara Falls was heart wrenching.  The pond has never regained the water to this day and you can tell that there were and will be long lasting effects to the wildlife who live here and use this pond each day.

In my opinion the water (flooding) has been getting worse as the years go by.  I had noticed once the Red Hill Parkway was completed there seemed to be more issues of swelling and drainage problems.

This flood was not caused by a plugged sewer drain.  There are real issues regarding the flood plains in our community.  The issues are so severe for some that they are not able to claim through their insurance anymore.

In relation to the flooding issue that was talked about in this article was also a mention to the newest development going on in our community right now.  It’s called the “Green Millen Estates” which is on Green Road.

Let it be clear that the community did not want this development.  

I attended all of the public meetings for this development and no one was interested in listening to what we “the community” had to say.  I do not understand why there are public meetings where they ask for our input and then they go back to the board or the city and tell them the exact opposite.

We understand that this piece of property had been scheduled since the 1970s, according to Maria Pearson, but this is not the 1970s anymore.  This was scheduled at a time when there was nothing but forest and country down here.  Now everything is built up and rammed in to every last spot and we are really starting to see the effects from this.  Can you believe that the community posed questions to the City planning department, which then was directed to the developer, which was then directed to Dougan & Associates who did the environmental impact study – and not one person could get back to us with the questions we asked.  We asked a series of questions that included questions on flooding, the environment, our safety, the wildlife, the seawall they have to construct – and not once in an email or by letter did we get any answers.  The process you have at the City for citizens to get involved with development projects in their communities is broken and unfair.

Can the City not purchase some of these lands in question?  What about the properties mentioned at 560 Grays Road?  It is shown in the new urban official plan mapping as a “linkage” for the natural heritage system.  How could this not have been mentioned in the report going to council?  This is why we question plans that have been on the table for years for development!  Why must we stuff every last green space with a townhouse complex or apartment building?  Especially when it is evident that the infrastructure cannot be supported down here.  There are 2 ESAs in our area alone which I think it something special, something the City should think is worth holding onto.  I am sure that there are other places in this City that fit the same criteria.  Why are we not doing the right thing for our citizens?  More studies should be put into areas with extreme flooding issues.  We should all feel safe and secure in our homes in a storm.  And why are we not protecting the green spaces and wildlife in Hamilton for all to enjoy in the future?  

Hamilton Councillors RAIN on local business owner

A decision to host a City subsidized truckload rain barrel sale was approved by members of Hamilton’s City Council today.  On the surface, it sounds like a great idea, but residents already have access to several truckload rain barrel sales offering equivalent products at equivalent prices without government involvement or taxpayer subsidies. So why would Councillors approve the investment of staff resources and tax dollars to host another rain barrel sale? Perhaps Councillor Pearson answered it best when she stated, “during the election campaign, constituents mentioned how much they like the rain barrel program.”

Many municipalities throughout Ontario have waded into the rain barrel waters by offering subsidies and providing bulk buying opportunities for residents. Hamilton City staff claim this is one of the reasons that Council directs them to host a sale; other communities are doing it, so why not Hamilton? Larry Pomerantz, owner of RainBarrel.ca made a presentation that clearly showed the City could save thousands of dollars by cancelling its taxpayer funded sale and residents would still have access to multiple truckload rain barrel sale events. Pomerantz asked “why should seniors, students and apartment dwellers see their taxes support a City-run rain barrel sale when local business is offering the same product and service at no additional cost?” Staff suggested canceling the City-run 2011 rain barrel sale, but Councillor Ferguson cautioned making any changes that would upset residents.

Three years ago Pomerantz met with City staff to ensure they were aware of his local business’ capacity to supply rain barrels. When staff informally invited three companies to bid, Pomerantz was left off the list. Over the past two years, the City has invested upwards of $80,000 to remove another $100,000 from the local economy by awarding rain barrel contracts to businesses outside of the region. Pomerantz states, “there is no way they can call this economic development”. “The City will once again use our tax dollars to compete against my local business in a clear attempt to gain voter approval for sitting Councillors.”  Pomerantz claims the rain barrel issue is a symptom of a much larger problem. “Governments at every level are not being held accountable for decisions made that benefit government at the expense of the taxpayer”. He encourages residents to call, email and write their Councillors, “to keep them honest”.

RainBarrel.ca has truckload rain barrel sales scheduled for Hamilton (April 16^th), Burlington (April 30^th), Waterdown (May 7^th) and Ancaster (May 21^st). Each sale benefits a local non-profit organization and all orders must be placed online, in advance through the RainBarrel.ca website or by calling 905-545-5577. Unlike past City events, there will be no proof of residency requirements, no limit to the number of rain barrels that can be purchased and a guaranteed supply of rain barrels, so no one leaves disappointed.

RainBarrel.ca reclaims food grade barrels previously used to import fruits and vegetables to be reused as rain barrels. Partnerships with local non-profit organizations result in fundraising truckload sales events for dozens of communities in Ontario. For more information, please contact Larry Pomerantz, Larry@RainBarrel.ca, call 905-545-5577 or visit www.RainBarrel.ca.

Stoney Creek Lake Shore Developments causing flooding?

Stoney Creek News Article

The head of the Community Beach Turtle Ponds Association is urging the city to do more study on three shoreline properties in Stoney Creek before allowing them to be sold to developers.
Sherry Revesz said she’s worried construction on the sites will only add to ongoing flooding problems between Grays and Millen roads, particularly along Frances Avenue.She said even new condo developments are experiencing problems with flooding and sinking porches because concerns are falling on deaf ears at city hall.


Two of the properties in question are owned by the Ontario Realty Corporation, while the third belongs to the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, which has declared the site surplus to its needs. All three were offered to the city at market value, but council voted last month not to buy them.
“You can ask anybody in the neighbourhood. They’ll tell you it’s always had (flooding) issues. It’s just one thing after another,” Revesz said.


“They have to understand that people live here and those are big issues when you start having basements flooding out and your roads flooding out and it goes up to your house. It can start weakening foundations.” Environment Hamilton is also criticizing city planning reports clearing the properties for sale, contending staff’s analysis failed to consider their ecological and hydrological roles. Executive director Lynda Lukasik said two of the properties – one by the southwest corner of Frances and Millen, the other by the southeast corner of Frances and Grays – have marshland features and are near environmentally sensitive areas. They may also be home to significant species, she said.


The third property, immediately east of Bayview West Park, is a largely open field to the south of Lakeview Drive between the Fruitland Road exit ramp and a curving stretch of the North Service Road.
Lukasik wants the city to consult its own natural heritage planners and the Hamilton Conservation Authority before allowing any development.

“Let’s just slow down and make sure that we’re not making any problematic decisions here, that we’re taking a look at everything we need to look at before we move ahead,” she said.
“Clearly that area has been repeatedly hard hit with the high-intensity storms that we’re having these days. People in those neighbourhoods are rightfully concerned not only for the existing natural areas and the impacts that they’re experiencing, but also homeowners who are experiencing flooding problems on their properties and homes as well.” Ward 10 Councillor Maria Pearson, who represents the area, said all three sites have been earmarked for development for decades and she’s not sure why there are concerns.
But she said anyone who buys the properties must address flooding or ecological issues as part of the development approval process.

“If there are issues, they’ll be dealt with,” she said during a tour of the three sites last week.
Pearson said development plans in the area strike a balance between the need for housing and the economic benefits it brings with the preservation of green space.
She pointed to the pending construction of the 900-unit Green Millen Shore Estates, which will bring a mix of high-rise, medium-rise and townhouse condo developments, but sets aside an environmentally sensitive swath of city-owned land running to the lake.

Pearson attributed past flooding by Frances and Church Street to debris clogging a “huge” culvert in the area and said she’s not aware of any problems by the three sites in question.
“These lands from Green to Millen road(s) have been zoned since the Seventies for highrise development,” she said, adding much of it was farmed for a number of years “just to keep the agricultural classification.” 

Hamilton builders warn housing industry must change.

 Hamilton Spectator Article

Everyone has seen the detour signs, they just can’t agree on how they’re going to get around the construction zone.
The detour, in this case, is the growing need for a different kind of home building industry to meet demands for housing intensification in the future.
Those new policies were an undercurrent to the annual gathering Friday of leaders of the Hamilton-Halton Home Builders’ Association, and the mayors of Hamilton and Burlington. Home Builders’ president Frank Mercuri and mayors Bob Bratina and Rick Goldring each noted the coming changes and urged each other to help clear the hurdles.

Laid down by the provincial government in 2005 in a document entitled Places to Grow, the new policies require municipalities to restrict outward growth in favour of smaller lots, infill and more townhouses/apartment buildings within their current boundaries.
Goldring said Burlington has made one move toward the new goal with planning policies controlling the building of so-called “monster homes” in the city — houses much larger than others in their immediate neighbourhoods.

The impact of the new rules, he added, are expected to mean that over the next 10 years single-detached homes will decline to about 24 per cent of new housing starts in Burlington, from the current 42 per cent.
“We know that Greenfield growth is at an end in Burlington and the nature of home building in Burlington is going to change,” he said. “We know that means more infilling and intensification, but we still want Burlington to be a balanced and affordable community. To get there we’re going to collectively have to work together.”
The payoff for the cooperation, he added, will be a better city that uses more public transit and fewer cars and has less of a total environmental impact.

Getting there, however, will require careful communication and public engagement efforts with neighbours of new developments who will inevitably object to changes in their neighbourhoods.
“We know that pressure about these projects will come from the community,” Goldring said. “There are good, valid reasons for the Places to Grow plan, and we need to make those clear.”
On the builder’s side, Mercuri called for clearer municipal planning policies to help avoid long and costly Ontario Municipal Board hearings over projects.

“Those hearings only create bad relations with our neighbours,” he said. “We need some kind of advance education for our new neighbours to get comfortable with the housing types coming into their areas.”
A Hamilton planning study in 2007, laying the groundwork for the city’s intensification policy, also sounded that alarm, warning that neighbour opposition can delay a project to the point where its economics are ruined.
The Hamilton study also warned some changes in civic policies around parking standards, heritage designations and overly restrictive zoning would be required to meet the new standards.
Mercuri also repeated the home builders’ traditional call for restraint in setting municipal development fees, noting those charges already account for more than 40 per cent of the price of a new home in Hamilton — and the city is talking about new storm and waste water levies.

If the politicians are serious about affordable communities, he said, they should remember those charges only serve to drive up the cost of a new home.
“Remember, at the end of the day it’s the homebuyer who ends up paying every one of those fees, taxes and levies,” he said.
Bratina also joined the “we have to work together” chorus, adding intensification holds special promise for underused space in downtown Hamilton, where he hopes to continue living.
“I’m going to need somewhere to live downtown, and not a little apartment above a tattoo parlour,” he said.

Hamilton puts off area rating for one more year.

 Hamilton Spectator Article

Smiling suburban councillors Judi Partridge and Lloyd Ferguson exchanged a happy high-five after winning the vote to put off remodelling area rating for yet another year.
But their triumphant slap of hands might just as well have landed on the faces of the members of the Citizens’ Forum, who had just seen their input sacrificed to the petty political gods that rule Hamilton council.
Council created the citizens’ group last year to make recommendations on how to fix the unfair tax policy that has pitted the inner city against the suburbs since amalgamation.

But after a four-hour meeting Monday night — including a presentation and Q&A with forum reps — the general issues committee voted 8-6 to study a new bolt-from-the-blue proposal from the three local chambers of commerce.
That’s colloquially known as being bitch-slapped.
Hopefully, council’s show of disrespect to the community volunteers and to the spirit of the agreed-upon forum process won’t deter other citizens from throwing their hearts and souls into contentious city issues in the future.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
Besides reducing citizen engagement to both farce and façade, the move effectively stalls fixing long-standing imbalances for this taxation year, which was the previous council’s stated goal when the citizens’ group was formed.


According to city finance director Rob Rossini, it will now take at least another six months to analyze the chambers’ “vague” proposal, which pushes any tax reform into the 2012 budget cycle.
If councillors remain true to form, chances are they’ll find an excuse for preserving the status quo next year, too.
There’s no mystery to the politics of this.
A change to area rating means the suburban communities of Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Stoney Creek and Glanbrook would pay more for some city services,
But it would also mean many households in those communities would finally be paying their fair share instead of being subsidized by inner city taxpayers.
In brief, area rating is a tax system used since amalgamation to cushion suburban tax rates by permitting different areas to pay lower amounts, depending on the fire, transit, and culture and recreation services they receive.


Right now, the tax breaks are artificially based on the boundaries of the former preamalgamation communities. That means some urbanized areas within those communities are receiving the same or close to the same services as the inner city but paying substantially less for them.
To address the inequities, city staff studied the issue for more than a year and then in 2009 came up with some options, including a model that more fairly aligned taxation to costs and actual service levels along urban/rural lines.

Rather than go there, council established the citizens’ forum to study the issue. Several months, meetings, focus groups and much research later, the 17 forum members, comprised of reps of all city wards and guided by the principle of fairness and the common good, largely agreed with staff.
The chambers of commerce, on the other hand, argue the divisive issue is more complex than an urban/rural solution, They want to move to a “geographic service zone” model, which seems to mean taking a micro look at service delivery across the city and taxing people accordingly.
The hazy idea was a lifeline to the suburban councillors, supported by Mayor Bob Bratina and east Mountain councillor Tom Jackson. It allowed them to run for cover for another year rather than politically braving up.
Councillor Russ Powers of Dundas wasn’t at the meeting, but two years ago, when the idea of the citizens’ forum first surfaced, he cut through all the obscuring shadow and fog like nobody had before or since.
Powers told council that of course he was going to vote to study the issue longer rather than accept a change that would lead to a tax increase for his residents.

“Am I selfish? Yes,” Powers said. “Am I parochial? Yes. Am I biased? Yes.”
Apparently selfishness, parochialism and bias still pull the strings on this issue while the forum turned out to be little more than an expedient façade for political ward-heelers and wimps to hide behind until a new hidey-hole comes along.

Hamilton smoking ban starts May 1st 2012

You have just over a year to enjoy smoking in Hamilton parks, beaches and open spaces. The city’s board of health unanimously approved a ban on smoking Monday now awaits a March 9^th vote by Hamilton City Councillors. If approved Hamilton joins a lengthy list of municipalities who have chosen to go down anti smoking road like Toronto, Barrie and Collingwood to mention a few.

The Winona Peach Festival would be affected by this ban because it is a City owned park, might take some time and getting used to for the many smokers out there.  It is estimated that 23 percent of Hamiltonians are smokers and a shocking 53 percent are exposed to second hand smoke.

Enforcement would be done on a complaint basis, sort of like a noise or snow removal complaint with fines going up as high as $365. Smoking, not only bad for your health will now potentially be bad for your wallet in more ways than one. There is still the big question of jurisdictional issues that will confuse many residents of what is considered a park and what properties are exempted.