Marsh reprieve
Hearings on the fate of the Garner Road marsh have been pushed off again as developers scramble to bolster their case for “relocating” the wetland to accommodate construction of five warehouses and parking for more than a thousand vehicles. Fifteen days of hearings before the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) that were supposed to have taken place two months ago are now scheduled to not start until late February 2025.
An OLT case management conference on December 15 confirmed that it was the developer, ONE Properties Inc, who sought the delay so they could gather new information. They did so after reviewing expert evidence submitted last summer by the Hamilton Conservation Authority and Environmental Defence who are both opposing the marsh destruction.
ONE Properties appealed to the OLT hearings in the summer of 2021 after it failed to convince the Conservation Authority board to allow the marsh to be destroyed and a replacement pond dug adjacent to the Highway 6 bypass that borders the 140 Garner Road property. That rejection was advocated by over 200 letters and several citizen delegates who subsequently formed Save Our Streams Hamilton.
The significance of the marsh and the implications of destroying it were highlighted in an acclaimed video produced by Craig Cassar who has since been elected to Hamilton City Council. More recently these issues have been examined in a new children’s book that lets the wetland inhabitants tell their own story.
The marsh is part of the headwaters of Ancaster Creek, one of Hamilton’s last remaining cold water streams that drains into Cootes Paradise. At the December 15 hearings, the HCA lawyer pointed to “community concerns” and the need for the OLT to base its decision on a full factual record.
The developers reported they have now hired a hydrologist to examine the marsh this coming spring to determine its water sources. The lawyer for Environmental Defence, Phil Pothen, successfully won agreement that his group’s experts can also visit the Garner Road property this spring to gather additional ecological information.
ONE Properties is owned by a provincial crown corporation called the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). It is promising that their hydrologist will complete a report by July of 2024. On that basis, they pressed for hearings to take place this coming November, but that schedule was opposed by the other parties to the hearings including the lawyer representing the City of Hamilton.
The lands at issue are zoned for industrial development as part of the city’s Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD) formerly known as the Aerotropolis approved in 2015. While the city is opposing the marsh destruction, it has recently initiated a planned widening of the adjacent Garner Road to four lanes.
