Brownfield development along Parry Sound’s waterfront has been made a lot easier after multiple legislative changes by the Ontario government.
The Ontario government has amended several acts, including the Environmental Protection Act, the Municipal Act, the Municipal Tax Act and the Ontario Water Resources Act to encourage the clean up and redevelopment of brownfields.
Thelma Gee, senior planner for the provincial planning and environmental services branch of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MAH), says several of the changes have already been proclaimed except the first portion of the Environmental Protection Act and the Municipal Act as it relates to tax assistance.
“What we’ve done is look at these issues on three different fronts - the planning perspective, financing and environmental liability,” Gee says. “By environmental liability, what we mean is the regulatory orders relating to administrative orders that can be issued by the Ministry of Environment. We have provided certainty that, if land has been cleaned to certain standards and if municipalities have secured creditors or taken certain actions, they will be protected. They will not have to worry that the Ministry of Environment is going to come in at some time in the future and slap an order on them.”
Gee says people are still unaware of what the legislation is about and so are hesitant to proceed on development of brownfield property.
Parry Sound director of community development Iain Laing says two of three such properties on the town’s Georgian Bay waterfront will benefit from these changes, provided their owners decide to go forward with development.
The site of the Charles W. Stockey Centre and the Bobby Orr Museum is a former bulk-oil storage facility originally owned by Weaver Liquifuels and later by Ultramar, but is now owned by the town, says Laing.
The town purchased the eight-acre property in 1986. Its cleanup will cost approximately $300,000.
Laing says a numbered company owns one approximately seven- to 10-acre property and another 15-acre property is owned by Imperial Oil.
“The old system is a guideline system,” says Laing. “Before, you could simply go out and hire a consultant you were comfortable with to do a cleanup and give you a report saying everything’s fine now. Under the new system, there will be specific qualifications that people will have to be certified under.”
Laing adds there are several federal regulations that have also come into effect.
“There is a whole legislative framework that is still evolving,” he says.
“We’re working on a number of initiatives to get those sites reused,” says Laing. “They are in private hands so we’re trying to facilitate the private sector to bring development plans for those areas.”
In the case of Imperial, Laing says the company is hesitant to move forward with selling or redeveloping the property because of liability concerns.
They are also hoping to receive a development proposal from the numbered company.
“We’re trying to enlist the aid of anyone we can to convince them to be more co-operative,” he says, including various provincial ministries, government representatives and even former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Chris Hodgson.
Imperial Oil spokesperson Kim Fox says there are no plans by Imperial to either sell or redevelop their lands.
There has been some cleanup already done on the property, but for now, it sits idle.
“We’re not selling because of issues of ongoing liability and business risk,” she says, adding the company is hoping to see recommendations by the National Round Table on Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) adopted before there is consideration of selling the property. There are nine recommendations regarding environmental liability and risk management.
The problem, says Fox, is there is no government body in place to sign off on the clean up of a site, and provincial and federal environmental cleanup standards are constantly changing and evolving.
“For us, the risk is unquantified and perpetual, so even if the site meets the most stringent environmental standards of today, a business is still liable five, 10 or even 15 years down the road,” she says.
“The interesting thing about it is all these properties are waterfront properties, which makes them even more valuable,” says Laing.
He says the frustration stems from the fact that while the properties sit idle, they do not generate any more economic opportunity for the municipality or add to its tax base. Under the Planning Act’s previous provisions for community improvement plans, the municipality had already set up a development incentive through tax remediation.
The program pays back a portion of taxes paid on the property once its developed, says Laing.
“The Stockey Centre is closely aligned with our downtown,” Laing says. “We want to promote tourist development there so downtown visitors will go to the waterfront and waterfront visitors will go to the downtown. The zoning on the other properties is for higher density residential and other types of commercial development. We’ve got some pretty attractive zoning to try and spur some development down there.
“It’s all about someone having a lot of money and recognizing the opportunity that exists and then bringing the two together,” he says.
