Photo by Sean Allen, Brant News
Ward 5 councillors David Neumann and Marguerite Ceschi-Smith rallied 40 Eagle Place residents on Saturday morning to spur action to demolish and clean up the 52-acre brownfield site.
Sean Allen
BRANT NEWS
“No more delay. Act now.”
That was the slogan on a sign outside the Greenwich-Mohawk brownfield on Saturday morning.
Ward 5 councillors Marguerite Ceschi-Smith and David Neumann rallied 40 Eagle Place residents in an attempt to spur action to demolish and clean up the 52-acre brownfield site.
“Decisions have been made at council these past few weeks that put this whole project at risk and show just how little political will there is on our council to move this forward,” Ceschi-Smith said. “That is why we need you as a community to stand up.”
The residents, some of them living across the street or nearby the blighted brownfield property, agreed to show up on Monday night at city hall with as much strength as they can muster to demand action.
A motion to commit $19 million to the eventual remediation of the soil at Greenwich-Mohawk is on the council table to be deferred for more information and a better costing.
Some members of council did not feel comfortable with committing to such a large sum of money without a firm estimate.
“When I hear the word deferral, I feel like it’s council’s attempt to put this on the back burner,” resident Ross Bennett said. “We have to go to council to tell them the No. 1 priority should be to get these buildings down.”
The $19 million commitment from the city is required to leverage the $12 million in federal government support that has been sitting idle since it was first promised by outgoing Liberal prime minister Paul Martin.
“That money could be in jeopardy if we don’t get an agreement in place,” Neumann said. “The federal government needs an agreement and a commitment from the municipality about how that money would be spent.”
Neumann and Ceschi-Smith would like to see council vote down the deferral and pass the original motion to approve the $19 million.
The $19 million debenture would increase the city’s ongoing operating budget by $1.15 million.
Residents said they are tired of looking at the worn-down facades and the reminders of the brownfield fires.
One woman said she is embarrassed to invite friends over because they would have to drive past the brownfield to get to her home.
“Let’s go one further,” Bennett said. “Let’s get a motion on Monday to have the buildings torn down by the end of the year.”
Why can’t the City just get some company to tear down the buildings and reclaim (salvage) as much material as possible for resale to offset the cost and then decide how to reclaim the land for future development?
At least if the buildings were gone, the people in Eagle Place would have a field to look at instead of eyesore, delapidated buildings.
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— Gary as long as people beleive that these leaders are environmentalists they are going to squeeze this for every dollar they can. That means huge contracts for artificial soil remediation. This is way bigger then the demolition costs, and so we are being worn down and bamboozled while they manipulate the agenda and our common sense regarding “steam extraction”. All the rest is just a diversion from the main event, which is artificial soil remediation for big dollars.
— They want us screaming for demolition so that we cannot notice the agenda of our money being spent on big useless contracts for soil remediation methods that are designed to remediate gas station soil in downtowns of big cities. Half an acre worth 2 million bucks is what these methods are designed to remediate.
— We have 52 acres worth (total) about 3 million when it is “clean”
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— 19 million dollars was never mentioned as a requirement before. The failure of the Terrasan agenda is what has caused this monetary requirement of city tax-payers, although you will never hear any of them admit to that.
— There is no reason for any of this anyway as it should cost a lot less then 17 million to tear down the buildings and practice natural soil remediation. A lot less. The whole cost of remediation totally (mostly for demolition and asbestos removal), should be less then 7 million dollars, and about 8 to 10 years for plants and microbes to do their thing on the contaminants. Why should we pay anymore so they can get kickbacks from giant artificial soil remediation contracts with Dutch people?
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How about demolishing the lot to get rid of the eyesore, and deferring the soil cleanup?
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— It would take less the 5 million dollars to tear down the buildings and remove the materials. The city had a reserve accountof 5 million dollars, provided by the province for that purpose. Last night at council I found out that that reserve account has about 1.4 million dollars in it!
— So Gary that is the answer to your question. They spent the money!
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Come on, give council a break. They started looking at options for the Sydenham brownfield just 7 years ago. Maybe in a decade or so (after priority spending on Colborne and vicinity projects is complete) we will see some action.
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