The Incumbent’s Take on the Re-purposing of the McCormick Lands

Councilor Orser’s campaign website came up recently and, like all such websites, is a must read for all voters looking for information on candidates for council.

What I found of particular interest is the section on the McCormick Lands. I reproduce it below:

McCormick's Building

As you are aware, I promise nothing other than being a full time Councillor.

I feel this area McCormick's is starting to look like a little Detroit. It is time to start demolishing these old run down fire traps and building homes for families and maybe a seniors high-rise. I feel getting this next job done would greatly improve the area, home values. It would help keep Lorne Ave school open and improve the outlook for Ward 4, so I have been bringing major developers down to look at these properties with the hopes of starting something soon. As a full time Councillor I'm able to do this for you.

The McCormick Lands are an 87 acre parcel of land north of Dundas Street between Burbrook Place and Ashland Avenue. The properties making up this parcel are all in private ownership and the land is zoned General Industrial.

It is unusual for a parcel of land of this size to be subjected to an Area Planning process, but sorting out the challenges and opportunities for these underutilized lands is considered to be of such importance to the neighbourhood that the city has agreed to do exactly that.

Mr. Orser has the same right as any other citizen to express an opinion on the future of these lands. As the sitting councilor for the ward that contains the lands, however, his opinions must meet a higher standard. On to problem one:

The lands are all in private ownership. Would the incumbent have us believe that the City of London is interested in expropriating these lands from their owners so that these “old run down fire traps” can be demolished? If not expropriation, then he must be saying that potential buyers would be interested in purchasing these properties at their speculative value for redevelopment as residential lands. On to problem two:

If one reads the Phase 1 Report, as any full-time councilor must certainly have done, residential redevelopment of this site is complicated by two factors. – the potential for environmental contamination from a century of industrial use, requiring brownfield remediation, which seldom makes residential redevelopment economically feasible, even with the incentive programs available to developers; and, the proximity of the London Psychiatric Hospital Lands, currently in the process of redevelopment as an infill residential mixed-use neighbourhood and containing much more easily-developed land for residential uses. Which property developer is going to get involved in residential infill development on brownfield lands when greenfield opportunities exist but a few blocks away? On to problem three, and this is the big one, in my view:

The area planning process is a public process. In this particular case, the city has gone to great lengths to consult often and in detail with residents. There have been a number of public participation meetings at which several dozen of the incumbent’s constituents have come together with city planners to work their way through creating a vision for the area. The work is ongoing. There have been differences of opinion. But a consensus seems to be emerging. A full-time councilor would have found the time to participate in this planning process. The incumbent hasn’t. Not a single one of our public meetings.

Not that this is unusual. I have attended most of the public meetings held in the neighbourhood, and we hold a lot of them. I don’t remember ever seeing the incumbent at any of them.

Not the McCormick Area Study public participation meetings.

Not any of the Open Houses held by the community to introduce designs for the various redevelopment projects.

Not the Community Associations AGMs.

I also attend a lot of public participation meetings in this city, most recently on the city’s Affordable Housing Strategy, the Downtown Master Plan, the SoHo public meetings, the Transportation Master Plan, the Southwest Area Plan, and so on. I’m constantly amazed by the number of local politicians who are in attendance. I think I’ve seen almost every councilor or controller at least once, several on many occasions, and a few at every meeting. But never the incumbent in Ward 4. None of these people prattle on about their “full-time” status, yet they are there. Councilor Orser has made a fetish of his full-time work, but he is never there.

Our local councilor appears to be “missing in action”. Ward 4 deserves real representation, and I intend to deliver just this over the next four years.