Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnguys
As mentioned before a lot of that land you refer to is severely contaminated and will require remediation that costs 10’s of millions, if not over $100m. Let’s pick the vast low hanging fruit first, like Smythe St area and Prince William, Water streets
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Are any of these locations known to be severely contaminated?
Much of the AIM site may be, but I don't think the offices are.
Did you actually watch the video where Trudeau talked about the idea?
• Video Link
Based on what he said, the federal government could allow condos and apartments to be built right on top of the cruise ship terminal buildings, or beside them.
Is this mess on the corner of Broad and Charlotte critical to port operations? I doubt it! Build some apartments here, and clean up this streetfront.
There's more than 300 acres of federally owned port lands in Saint John, it goes without saying some of it remains far under-utilized, and non critical to port operations, where they could absolutely squeeze in some housing.
The Port CEO was on CBC Information Morning Saint John and was asked about the topic of building housing on port lands in response to Trudeau's video (around 7:40 mark), and his response was actually far more positive than many of the posters on here have been regarding Trudeau's idea. He specifically said for anything to happen, it would have to come down from the minister of transport, but that it could be possible... and that we do need to get bold and start thinking outside the current paradigm to fix the housing crisis.
While, there's certainly far lower hanging fruit in Saint John to build housing, this is a fruit that would ultimately come with far more federal funding than the average project, or could even entirely federally funded depending on the project. I think it's worth looking into when it was the Prime Minister himself that presented the idea to the public.