Mapping out Hamilton's future

[coalminecanary]

This is dumb. Maybe the city should start by implementing a bylaw that says any house on a certain amount of land needs to get their downspout out of the sewer pipe and onto the lawn. how much of our wastewater management system is spent processing rain? every house i pass has a downspout going straight into the ground. guess where that goes!

[BrianE]

I'm fairly optimistic about hamiltons growth projections. Maybe its because I just moved here in the last 5 years and havn't become jaded yet or having not lived here all my life I can look at things from the outside in.

Here is a small list of the people I know who have moved to hamilton or are planning to move in the near future.

- Myself from sudbury in 2003.
- One of my cousins from Burlington. For reasonably priced housing.
- A coworker of mine just moved recently from Guelph.

- Another cousin is looking to move here from Elmira to be closer to family and take advantage of the low housing costs. She can sell her 300k home and use the equity to buy and renovate a house in hamilton and live almost mortgage free.

-My inlaws may move here if my father inlaws workplace moves to Mississauga from Vaughn. The reason? they don't want and nor can they afford a $300k townhouse condo. They want a single detached house which doesn't exist for under $250k in Miss, Oakville or Burlington.

That's just the people I know and I don't know many people also if you count their spouses (spouses also have jobs) and children thats almost a dozen people.

I guess you could say that I'm the leading edge of 20 somethings just finishing university who are looking for a place on their own with no roomates but can't afford $1000 per month rent. 4 years ago I was renting an apartment in hamilton for $700 per month, now I own a house in hamilton and hamilton buisnesses are benefiting from my well paying job. I'm not the only one, there are going to be more and more people moving to this city and doing just what i've done.

[markbarbera]

From today's Spec:

City must be quick to snag capital funding

January 04, 2008
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 4, 2008)
The city is on a tight deadline to pick a capital project for the province to fund.

The government announced a new $300-million infrastructure investment initiative this week. The one-time program will pay up to 100 per cent of a project's cost and doesn't require the city to match funding.

"We're definitely going to apply," said Joe Rinaldo, the city's finance chief. He said staff have already met to start discussing what project the city could submit.

The city is still waiting for specific criteria, but Rinaldo said he expects the program will want to pay for something already in the works that could be completed quickly. Municipalities must apply by Feb. 15. The money will be awarded the following month.

Rinaldo doesn't expect the program will lessen the city's budget load for 2008 but might help address the backlog of capital projects in Hamilton. "It will give us greater flexibility," he said.

[matt602]

Is LIUNA still complaining about how much Lister Block is going to cost them?

There you go. Stop whining. Get building. Now.

[thistleclub]

The City of Hamilton is developing a new Urban Official Plan – a long-term vision of how Hamilton will manage land use planning change over the next 20 years. Residents are invited to provide input on topics such as: commercial/mixed use areas, neighbourhoods, institutional and open spaces, transportation, natural heritage and housing, draft zones & mapping for commercial/mixed use and employment areas. Planning and Economic Development Department is hosting several meetings:

WATERDOWN – Wed JAN 21, 2009
Sealey Park Scout Hall, 115 Main St. S.

DUNDAS – Thu JAN 22, 2009
Dundas Municipal Service Centre, 60 Main St.

HAMILTON – Mon JAN 26, 2009
Hamilton Convention Centre, 1 Summers Lane

ANCASTER – Mon FEB. 2, 2009
Salvation Army Meadowlands, 187 Stone Church Rd. W.

All locations will hold meetings from 2-4pm (presentation at 2:30pm) and from 6-8pm (presentation at 6:30pm).

[SteelTown]

LimeRidge area to be transformed over next 20 years

By Gord Bowes, News Staff
News
Jan 23, 2009
http://www.hamiltonmountainnews.com/news/article/160419

A push for dense residential development around LimeRidge Mall and cozy commercial areas on Upper James and Upper Wellington which cater to the shopper are among the changes proposed in the city's draft urban official plan.

As far as the Mountain is concerned, the draft plan does not include a lot of change in land use because of incremental changes over the years, but there is a movement afoot to transform commercial districts into mixed use areas promoting residential growth.

The biggest difference in the draft, says Joanne Hickey-Evans, manager of policy planning, is designating the LimeRidge Mall area as a sub-regional node, a designation which will open the door for more dense housing.

"We're looking at taking the Limeridge area and transitioning it over time so it becomes more of a mixed use area," she said at an open house Monday at the Salvation Army Citadel on Stone Church Road.

One example of change in the Limeridge area, she said, would be redeveloping a one-level commercial building into an apartment building with stores or offices on the lower levels.

The residential growth will support the commercial enterprises in the area, said Hickey- Evans.

While it has been continually updated in bits and pieces, the core of the official plan governing the Mountain area was developed in 1982. Sixteen months ago, the city began boiling down the seven official plans — which govern land use and guide growth in the municipality — that came with amalgamation in 2000 to create the one to govern urban areas.

Input from this round of public sessions will be used to modify the proposed plan and a final round of open houses will be held in April.

A final draft is to be presented to the Economic Development and Planning Committee meeting in June, where the formal public meeting, as directed by the Planning Act, will take place.

Approval of the urban official plan could take several years. The rural one was completed in September 2006, but did not receive provincial approval until this month.

The new document, once approved, will be in place until 2031. The city is expected to grow to a population of 660,000 in that time.

Also in the draft plan are two areas — Upper James between Brucedale and Fennell, and Upper Wellington from Inverness to Queensdale — which will be designated "pedestrian predominant streets."

"Economically, commercial areas will do much better if there is a strong pedestrian orientation," said Ms. Hickey-Evans.

Properties with ground floor commercial outlets close to the street and apartments above will be encouraged, while street furniture, better lighting and other amenities will be installed to make those areas appealing for pedestrians.

The areas will be similar to the Concession Street business district.

More public sessions are being held over the next two weeks: Hamilton Convention Centre at Jan. 26; Jan. 29 at the Binbrook Agricultural Hall; and Feb. 2 at the Ancaster Salvation Army Church in the Meadowlands. There are two different times for residents to attend the meetings either from 2-4 p. m. or 6-8 p. m.

[adam]

If anyone is going to this meeting I'd like them to post how many people show up.

[SteelTown]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/american-...the-future.pdf

American Cities of the Future 2011/12
Winners

Top 10 Large Cities of the future
9) Hamilton

Top 10 Large Cities Infrastructure
7) Hamilton

[thistleclub]

Infrastructure is certainly important to future-readiness, but from a hard-nosed perspective, we're still ranked behind Windsor (#7 Large Cities of the Future, #5 Large Cities Infrastructure, #2 Large Cities Economic Potential, #6 Large Cities FDI Strategy) and Mississauga (#4 Large Cities of the Future, #9 Large Cities Infrastructure, #6 Large Cities Economic Potential) and arguably in competition with innovation-forward Waterloo (#1 Micro Cities Economic Potential, #4 Micro Cities Infrastructure, #3 Micro Cities Quality of Life, #1 Micro Cities Business Friendliness -- the only Canadian city of any size to make the Business Friendliness Top 10s). Hopefully our leaders can improve Hamilton’s standing by the 2012/13 rankings.

[thistleclub]

Speaking of urban infrastructure, here's a recent take on getting the balance right, using Buffalo as an example: This Why We're Broke

[SteelTown]

http://www.thespec.com/news/business...ign-investment

[thistleclub]

Food for thought, an expanded definition via California's Infrastructure Cluster:

In today’s economy and society, infrastructure can be viewed as having four core components:

• “Bricks and Mortar” infrastructure, which represents the most tangible physical elements such as public facilities, housing, transportation systems, power plants, transmission lines, and other improvements.
• “Resource” infrastructure, such as forests, parks, rivers, beaches, wetlands and energy sources that comprise our natural assets and systems.
• “Information” infrastructure, which includes technology and systems that provide access to the Internet, intellectual property, archives, digital content and the means to communicate information and ideas.
• “Human infrastructure,” that includes the workforce in both the private and public sectors. This human infrastructure must have the necessary skills to compete in the global economy and to design, plan, build and manage the advanced infrastructure of the 21st century.

One of the reasons we fare as well as we do may be that that our density figures are comparatively favourable:

1. Seattle, WA >> 2,842.1/km2
2. Newark, NJ >> 5,034.8/km2
3. Long Beach, CA >> 3,772.45/km2
4. Oakland, CA >> 2,818.1/km2
5. Windsor, ON >> 1,473.5/km2 (metro 316.1/km2)
6. Halifax, NS >> 1,077.2/km2
7. Hamilton, ON >> 451.6/km2
8. Brampton, ON >> 1,626.5/km2
9. Mississauga, ON >> 2,544.89/km2
10. Sacramento, CA >> 1,818/km2

Although "Infrastructure" is also a double-edged sword. For example, storylines in Newark, NJ are familiar-sounding, as is Brampton:

“Brampton, meanwhile, is plowing ahead with plans that will make it the hot spot for horizontal growth — a.k.a. sprawl — in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Its plans will end up paving over what remains of thousands of hectares of rural land within the city boundaries, just as neighbouring Mississauga did…. Brampton, he points out, pre-empted the growth plan by designating the entire area within its city limits for urban expansion — including vast stretches that are currently farmland — so it would not have to justify to the province why it’s allowing new growth outside what’s termed the “urban boundary.”

...

Another positive profile that might have been mentioned previously came from Corporate Knights’ Most Sustainable Cities in Canada 2011. In the most recent rankings, Hamilton moved to #4 most sustainable medium-sized Canadian city, up from #7 the year before (in a field of seven).

[thompsdk]

Not so fast. Hamilton's gross density (total pop/total area) is yes, 457/km2. But, the urban density (excluding wards 11,14, and 15) is 2,200 per km2, which isn't so bad at all.

(info from http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog/1159)

Most of the other cities on the list have little to no vast expanses of farmland in the proper urban area like the hammer does.

We just don't have a "metro" area like old school muni's like Windsor.

[realcity]

this topic comes around every year or so. Hamilton has some of the highest pop density pockets in the country. There's no question Hamilton has density and it has mega sprawl.

But then look at Ottawa and how they count their 2mill pop and look at their density. It's like Ottawa claims itself a small Switzerland sized land area to net 2million.

[flar]

The National Capital Region only claims 1.4 million, but the point is taken. Ottawa is the sprawliest city in Canada too.

[thistleclub]

Point being that Infrastructure is a category win but also often a sprawl indicator. Long Beach is technically part of the Los Angeles CMA, after all, and Sacramento is adrift in the middle of the Central Valley (an area whose population has grown as fast as LA or San Francisco, and is projected to hit 8 million population by 2022, for a population density of around 140/km2). Heaps of infrastructure, no doubt.

EDITED TO ADD: Some additional perspective via EcDev: "In 2009, FDI Magazine (a publication of the world-famous Financial Times) ranked Hamilton as the third top large city in North America for quality of life." Two years later, we've slipped off their Quality of Life Top 10.