LeBreton Flats 2.0 (RendezVous LeBreton) | Cancelled

[bikegypsy]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I'd totally support the NCC leasing the land for free in exchange for various commitments (for example, commuting a certain percentage of retailers being independent, requiring that a certain amount of public artwork be installed, etc.) Basically pay social rent instead of monetary rent.

The priority for the NCC should be to develop the land in a way that it is good for the city, not to make money.

Agreed. Not to mention that this will provide a framework for the entire area while contributing to densification.

[J.OT13]

The NCC needs money to implement some of their grand plans for Ottawa, and unloading LeBreton Flats is a good way to raise that capital. And I'm pretty sure Melnyk and company want to own the land 100%.

NCC just needs to include some iron clad conditions into the sales contract to ensure that "social rent" is built.

As for the City's contribution to the project, I fully expect them to honour the remediation grants and tax breaks as they will with Windmill's Domtar Lands. The City can't just cancel these in anticipation of receiving demands for the two downtown projects.

I maintain that Melnyk will not be asking any sort of public contribution beyond those tax breaks/grants. He wants to build this thing ASAP. If he were to ask for public funding, it would mean years of negotiation and slow going bureaucracy that the Sens just can't afford.

I could however, see them ask the City to grant them free air-rights over the LRT.

Considering how huge this project will be for Downtown and the city's economy, how it could increase the O-Train's ridership by close to a million riders per year on a stretch that would otherwise see little use (talking departures/arrivals at the two stations, not riders going trough that stretch to reach the CBD). Not to mention that this is a two in one project, with a possible project of well over 100 million in Kanata.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I could however, see them ask the City to grant them free air-rights over the LRT.

Hopefully in return the city will insist that events at the new arena include transit fare in the ticket price (similar to events at Landsdown). This will increase transit usage to and from events (reducing the strain nearby roads) and be an alternate source of revenue for OCTranspo. Maybe they can also extend that to the CTC (the team has resisted this so far to try and maximize parking revenue).

[rocketphish]

NHL bosses meet with Mayor Watson at city hall to talk LeBreton Flats project

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Bruce Garrioch, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: August 14, 2017 | Last Updated: August 14, 2017 11:55 AM EDT

NHL big wigs were at Ottawa City Hall on Friday meeting with Mayor Jim Watson over the Ottawa Senators’ plan to redevelop LeBreton Flats and move the franchise downtown.

Senators’ owner Eugene Melnyk, accompanied by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, met with Watson to provide an update on negotiations for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats, along with other issues.

Having Bettman and Daly on hand for a meeting with Watson is significant. It’s paramount that Melnyk and the Senators have the backing of the league to build the arena downtown and Melnyk has been bullish that this move is important for the future of the franchise.

“I try to keep posted on their activities because obviously LeBreton is our biggest planning file in the downtown and I wanted to get their perspective on how things are going,” Watson told the Citizen on Monday.

Melnyk, who was seen Friday leaving city hall with a bearded Bettman at his side, didn’t want to comment when contacted by email by the Citizen on Monday morning.

Melnyk’s RendezVous LeBreton Group, which won preferred bidder status to develop the valuable land west of downtown, has been in negotiations with the National Capital Commission. The federal agency chose the RendezVous bid in a April 2016 and talks have been going on since then.

Formal discussions will eventually turn to impacts on the City of Ottawa and how much the project could cost the city. The issues are varied, from public transit to parkland maintenance. RendezVous could also get multimillion-dollar tax and fee breaks from the city to clean up the contaminated soil at LeBreton Flats.

It’s unclear what kind of requests RendezVous might make to city hall.

There have been some discussions at the staff level, “but I haven’t been involved in those,” Watson said.

According to Watson, who’s also a non-voting member of the NCC board, the hockey bosses are eager to push the massive project forward.

“I think the NHL and the Senators would like to see it go faster than it is, but my view is let’s get this right,” Watson said. “It’s a complicated deal in terms of who’s going to be responsible for what. I gave them an update on my undertaking to bring a list of principles in terms of our negotiations on the property later this fall. I told them I’d keep them posted when we table that with council.”

That list of principles, which is expected to be the city’s opening position in negotiations, should come to council by October.

“If I get council’s approval in terms of the principles, that would give us the formal mandate to sit down and negotiate and they seem fine with that,” Watson said.

Watson said the city wants to make sure the project succeeds, especially since the LRT line will cut through LeBreton Flats and the site will be serviced by two stations.

The presence of Bettman and Daly at city hall is a good indication the league is behind Melnyk in his desire to build a new rink in Ottawa. The Senators haven’t revealed what would happen to the Canadian Tire Centre if they move but they want to hold off on that until the LeBreton deal is in place.

The Senators are hoping to hold opening night at their new downtown arena in October 2021 if everything falls into place in negotiations with the NCC, but there’s still a lot of work to be done for that to become reality. The NCC noted last November it was “cautiously optimistic” it would get a deal done with RendezVous LeBreton.

Ideally, both sides would like to an agreement in place by early 2018 so work can begin in earnest.

The centrepiece of Melnyk’s bid is the new home of Senators, but it also includes a community centre for the disabled along with a double ice pad. There will be affordable housing plus shopping and an entertainment district.

[email protected]
[email protected]

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...talk-lebreton-flats-project-at-city-hall

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

The Senators are hoping to hold opening night at their new downtown arena in October 2021 if everything falls into place in negotiations with the NCC,

So about the same time as the Trillium line reopens after Stage 2 construction. The east and west LRT extensions will open 1 and 2 years later respectively.

One thing I love about this location for an arena is that it is connected to stations with trains heading in 3 different directions (4 if they ever open the POW bridge). Even if everyone took the LRT immediately after an event (which I am sure they won't), they could empty the arena in less than 45 minutes.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by roger1818

So about the same time as the Trillium line reopens after Stage 2 construction. The east and west LRT extensions will open 1 and 2 years later respectively.

One thing I love about this location for an arena is that it is connected to stations with trains heading in 3 different directions (4 if they ever open the POW bridge). Even if everyone took the LRT immediately after an event (which I am sure they won't), they could empty the arena in less than 45 minutes.

There is a fly in the ointment. The lack of Park n Ride lots on the western leg of the Confederation Line even after Phase 2 opens. Special Event service requires direct service (no transfers) to conveniently located parking lots in the suburbs if we expect fan buy-in. Good luck if we expect fans to transfer to buses at 10 or 11 pm. This is especially bad considering that the concentration of ticket buyers will certainly be higher in the west end of the city given the current location of the arena.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There is a fly in the ointment. The lack of Park n Ride lots on the western leg of the Confederation Line even after Phase 2 opens. Special Event service requires direct service (no transfers) to conveniently located parking lots in the suburbs if we expect fan buy-in. Good luck if we expect fans to transfer to buses at 10 or 11 pm. This is especially bad considering that the concentration of ticket buyers will certainly be higher in the west end of the city given the current location of the arena.

What's wrong with that? We could easily add extra trips to major bus routes on event nights; routes connecting to Kanata and Barrhaven park and rides could be upped to 3-4 minute frequency. With the trains also running at sub-5 minute frequencies, the trip would be pretty easy. Nobody cares about transfers as long as the routes are frequent. It would certainly offer a way faster trip time than a direct event bus which would only get clogged in intense traffic on its way out of the city.

[rocketphish]

Sens president Anselmi says lots of negotiations remain on LeBreton Flats arena project

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 12, 2017 | Last Updated: September 12, 2017 10:40 AM EDT

Ottawa Senators president Tom Anselmi made a pitch to a business audience on Tuesday to help fill the Canadian Tire Centre this hockey season, while predicting the move to a planned downtown arena is still four to five years away.

The hockey club, through RendezVous LeBreton Group, continues to negotiate with the National Capital Commission to transform LeBreton Flats into a mixed-use community, including the NHL arena.

After his speech at Ottawa City Hall, Anselmi told reporters that it’s still early in the negotiations and there’s no timeline for their completion (“the sooner we get on with it, the better,” Anselmi said), but minutes later during an NCC board meeting, NCC CEO Mark Kristmanson suggested the two sides want to have an agreement in principle by the end of the year.

Kristmanson said he, along with NCC board chair Marc Seaman, met with Anselmi, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Development Group executive chairman John Ruddy. The NCC bosses also met with Mayor Jim Watson.

It’s still unclear what the Senators will need from city hall and what the city will ask of the Senators before shovels break ground at LeBreton Flats. The city is expected to have its own list of negotiation principles this fall.

“We’re looking for support,”Anselmi said. “We don’t know what all the asks are yet. We’re still trying to figure out the size of the bread basket. This is a big, complicated project and we’re trying to figure out what it’s going to take to get it done.

“There’s a zillion things attached to this project.”

Those things include the contaminated soil at LeBreton Flats, indigenous issues and the public realm.

“There’s just a lot of things, we’re just on the verge of having those conversations again,” Anselmi said.

Anselmi joined the negotiations when he was named president of the Senators last January. By that time, RendezVous LeBreton Group had won a development competition and status as the preferred proponent for the project.

Last month, the Senators brought NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to city hall to meet with Watson to emphasize the gravity of the LeBreton Flats project.

“It was really for the city to just hear it from the horse’s mouth, how important this project could be for the team and what it could mean for our future,” Anselmi said.

Having an arena built by 2021, as first hoped, “is possible but it’s tight,” Anselmi said.

In addition to LeBreton Flats, Anselmi’s immediate focus has been putting more people in the seats at the Kanata arena this season, with a goal of selling 1,000 additional season tickets.

“We need to win on and off the ice,” Anselmi told the business crowd at city hall.

The club recently announced it’s removing 1,500 seats from the Canadian Tire Centre to better reflect the attendance for Senators games.

Anselmi said the Senators are reviewing the complete game experience, right down to the hot dogs and burgers sold at the concessions.

“We have to aspire to bigger and better,” Anselmi said.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...s-remain-on-lebreton-flats-arena-project

[Vixx]

It's clear both sides are motivated in getting a deal done here but I have little doubt that RendezVous and the NCC aren't on the same page with certain matters, hence why there's been little information on talks over the last while.

I think it's just a matter when shovels will be in the ground. I highly doubt the arena will open by 2021, things have been moving slowly and who knows how talks will go between the city and RendezVous. Hopefully nowhere near as long as with the NCC.

[rocketphish]

With LeBreton looming, economists see little payoff for cities that subsidize pro sports facilities
Tom Anselmi – the new Ottawa Senators president and CEO – said earlier this week that the organization is hoping to receive some form of government assistance when it’s ready to build a new arena west of downtown and redevelop LeBreton Flats.

By: The Canadian Press
Published: Sep 15, 2017 4:04pm EDT

City subsidies for professional sports teams can be justified in the name of civic planning, pride or politics, but suggestions that they result in net growth to the overall economy don't hold water, economists say.

The Calgary Flames said this week they were pulling out of negotiations with the city over building a new arena to replace the 34-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome – the league's second oldest – because two years of talks have been unproductive.

Some proponents of giving land, loans or direct subsidies to professional sports projects say the investment is repaid in economic benefits for the city but economists say numerous studies have shown that's not the case.

"Overall, the research is pretty clear that there aren't aggregate benefits of such subsidies for the city as a whole," said Trevor Tombe, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary.

"What they really end up doing is shifting activities across sectors and across locations."

Tombe said public subsidies for professional teams usually only benefit political careers of city politicians: "Cynically, I would phrase it as it provides a very good photo op."

In Ottawa, Tom Anselmi – the new Ottawa Senators president and CEO – said earlier this week that the organization is hoping to receive some form of government assistance when it’s ready to build a new arena west of downtown and redevelop LeBreton Flats.

“We’re looking for support,” he told reporters following a speech to a local business audience. “This is a big, complicated project. We’re trying to figure out what it’s going to take to get it done.”

Anselmi conceded that there was a time when it was unheard of for governments to contribute tax dollars towards the construction of professional sports venues.

However, he said some politicians have changed their thinking and now see it as an investment into the growth of their city and a broader tax base.

Edmonton example

Conference Board of Canada senior fellow Glen Hodgson, who co-authored Power Play: The Business Economics of Pro Sports, said that taxpayer money spent on an NHL arena takes away funds that might be used to build public recreation centres, libraries and schools.

But he added that while there's generally no net economic benefit, subsidies can still be justified if they allow a city to reach certain planning goals. He used as an example the $614 million supplied by taxpayers, ticket buyers and the team to build the Edmonton Oilers' arena which opened a year ago.

"It looks like an expenditure until you look at what it's doing for downtown Edmonton, where you're bringing all of the economic life back to the centre of the city," Hodgson said.

"Edmonton is going to do very well with development fees, with higher property taxes from downtown, where it may actually turn out to be a really clever investment for Edmonton to move the building downtown (from northeastern suburbs)."

He said the same argument can't be used to justify subsidies for a new arena in Calgary because its downtown is still "quite vibrant" despite lower economic activity from depressed oil prices.

Studies show that intangible benefits of professional sports are measurable and go far beyond ticket sales, according to Dan Mason, a professor of sport management with the University of Alberta.

"The research shows that there actually are substantial intangible benefits," he said, citing as an example the smiles on Edmonton faces during the Oilers' playoff run last spring.

"However, because in North America we work in a closed market system where the leagues artificially reduce the number of franchises and then they use cities against one another, typically the public subsidy is greater than what the intangible benefits are."

Mason said some research finds that facilities built for professional sports teams may increase property values in nearby neighbourhoods, therefore boosting tax revenue for the city, but suggestions that job creation and tourism also benefit are generally not true.

The Flames initially proposed in 2015 that an arena, football stadium and public field house be built for $890 million on the west end of downtown. The team offered to contribute $200 million and proposed a $250 million loan be repaid through a ticket surcharge.

But city council declared the project would cost a lot more than that – around $1.3 billion – and taxpayers would have to foot over $1 billion of it.

The second plan, for which no price has been estimated, is to build the arena near the current facility on the east side of downtown.

– With a report by Peter Kovessy

http://www.obj.ca/article/lebreton-loomi...f-cities-subsidize-pro-sports-facilities

[rocketphish]

City seeks to protect taxpayers as LeBreton talks unfold
Ottawa not a direct partner in negotiations, but has a direct interest in the outcome, city manager notes

By Paul Jay, CBC News
Posted: Oct 27, 2017 5:10 PM ET Last Updated: Oct 27, 2017 5:10 PM ET

The City of Ottawa is proposing a list of ground rules it wants observed as negotiations over the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats continue — chief among them, a guarantee that municipal taxpayers won't be overburdened in the deal.

The National Capital Commission is negotiating with the Senators-backed RendezVous LeBreton to sell up to 21 hectares of its LeBreton Flats property.

RendezVous LeBreton plans to redevelop the downtown site into a community that would include a new NHL arena, 4,000 units of housing and a French-language public school.

While the city is not a direct partner in those negotiations, it has a direct interest in the outcome, city manager Steve Kanellakos wrote in a memo sent to the mayor and city councillors Friday.

Not only does the city have its own ideas for what constitutes "a sustainable and vibrant community," Kanellakos wrote, but it also "has a limited number of financial tools available to it to encourage development."

City staff want the city's finance and economic development committee and council to sign off on some recommended principles for the city's participation in negotiations, including that the city taxpayer "must be protected."

Should the Sens-backed group propose to get help in funding its arena and development, the city would need to do due diligence to ensure taxpayers are protected, staff wrote.

Any liability the city agrees to take on would also "need to be secured by assets or a mechanism to recover the costs from the benefiting area," staff wrote. Council would get a chance to consider the results of that due diligence if any recommendation is brought forward as part of an agreement on a deal or other application to the city.

Other principles city staff are recommending include that the redevelopment reflect the goals and intent of the city's own plans and current investments, that clear roles of who does what — including the role of the federal government — are spelled out, and that any work is coordinated with the city's own infrastructure projects.

An agreement in principle between the NCC and RendezVous LeBreton is expected by the end of the year.

The city's recommendations are expected to be presented to the finance and economic development committee on Nov. 7.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-lebreton-senators-ncc-negotiations-1.4375758

[kevinbottawa]

City doesn't want to cover LeBreton Flats cleanup costs, report reveals

David Reevely
Published: October 27, 2017
Updated: October 27, 2017 4:54 PM EDT



LeBreton Flats needs to be a showpiece neighbourhood once it's rebuilt, the city says, as long as it costs the city government as little as possible.

LeBreton Flats needs to be a showpiece neighbourhood once it’s rebuilt, the city says, as long as it costs the city government as little as possible.

It wants nothing to do with cleaning up contaminated ground in the former industrial neighbourhood, for instance. It wants users of a new hockey arena there to pay for extra transit service for games and concerts. It doesn’t want new parks and civic spaces there to be too fancy to maintain.

This is all laid out in the bargaining positions Mayor Jim Watson should take into talks with the National Capital Commission and the consortium led by the Ottawa Senators that’s planning the massive redevelopment, according to the city’s planning department. The department released the recommendations Friday afternoon, ahead of a vote by city council’s powerful finance committee on Nov. 7.

The city isn’t exactly a partner in the plans. The National Capital Commission owns LeBreton Flats and will sell much of it to the RendezVous LeBreton Group with the Senators at the head, if the two reach a final agreement on how the redevelopment should go. But the project will need city roads, city water and sewer pipes, and city bus and train service, and will be governed by city plans and zoning rules. So the city will be at the table with the NCC and the Sens group to hammer out agreements over several months.

Refusing to pay for any of the cleanup of the property on the Ottawa River west of Parliament Hill is a big deal. The city has a “brownfields remediation” program under which it typically splits the cost of removing poisoned soil with a property owner looking to build something new on the site of, say, an old gas station.

John Ruddy, the head of Trinity Development Group and the Senators’ major partner in the LeBreton plans, has said the consortium expected to seek government money under general-purpose programs, like the one for brownfields.

But, in this case, the cost of the cleanup of a district that used to have scrapyards, railyards and other heavy industry mixed in with working-class homes is estimated at $170 million, a bank-breaking number for a program that usually deals in single-digit millions, at most.

The NCC evicted everyone more than 50 years ago for an office complex it never built.

“Given the historic decision of the federal government to acquire and demolish the LeBreton Flats community in the early 1960s, it is the city’s position that the federal government should be solely responsible for remediating its property prior to development,” the new city document says.

The city should also be sure to bill the Senators, or whatever entity ends up owning the new downtown rink at the centre of the LeBreton bid, for beefing up OC Transpo service, the document says. It does that with the renovated football stadium at Lansdowne Park, where gamegoers get free bus rides to games with their tickets because everyone pays a transit fare whether they take the bus or not.

“The city would … ensure that it is understood that the incremental costs of providing enhanced transit service to the Major Event Centre (that is, the hockey rink) would be borne by the users of the centre,” the recommendations say.

And if anybody wants the city to borrow money to finance anything, the way it did to rebuild Frank Clair Stadium into TD Place for the Lansdowne renovation, the city wants to know exactly how it’ll get paid back.

The city also wants to know who will be responsible for the parks and plazas that are major features of the RendezVous LeBreton Group plan. Don’t assume it’ll be the municipal government, it says.

“The public-realms components that the NCC and its preferred proponent envision as part of this phase of redevelopment may presume municipal involvement,” the document says. “It is in the city’s interest to have those roles articulated and clarified. The city needs to understand how the public realm improvements will be delivered, and by whom.”

Even once everything is done, which could take as long as 30 years, there are enough federal monuments and institutions (like the new Holocaust memorial and the Canadian War Museum) on and near the Flats that the NCC should stay involved, the city says.

Finally, the report proposes to bring negotiations over the future of the Canadian Tire Centre into the mix, because if the Senators move to LeBreton Flats there’ll be a major building in the west end of town that’ll need a new use.

The planning staff expect that “preliminary discussions regarding the future of the current CTC building and lands may take place as part of the negotiations related to the downtown arena,” the report says. “Staff are, therefore, seeking a mandate to participate in any such discussions, to ensure that any options being discussed provide specific reference to the impact on the west-end communities.”

What happens to the CTC will probably be worked out after the LeBreton Flats business and will involve separate consultations and negotiations, the document says.

http://ottawasun.com/news/local-news/cit...wcm/44e361b7-f6a4-46ac-891c-35801f8a6eb6

[daud]

sort of a disappointing approach from the city. Hopefully its purpose is in negotiation with the feds-not Rendez Vous.

I personally feel that existing remediation programs should absolutely be made available to rendez-vous. It seems odd that they feel so justified in taking an existing program off the table.

If its due to the size and scope of the project, that the dollars involved are far more than the program could support, then the feds should step in but Rendez-vous should be able to take advantage of an equivalent that other developers in the city get.

I get continually frustrated with the city and its relationship with the Senators but we'll see how this plays out.

[rocketphish]

How much remediation is left to do? Much of the site was scraped down to bare rock many years ago.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4136214,-75.7165117,896m/data=!3m1!1e3

Is it the portion south of the transitway?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

How much remediation is left to do? Much of the site was scraped down to bare rock many years ago.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4136214,-75.7165117,896m/data=!3m1!1e3

Is it the portion south of the transitway?

I think all of the remediation was east of Preston and north of the transitway.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think all of the remediation was east of Preston and north of the transitway.

That remediation was funded by the feds right?

If the feds funded that remediation they should pay for the rest. IMO they should be on the hook for the cost as they were the ones who expropriated it and left it sitting empty for decades.

[BlueJay]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That remediation was funded by the feds right?

If the feds funded that remediation they should pay for the rest. IMO they should be on the hook for the cost as they were the ones who expropriated it and left it sitting empty for decades.

I agree it should be the Feds that pay for the clean up. I think the City is simply putting the pressure on the NCC to deal with the contaminated land. However, the City should not be expecting the Sens group to help pay for OC Transpo costs as this project will increase and attract transit ridership.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by BlueJay

However, the City should not be expecting the Sens group to help pay for OC Transpo costs as this project will increase and attract transit ridership.

I disagree. If they don't have a transit surcharge on tickets (like they do at Lansdowne) and give ticket holders free transit, a lot more people will drive to events, putting extra stress on the road infrastructure and add to the congestion. One of nice things about this location is that it is at the intersection of the two LRT lines, allowing people to take trains to and from the east, west and south (plus north if they open the POW bridge) before and after events. Providing free transit will maximize transit ridership to events. Now maybe there is an argument that the surcharge should be smaller than Lansdowne's, as the cost of running extra trains for events is much smaller than the cost of running all of those extra event buses (one double train carries the equivalent of 6-8 articulated buses), but there should be one.

Also, don't forget RendezVous LeBreton want to cap the Confederation line so that they can use the land on top of it. Giving them permission to do this is a huge bargaining chip as it amounts to a lot of free land for the developers, and greatly improves the development.

[daud]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I disagree. If they don't have a transit surcharge on tickets (like they do at Lansdowne) and give ticket holders free transit, a lot more people will drive to events, putting extra stress on the road infrastructure and add to the congestion. One of nice things about this location is that it is at the intersection of the two LRT lines, allowing people to take trains to and from the east, west and south (plus north if they open the POW bridge) before and after events. Providing free transit will maximize transit ridership to events. Now maybe there is an argument that the surcharge should be smaller than Lansdowne's, as the cost of running extra trains for events is much smaller than the cost of running all of those extra event buses (one double train carries the equivalent of 6-8 articulated buses), but there should be one.

Also, don't forget RendezVous LeBreton want to cap the Confederation line so that they can use the land on top of it. Giving them permission to do this is a huge bargaining chip as it amounts to a lot of free land for the developers, and greatly improves the development.

When I go to sporting events at other cities, I have to pay for subway/transit. Why wouldn't OC Transpo just collect fares instead of doing free rides? With the paid fare zones, wouldn't this be easier?

I personally don't believe people will opt to drive if transit is paid. LRT is going to be the easy way to get there assuming they can manage the traffic loads

[AndyMEng]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That remediation was funded by the feds right?

If the feds funded that remediation they should pay for the rest. IMO they should be on the hook for the cost as they were the ones who expropriated it and left it sitting empty for decades.

I think there are two issues here:

1. The previously contaminated cleanup area surrounding Booth Street (including the war museum grounds?)

2. The currently contaminated landfill surrounding Bayview Station (particularly to the North-East of Bayview). You don't think those hills are natural, do you?