Canadian Brownfields 2006
Ministers’ Panel: What local decision-makers need to know from provincial leaders
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Toronto Congress Centre
Introduction
Thank you.
It’s a pleasure to be here. I’d like to thank the Canadian Brownfields Network and the Canadian Real Estate Association for inviting me.
To those of you visiting Toronto, welcome.
I would especially like to welcome to Ontario my fellow minister from Alberta. I look forward to hearing about recent brownfield initiatives in your province.
To you, Canadian Brownfields Network members, my thanks for the work you do to maintain brownfields as a high profile issue. You’ve had a tremendous impact on the Canadian landscape and helped us all gain a better understanding of the issues related to brownfields.
The Ontario government has been working to more fully understand the issues related to brownfields by hearing directly – and regularly – from representative stakeholders.
Many of the members of the Brownfield Stakeholder Group are here today. I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank you for your contributions. I look forward to continuing to work with you as we move forward and continue to make progress on brownfields.
I’m very happy to have this opportunity to tell you about the progress we’ve made in finding ways to stimulate brownfield redevelopment in Ontario and where we go from here.
The successes we’ve had to-date are due to the enthusiasm and determination of municipalities, developers, industry, lenders, legal professionals and other stakeholder groups—represented by those of you in this room—to transform your cities and towns. I know how committed you are to finding solutions to the challenges that we all face in bringing these sites back into use.
And there are great success stories to talk about. Across the province, in communities big and small, brownfield redevelopment is contributing to healthier communities, improving the quality of life for residents, and building stronger local economies.
For instance, there’s …
- The $67 million injected into the construction industry as a result of over 21 acres of formally vacant and underutilized land being remediated and redeveloped under Hamilton's ERASE program;
- The 6,000 new residential units, 1 million square feet of commercial space and 23 acres of public parks to Toronto’s waterfront as part of the West Don Lands project;
- A $2.7 million investment in redeveloping and revitalizing Chatham-Kent’s downtown; and
- In North Bay, the creation of 350 jobs and 20 new businesses with a $4 million investment from the private sector.
And many others. We’d like to see more.
Our government is committed to working with municipalities, developers and other stakeholders to put the necessary programs and policies in place to ensure that more brownfields are put back into productive use.
We understand the challenges—as do you. We also know what a tremendous opportunity brownfields represent. We are committed to finding solutions.
Ontario Context
For the benefit of those of you from other provinces, let me first tell you a bit about the context we’re working in to find ways to stimulate brownfield redevelopment in Ontario.
Since taking office our government has instigated a cultural shift in the province’s development system, moving away from traditional development patterns to a more sustainable model.
Southern Ontario is facing tremendous growth pressures.
Four million more people will call Ontario home by the year 2031.
Our government has enacted the Places to Grow Act and released the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This plan lays out a comprehensive framework for where and how growth will occur across the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
It encourages increasing intensification of existing built up areas. Obviously, brownfields present a tremendous opportunity.
We’ve also taken steps to protect some of our most valuable resources and further encourage development in built up areas.
Last year, we established a Greenbelt in southern Ontario permanently protecting 1.8 million acres of environmentally sensitive and agricultural land from development pressures.
Our government is also working on a number of fronts to better protect the province’s water supply, including legislation for watershed-based source protection. Cleaning up brownfield sites also has a positive effect on our drinking water.
We are working in partnership with municipalities, businesses and citizens to ensure a bright future for rural Ontario. We released the Rural Plan, identifying strategies for developing strong rural communities. This includes building local expertise in brownfields in rural communities. After all, brownfields can be found in communities both big and small and offer the same opportunities and benefits for all communities.
We’ve made changes to the province’s land-use planning system that will provide municipalities with additional planning and financial tools to influence sustainable, energy efficient forms of development.
And finally, municipal reform. The latest step in this process is the introduction of legislation that, if passed, would empower municipalities and provide them with tools to make better decisions for their communities.
Progress on Financing and Liability Issues
Last year at your conference I talked about the two key challenges we face in Ontario, and indeed across the country, to redeveloping more brownfield sites—financing and liability.
We are committed to finding solutions, but we’re not quite there yet.
We have, however, made significant progress.
First, on financing.
Municipalities are the central players in stimulating brownfield redevelopment.
We’ve seen it time and again in Ontario. Municipalities that are committed and knowledgeable about brownfield redevelopment have achieved great successes for their communities.
Our role is to support them any way we can.
We have changed the province’s land-use planning system and proposed municipal legislation that increase the range of tools to which municipalities have access to stimulate brownfield redevelopment.
We have increased the flexibility that municipalities have to approve financial incentives for redevelopment through the use of community improvement plans.
I am very pleased to say that in the past year alone, we doubled the number to 21 municipalities that are providing financial assistance to private sector brownfield developers through approved community improvement plans.
And, there are more on the way.
We expect that a number of other municipalities will finalize community improvement plans with tax incentive tools after next month’s municipal elections.
We’ve also increased municipalities’ flexibility in using CIPs through our government’s planning reforms.
Upper-tier municipalities will be allowed to participate in lower-tier community improvement grant or loan programs strengthening lower-tiers’ abilities to encourage brownfield redevelopment.
Also in our planning reforms, we’ve expanded the list of eligible costs to be covered by these incentive programs to include energy efficient building measures and construction materials.
Our municipal reforms would, if passed, remove provincial Crown liens on properties assumed by municipalities after the properties fail to sell at tax sale.
Further changes proposed by the Ministry of Finance would allow the province to remove Crown liens on brownfield properties being sold at municipal tax sale, potentially making abandoned, eye-sore properties more attractive to purchasers.
Municipalities can also include provisions in their CIPs that allow developers to access municipal and provincial incentives, specifically our Brownfields Financial Tax Incentive Program.
Kingston, my hometown, was the first municipality to take advantage of the Brownfields Financial Tax Incentive Program. The project includes the development of a high-rise residential building along the downtown waterfront, bringing new life and economic activity to the area.
I’m thrilled that their leadership is being recognized by being shortlisted for several Brownie Awards.
And finally, just last week, my colleague the Minister of Finance, introduced Tax Increment Financing (TIF) legislation that can be used, if passed by the legislature, to assist with the redevelopment of Toronto’s West Don Lands. TIF is a new fiscal tool that uses the anticipated growth in property taxes generated by a development project to help finance brownfield redevelopment and public infrastructure. A second pilot project is the subway expansion involving York Region and the City of Toronto.
I think it’s clear that we’ve made tremendous progress on financial issues, but we don’t yet have all the answers. There is more to be done.
We’ve received a great deal of input on this issue from various perspectives. We’re taking all of that into account to develop further solutions.
The second key challenge, of course, is liability.
We know how concerned all of you are about liability.
To be honest, it seems to be the most difficult challenge to overcome.
To get a better understanding of the issues, and to separate real risks from perceived risks, we commissioned an in-depth study from a leading academic in the field.
The study concluded that the risk of civil liability for those who deal with brownfield sites is not as overwhelming as it might appear. Other jurisdictions do offer protection that does not currently exist in Canada, but it is not as extensive as some have believed.
The results of this study are available at the Ontario booth in the marketplace. I encourage you to review the study and provide us with feedback.
We have discussed liability issues with stakeholders—both regulatory and civil liability. And, we’ve discussed potential remedies. These have been constructive discussions, but we have not yet developed solutions to this complex issue.
Frankly, I think the first step will be for us to come to a common understanding of liability risks.
We are committed to continuing to work with stakeholders to find the solutions we need. I think we’re close to coming to a consensus.
Program Successes
However, while we continue to consider the two biggest challenges, we have moved forward on a number of positive initiatives.
Municipalities have told us that one of their biggest challenges is building internal expertise on brownfields. In response, we partnered with the Canadian Brownfields Network on a series of training sessions for municipal staff, providing them with the latest information to encourage brownfield redevelopment projects in their communities.
In addition to municipalities, other stakeholders have asked for more materials providing guidance on available financial tools and other programs that support land remediation and redevelopment. As a result, we’ve developed several guidance and information pieces that are now available online.
I am pleased to announce a new program, along with the federal government, that represents a convergence of two of our government’s priorities—brownfields and affordable housing—in establishing the Affordable Housing Program - Brownfields Initiative.
As you know, in many cases, brownfields are ideal locations for affordable housing projects since they’re often located in downtown cores close to transit, services and other amenities.
In the past, few municipalities were willing to build affordable housing projects on brownfields due to the added complexities associated with these sites. That is starting to change, in large part, I think, because of the broader development cultural shift in the province.
The Initiative, under the Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program, will allocate funding for a minimum of 300 additional affordable housing units to be built on brownfields sites. We will soon be issuing an RFP to municipalities for project proposals.
I am also very pleased to announce that the province will remediate several brownfields properties that it owns, improving the economic and environmental health of the affected communities. A provincially-owned property in Stratford will be remediated this year.
As part of our government’s comprehensive approach to brownfields reform and the desire to take the lead in cleaning up brownfields, the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal has identified sites as priority locations for remediation, such as this Stratford site, with other sites identified for clean-up in the future.
We are also supporting industry’s efforts to develop more sustainable remediation strategies. We cannot build our future on a “dig and dump” approach to brownfield clean-up.
My ministry is working with the ministries of Public Infrastructure Renewal and Environment as well as the Ontario Realty Corporation and the Ontario Centre for Excellence to explore the potential of using provincial lands as demonstration sites for testing new brownfield remediation technologies.
These partnerships will allow provincial lands to be cleaned up while providing an opportunity for researchers and companies that have innovative technologies to demonstrate the effectiveness of those technologies for marketability.
Conclusion
We face complex challenges. We all know that.
We continue to work closely with our stakeholder partners to better understand the issues and develop solutions.
We are making progress. It may not be as quickly as some would like, but we have to take the time to get it right. We have to balance the need to remove barriers with the need to protect the public health and safety for the long term.
We’ve had great successes achieved through our policy and program initiatives and because of the dedication of municipalities, developers and other stakeholder groups that are committed to seeing these properties redeveloped.
We look forward to continuing to work closely with all of you to identify the solutions that will help us restore environmental and economic health to these under-utilized sites and the communities across Ontario in which they’re found.
