Developer One Properties Real Estate Inc. wants to bulldoze and replace a wetland, identified by the green area on this map and considered locally significant by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, at 140 Garner Rd. E. in Ancaster to make way for a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse complex.
Ancaster wetlands’ future on Garner Road to be decided in 2025
The Ontario Land Tribunal decided to reschedule a hearing on the Garner Road wetlands to February 2025. The hearing had been scheduled to begin in October but was scrapped after the owner agreed to conduct a hydrological study on the wetlands.
Developer One Properties Real Estate Inc. wants to bulldoze and replace a wetland, identified by the green area on this map and considered locally significant by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, at 140 Garner Rd. E. in Ancaster to make way for a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse complex.
The future of Ancaster wetlands on Garner Road could finally be settled, after the Ontario Land Tribunal rescheduled a new hearing date for a proposed warehouse complex on the property in early 2025.
In a Dec. 15 video hearing, tribunal vice-chair Hugh Wilkins and member Aaron Sauve scheduled a case management conference on Sept. 10, 2024, and a 15-day hearing set for Feb. 24, 2025, on the appeals. Both will begin at 10 a.m.
An original hearing date of Oct. 23, 2023 had been set, but was scrapped after the Hamilton Conservation Authority, Environmental Defence and the city requested One Properties Limited Partnership, which owns the property, to hire a consultant to conduct a study of the wetlands’ hydrological features.
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The study is scheduled to be completed in July 2024, prompting the hearing to be rescheduled to February 2025. The tribunal also scheduled another case management hearing for September 2024 so that a possible new procedural order can be established because of any new information that is expected to be provided in the hydrological study.
The company, during the Dec. 15 hearing, stated a hydrologist has been hired to examine the wetlands in the spring of 2024. Environmental Defence lawyer Phil Pothen received approval from the tribunal for his group’s experts to also visit the Garner Road property to gather ecological information.
One Properties Limited Partnership is appealing a June 2021 Hamilton Conservation Authority decision to deny the owners a needed permit to bulldoze the wetland at 140 Garner Rd. for a 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse complex that includes five buildings.
The company is promising to relocate the wetland on the 35.27-hectare property adjacent to the Highway 6 bypass that borders 140 Garner Rd., arguing it will provide a “net ecological benefit” and that the plan has “demonstrated that there will be no negative impacts on natural features of their ecological functions,” stated One Properties lawyer Patrick Harrington in a June 2021 letter to the conservation authority.
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The development plan also includes stormwater management, 14 development blocks and four roadways.
One Properties Limited Partnership had appealed both a draft plan of subdivision on the property that was submitted to the city in 2018 for a non-decision by council and the decision made by the conservation authority to deny a permit to relocate the wetlands to the tribunal.
The land is zoned for industrial development as part of the city’s airport employment growth district.
The tribunal had agreed at an May 2023 case management conference to consolidate the two appeals by One Properties Limited Partnership into one hearing.
The Hamilton Conservation Authority’s board of directors, at their Sept. 7 meeting, approved One Properties’ request for an adjournment of the October 2023 tribunal hearing, but the directors stated the HCA is not waiving its rights to seek costs resulting from the adjournment.
The conservation authority’s staff had recommended against issuing the permit.
Conservation proponents, including the group Save Our Streams Hamilton, have opposed the relocation of the wetlands arguing the marsh is part of the headwaters of Ancaster Creek, one of Hamilton’s last remaining cold water streams that drains into Cootes Paradise and supports biodiversity that can only survive in a cold water environment.
is a reporter for Hamilton Community News (Ancaster News, Dundas Star News, Mountain News and Stoney Creek News). He can be reached at kwerner@hamiltonnews.com.
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