The Hamilton Conservation Authority is stepping back from plans to build a second parking lot in an environmentally sensitive area in Ancaster to serve overflow visitors to Tiffany Falls.
Directors have asked staff to instead come up with a “visitor-use management plan” that considers other ways to get people to the popular conservation area, which has just 14 parking spaces by its entrance on the Wilson Street access.
Citizen member Brian McHattie questioned plans for the second lot on a vacant authority property on Lower Lions Club Road that once belonged to a former Jewish community centre.
A preliminary design showed the plans would remove seven trees from a mostly open field to provide 39 parking spaces and create a trail up to the Wilson Street crosswalk to Tiffany Falls.
“That’s not something we should be doing during a biodiversity crisis,” McHattie said, citing an environmental impact study that found the property is surrounded by habitat for significant bird species and Monarch butterflies.
He said the field is an ideal candidate to be restored as a meadow, suggesting the authority explore alternative ways to get visitors to Tiffany Falls during peak periods, like bus shuttles.
“We know that butterflies are in trouble, dragonflies and pollinators, and insect-eating birds are in trouble. Insects are in trouble; that’s why the birds are in trouble,” McHattie said at the March 7 board meeting.
“What does a Louisiana waterthrush need, which is a significant species that nests at Tiffany Falls? What does it need to be successful? There’s several significant species there.”
Coun. Maureen Wilson questioned how a parking lot meets the authority’s goal of providing equitable access to conservation areas that includes other modes of transportation like cycling and public transit.
“I know some (areas) in the lower city as many as 48 per cent of households don’t own a car at all,” she said.
Chief administrative officer Lisa Burnside said the proposed second Tiffany Falls parking lot arose from a 2019 report that initiated a review of ways to improve parking at five conservation areas.
Staff pursued a possible bus stop on Wilson Street by Tiffany Falls “but apparently that wasn’t possible,” she said, noting the city has since added safety improvements for people arriving on foot or by bike, including a signalized crosswalk and bike-lane barriers.
Burnside said the second parking lot isn’t intended to increase visitors, but to spread them out and provide additional access to the Bruce Trail for hikers visiting Sherman Falls and the Dundas Valley.
She said staff had already agreed to do a visitor capacity study at Tiffany Falls before seeking a Niagara Escarpment Commission permit to build the parking lot in response to feedback from the authority’s conservation advisory board in February.
But Burnside acknowledged the authority bought the Lower Lions Club Road property with the intent of adding to the Dundas Valley’s natural areas.
“But then given its proximity (to Tiffany Falls) there was some thought that it could be utilized in another form, possibly,” she said.
Directors did approve a staff recommendation to complete a detailed design for the Dundas Valley’s existing Artaban Road parking lot, which currently has 27 permanent and 31 seasonal parking spaces.
Preliminary drawings show the reconfigured lot would have 60 permanent parking spaces, cut through an existing grassed berm to improve traffic flow, and add entry and exit gates.
Before proceeding, the project will require a Niagara Escarpment Commission permit because the lot is in a protected environmentally sensitive area.
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