Comment 44027

By UrbanRenaissance (registered) | Posted July 26, 2010 at 01:19:06

I second the thanks to Mr. Turkstra to contributing to the debate but I just don't buy your arguments.

(1) 25000 people will arrive in 7500 cars. 2500 of those will go through the North End Neighbourhood.

You're assuming every single person attending will arrive by car? Seriously? The WH location will be walkable from both the current GO station, and the planned GO station on James. It will also be easily accessible from both of the planned LRT lines, game day city bus shuttle service (like Ivor Wynne currently has), and hundreds of households in the immediate area. And as for the 1200 children, is post game traffic more dangerous than the toxic nightmare they currently live next to?

(2) 8 local citizens including me, spent five years studying the Barton-Bay area and concluded, along with all the professional planners and experts and commenting agencies that the area should be developed for housing to bring hundreds of families to live in the wonderful area depicted in Graham's video

Then why hasn't it happened? Probably because, as others have pointed out it is incredibly difficult for private enterprise to get funding to clean up brownfields. With the WH we have all 3 levels of government pitching in to clean up the former Rheem plant. Which will make further development easier by eliminating the contaminated ground.

(3) Bob Young has scoured the capital markets looking for even one person or company willing to invest in the West Harbour stadium, and he found none

Has he? We only have his word on that, don't we? Who's their big investor for the EM site? Oh that's right, it's the City of Hamilton. The city will be on the hook for the highway improvements, buying the ORC land, moving a hydro line, dealing with the increased flooding the the lower city caused by the new paving. Not to mention nearly draining our Future Fund for something that provides practically no benefit to the city.

(4)Six internationally renowned sports marketers visited the site and all provided Michael Fenn with the opinion that the West Harbour stadium site will fail economically

Daryl Katz seems to disagree; as do economists, our downtown BIA, and other local developers. I'm assuming these groups know something about business too. It certainly doesn't help that the Ti-Cats haven't released a shred of evidence supporting any of their claims.

There are lots of ways the Ti Cats can make money in the WH other than stadium parking if they just put a little thought into it. How about getting special permits to sell food and drink in Bayfront park at pre/post game tailgate parties? Maybe they could split the revenue from game day transit and parking with the city? I'm sure someone with a business background could come up with even more revenue generators outside of the parking-food-booze trifecta.

(5) If it were successful, it would be used 100 days a year and empty 265 days a year. Just sitting there. A concrete hulk.

Is that worse than a crumbling, (potentially) toxic dump no one can afford to fix, for 365 days per year? Also you're assuming that there will only ever be a stadium and nothing else. The areas around the Roger's Centre, ACC, and Percival Molson Stadium seem to do just fine those other 265 days.

(6) No one who is currently promoting the West Harbour site has spent any time in the living rooms of the people who made the choice to live in the city core

I chose to live in the city core, (on Caroline North no less!) and I certainly didn't move here so I could spend more time driving to events in Stoney Creek. The whole point of moving here was to be close to everything. Most of the people I met at the rally also lived in the area. I can sympathize with those who don't want to live next to a stadium but would they rather live next to the mess that's currently poisoning the neighbourhood?

Once again, Mr. Turkstra I appreciate you contributing and I really appreciate what you've done for the city, but I just can not agree with your position on the stadium.

Edit: Wow, sorry for the long post. I guess I got on a bit of a rant there.

Edit by site administrator: correct an error on request of the comment author.

Comment edited by administrator UrbanRenaissance on 2010-07-26 09:43:56

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