Raise the Hammer

Why don't you explain to the good people, Mr. Desnoyer, how your current living arrangements play out. I'm sure they would be happy to note that you, your relative Maurice(or what I assume to be your relative), and long-time chum Mr. Santa-Barbara, live right in the rural/suburban zone, taking up valuable farmland through the subtle, but oft-overlooked process of residential invasion.

The airport was constructed at this site, WAY BEFORE you were a glint in your daddy's eye. Hell it might of existed before HE was born !! But you rich guys just HAVE to have a piece of that tranquil country living don't you ? The poor farmers who never do quite as well as we would hope(and were living quite harmoniously with the airport I might add !), end up selling parcels of their land to wealthy people who wanted to live in "paradise". Next thing you know another rich person comes along, attracted to the low,low price of the land and it's serenity, and BAM! -the process is well under way, undermining the whole farming community ! Just add in a greedy developer and you end up with country roads with a single row of housing on either side for kilometers, that has absolutely NO place in the rural country-side! You know the kind right?! You and your friends bought right into them didn't you !!

The problem of course is that you and your ilk were not living quite as harmoniously with the farmers as you would like to think. Undoubtedly there would have been complaints about the stench, the noise, the traffic (familiar trend here)and the lack of services. Before you know it small little developments pop-up that are like microcosms of suburban residential neighbourhood plans, but at a much-reduced cost. What I am describing here has played-out all over Canada (and the world), many times. Invasion and succession. This time it's not about race, it's about class ! It is one of the most dangerous catalysts for sprawl, yet at the same time, very subtle indeed. This has played out all over the fringe of the city for about the last 60+ years (maybe much longer) and has no-doubt spearheaded sprawl without the airport's involvement. People like yourself, your buddies and your predecessors have all used the airport as a punching bag.

But of course the realty is that large cities have airports. If we leave the only (real) passenger/cargo services to Pearson airport, we serve-up no competition and they drive the prices through the roof ! Last time I checked this WAS a democracy, not Socialism ! Now the airport and the city wish to make their first REAL expansion, but NO they can't do that because it leads to sprawl and wastes land and taxpayers dollars. I'm afraid you and your buds have been doing that very same thing for some time now, spearheading sprawl with the randomness of residential-to rural invasion ! At least the airport and city HAVE a plan for development unlike the residential developer who created your particular little slice of rural heaven.

And PLEASE STOP WITH THE "Why can't they just locate on existing brownfields like the north-end or Nebo rd." !! It's AIRPORT-RELATED development they WISH to attract (even if they get the odd thing that isn't). Putting it in the north end or Nebo is just going to add to the transportation cost AND add to the pollution associated with extra distances ! It certainly would't make a good BUSINESS decision to even try it. If you doubt this reasoning then why don't you ask the owner of the Etratech company why he never located in the north end, or ANY other industrial district in HAMILTON ! He chose instead to locate in BURLINGTON, giving him ready access for the shipments of circuit boards used for (gulp!), gas-guzzling cars (amongst other things)! Etratech can now easily use the #403 HWY, QEW HWY, #401 HWY, Hamilton harbour, Toronto airport, or even, (yes,you know what I'm going to say), even that DREADED Hamilton airport ! They even had John C. Munro airport listed on their web site a couple of years ago ! But of course that wouldn't be a wise move on their part, so they now list NO convenient shipping options, instead outsourcing shipping requirements with another firm (of course this DOESN't mean that they are not using Hamilton airport, only that they can DENY all knowledge of the choice !). They HAD TO do this because it wouldn't be a good thing if you nice folk here on RTH knew that the owner of Etratech is none-other than Mike Desnoyer !!!! So, if the north-end or Nebo (or ANYWHERE else in Hamilton for that matter), isn't good-enough for Mikey, then DON"T EVER tell me that prospective users of AEGD property should look ANYWHERE else, first !!

You see, there really is only one agenda with Mr. Desnoyer and friends, one that can be seen quite readily with Google Earth. The location of his home, his relative Maurice and his buddy Mr. Santa-Barbara's homes are ALL on the final approaches to Hamilton airport !! Check it out for yourself if you doubt it !
www.hamilton.ca/Hamilton.Portal/Inc/.../REPORT%2005-015.pdf
These 3 and many others like them, are nothing more than a bunch of NIMBY's ! I mean, what would you think of me if I bought a home in the north end by Arcelor-Mittal and I started complaining about the noise and smell?! You would call me an A-hole wouldn't you ! And I would deserve that because that company has been there forever and I just moved in and expected the world to rotate around me ! It's almost as if the HPD were developed solely for the selfish purposes of NIMBY's hidden behind another agenda to get others to help them fight their battle for them ! I mean what else would you call it when their president is: (A)Living in a wealthy home in a rural/suburban setting, the very thing he espouses to hate !; (B)Decides to locate his plant in ANOTHER city in a day-and-age where Hamilton is desperate for jobs (especially the very HIGH-TECH jobs you guys drone-on about so often) !; (C)Decides to locate his plant in Burlington for NO other reason than convenient transportation access to his market (something he MOST CERTAINLY could have gained here); (D)Decides to locate in Burlington, one of our biggest rivals !; (E) Outsources shipping that could easily result in timely AIR TRANSPORTATION to a customer, or at the very least USED TO !; (F) Outsources some of his labour to CHINA in a day-and-age where CANADA needs EVERY job it can to stop the erosion of our own labour pool ! (one of my particular favourites-a step used by companies to help their profits by by-passing expensive Canadian labour for cheap, third world labour); (G) His company is paying NO taxes to Hamilton and he is paying comparatively little tax for his home where it currently stands. (H) Doesn't obviously use public transit but is part of the daily EXODUS of Hamiltonians to their job OUTSIDE of Hamilton !; (I) His company MAKES parts for cars, one of the VERY things leading to Global Warming, encouraging more road usage/building and resulting in SHIPMENTS that also tend to encourage more road usage/building ! (J) His HPD site has been such a HUGE stumbling block for the RHP and the airport that has cost us as taxpayers MILLIONS of dollars by bogging-down council for YEARS with bureaucracy and red tape-all for naught as both projects WILL get done ! All this to push a NIMBY agenda. His group is ANYTHING but progressive !

He may be telling you that Peak Oil is upon us, but his company isn't banking on that obviously ! Remember, the airport has given us far-more than this guy !!!