Landowners ask for flexibility with employment lands

Owners of the largest tract of developable land in St. Catharines are asking the city to change their property designations so they have a better shot at maximizing potential and creating jobs.

City councillors heard this week that families who own a total 33 hectares of land in west St. Catharines believe the employment area designation — it includes manufacturing and warehousing — is too restrictive and outdated.

“To ensure success we need to be open to change and the status quo,” said Doug Whitty, president of Whitty Farms and 13th Street Winery, who represented a group of families who own land near the hospital in the urban boundary.

“The world around us is changing rapidly, we cannot afford to be left behind.”

Whitty told council that rigid adherence to traditional assumptions and planning principles related to how people live, work and play will limit and threaten the potential success of the city.

He asked council to ask city staff to study and report back on their request to rezone the lands from employment to mixed use, which council agreed to do.

“We’re sitting there, frankly, with land collecting dust,” said John Pennachetti, whose family owns employment area land on Fourth Avenue.

Pennachetti said they’ve had two firm offers in the past year and a half from major developers of long-term care retirement communities, but don’t have the zoning for the projects.

He said employment land designations are being changed everywhere and it’s taken a while for municipalities to buy into it.

“You can’t expect to save this land for the next General Motors of the next era to move in and take that 80 acres and build some massive plant,” he told council. “It’s just not going to happen. I think everybody has faced that reality. We’re looking for a creative solution.”

St. Catharines is currently undertaking an employment land needs assessment to 2041 in keeping with provincial requirements.

Employment areas are designated for clusters of business and economic activities including manufacturing, warehousing, offices and associated retail and ancillary facilities.

The city is required to maintain an adequate supply of employment land for forecast job growth and density targets set by the province and Niagara Region.

A staff report to city council said the Region expects St. Catharines will add 18,000 jobs from 2016 to 2041 — a 29 per cent growth over 25 years.

The city has 111 hectares of vacant designated employment area lands. Planning consultants Hemson Consulting Ltd. and Urban Strategies Inc. identified a potential surplus of 18 hectares that could be converted to other uses.

The consultants found that if more than 18 hectares are converted, a forecast 3,260 jobs in industrial-type buildings would go elsewhere in the region.

But Whitty said the landowners he represents are concerned with the consultant’s report.

He said the type of uses not allowed on employment lands, such as a long-term care facility, would bring far more jobs than a warehouse with two or three employees.

He said the thinking hasn’t adjusted to the new reality.

“Everybody’s suffocating in the box,” he said, adding they can’t afford to because of limited land. “We’ve got to make the most of opportunities that are in front of us. We’ve got to be aware of what’s going on around us. And we have to employ the latest planning principles and really go for it.”

City council received the consultant’s report and directed staff to conduct an analysis of other land use types to determine the feasibility of converting some employment area lands to other land uses.

Staff will update council later this year. Recommendations will be made to council in the first quarter of 2019.