Hamilton rejects Burlington’s purchase offer for LaSalle Park
Councillors not happy with Burlington offer; lease runs out in 2022
Despite painstaking efforts to end a long-standing oddity, Hamilton will be holding onto its green space in Burlington for years to come.
Following a closed-door meeting Wednesday night, Hamilton councillors voted 8-6 to reject transferring ownership of LaSalle Park to Burlington in exchange for a complicated cash and land swap.
Details of the proposal remain confidential, but, according to several councillors, there simply wasn’t enough money on the table for such prime waterfront property.
“We’re literally worlds apart,” said Sam Merulla, who first floated the idea of selling the park as a revenue generator in 2002. Tom Jackson agrees. “My vote was solidly against even considering the offer given the fact it was way, way off from what I would have called serious dollars.”
Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring says he’s disappointed the “winwin” deal was rejected.
“I believe what we offered was very fair. This was really a negotiated proposal that came from their staff as well as our staff.”
Hamilton owns the 22-hectare (54 acre) Aldershot park on Burlington’s North Shore Boulevard for historical reasons, but since 1983 has leased it to Burlington, which maintains and operates it, for $1 a year.
The lease expires in 2022. Last year, both councils directed their
city managers to come up with a proposal to permanently resolve the anomaly.
A third party appraiser was jointly hired to assess the value of the land. Because the proposal was presented in camera, the details are not known but it’s believed Hamilton was offered a low-end six figure purchase price.
For reasons that remain unclear, the proposal also included a land swap with the Royal Botanical Gardens, whose lands straddle both cities.
Hamilton has the same arrangement with the RBG for Churchill Park in Westdale as Burlington has for LaSalle. Churchill is owned by the RBG and leases it to Hamilton, which operates and maintains it, for $2 per year.
The LaSalle proposal may have included transferring ownership of Churchill Park to Hamilton for an undisclosed payment to the RBG, presumably by Burlington.
Regardless of what ingredients ultimately went into the pot, the dish clearly didn’t satisfy Hamilton’s appetite. It fact, the additives may have fouled the taste for some.
“It was too convoluted, too may red herrings,” said Merulla, who also argues the third party evaluation of LaSalle failed to take into account “quality of life” benefits for Burlington residents.
Jackson whimsically equates the purchase offer to Russia’s 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States for a paltry $7.2 million.
“I think we would have been seen in the same light as the Russian Czar ... (who) was resented and ridiculed for many years to come.”
For his part, Mayor Fred Eisenberger supported the deal as a “good neighbourly thing to do” based on market value.
“I thought it was fair and equitable, and I thought it was an opportunity to fix an historical anomaly that would create some value for everyone.”
Because councillors also voted to take no further action, Eisenberger says the ball is in Burlington’s court if it wants to make another overture that might be more acceptable to the majority of councillors.
Goldring says Burlington isn’t in any rush.
“I don’t think we’re in any hurry to go back to the negotiation table. We’ve taken a shot at this. Our lease comes due in 2022. We have a pretty good deal right now. We lease the park for $1 a year so there wasn’t a whole bunch of sense of urgency to deal with this.” That should suit Merulla just fine. “We have all the time in the world, all the leverage in the world, all the control in the world,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we’re in the driver’s seat and we’re going to drive cautiously and we’re going to determine where and when we land.”
Andrew Dreschel’s commentary appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. adreschel@thespec.com 905-526-3495 @AndrewDreschel