Cleanup of GM property ongoing, ownership says
‘We may not be moving ahead miles at a time, but we’re moving ahead’
A study to determine the future of the former General Motors property and its stretch of Ontario Street has been put on hold indefinitely, with the site’s ownership group citing financial reasons.
The land use study was being done in a cost-sharing agreement between the group and the City of St. Catharines.
The owners were to take on the sole costs of major technical studies — expected to be complete by the end of 2023 — including a transportation analysis, environmental site assessment and servicing analysis.
But in a memo sent to city councillors this week, planning and building services director Tami Kitay said the land owners group is “not yet prepared” to bear the costs of undertaking the studies at this time.
Factors given were a slowdown of overall market conditions since the pandemic, changing market conditions related to federal and provincial policy changes, and an overall slowdown in decision-making due to market uncertainty.
“Completion of the background studies has been delayed, which has effectively stalled the project,” she wrote.
Kitay noted the group said it remained committed to completing the studies, but hasn’t provided timing.
Despite the pause on the Ontario Street corridor secondary plan study, cleanup is continuing on the almost 22-hectare industrial site at 282 and 285 Ontario St. and a previous PCB leak has been stopped.
Pits of chemicals have been drained and decommissioned, debris has been cleared from the east side and an on-site filtration system to capture surface water from leaving the property is running.
The ownership group has started work on a slope stability assessment and environmental impact study and completed a Stage 1 archeological assessment.
“A lot of work has been done between the cleanup and the site demolition of pits and so on and so forth. But there’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Stuart Randle, executive director of civil infrastructure with Peter’s Construction and the senior project manager with the ownership lender group.
The land owners group is ‘not yet prepared’ to bear the costs of undertaking major technical studies at this time
“Every month the group is committed to moving ahead. We may not be moving ahead miles at a time, but we’re moving ahead. Every day a little bit progresses.
“It’s obviously an extremely costly venture and we’re doing everything we can, along with planning and working with the city to come up with a plan that is best for both the property and for the city and the region.”
Behind wooden boards surrounding the east side property, piles of rubble have been removed, revealing a patchwork of concrete spanning more than 12 hectares.
Terra cotta-coloured tiles are a pop of colour on the ground where part of the factory used to be. Metal lines like train tracks are remnants of a water-pooling system with 2.4metre-deep channels now filled in. A Canada goose is hanging out near the concrete remnants of a loading dock.
There is a man-made pond about the size of a football field collecting surface water from rain and snow and a kilometre-long trench and berm around the entire property.
The swale and pond were constructed in June 2023 in response to testing by the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks in November and December 2020 that found elevated levels of PCBs leaking from the east side property. The leak went into a municipal stormwater sewer that discharges into Twelve Mile Creek and was traced to an underground oil grit separator.
The pond traps stormwater from leaving the site, treats it and discharges it to the city’s combined sewer which transmits it to the regional wastewater treatment plant.
The latest ministry testing on Dec. 18, 2023 found concentrations of total PCBs were below provincial water-quality thresholds.
“The ministry’s results confirmed that PCBs are no longer a concern,” ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler said by email this week.
Wheeler said the ministry confirmed the discharge from the site’s oil grit separator to the municipal storm sewer that goes to the creek has been blocked off.
The ministry continues to monitor the site to ensure regulated activities comply with environmental legislation.
Randle said the pond will stay put until there’s a development plan for the property that will incorporate a permanent storm-management system. The group continues to pull water samples every week.
“There is nothing leaving the site now that is of any type of environmental concern,” Randle said. “I’m glad that we’re able to report that we have successfully done that.”
Across the street, there’s a threestorey mountain made of broken concrete gathered from both sides of the property. It’s going to be crushed up and reused as granular backfill when demolitions of the remaining buildings eventually happen.
Timing for demolitions isn’t yet known.
“It’s an expensive process and we’re trying to manage things as best we can fiscally. Eventually they will come to the point where they have to come down, but it’ll be a little further down the road,” Randle said.
He said interest rates have gone up and development has slowed everywhere.
Randle said he wasn’t at liberty to say how much has been spent on cleaning up the site so far but it’s “substantial.”
“It’s been a huge commitment with respect to resources, including financial resources. A huge, huge commitment.”
For now, he said the group is continuing ongoing work on the west side and securing the site more permanently because of trespassers and homeless encampments.
He said it is trying to do everything it can to keep the area clean. It arranges for hypodermic needles to be picked up, graffiti to be removed and does a garbage pickup around the perimeter three times a week because of people dumping trash.
Randle said the lenders group is truly committed to doing something to improve the site for the neighbourhood now and in the future.
“It’s a real desire that they have to to not only leave their mark, but to leave something on the property that’s going to benefit everybody.”
St. Patrick’s Coun. Robin McPherson, who has the property in her ward, said the fact the stormwater
filtration plan has worked and the group did what it said it would do to stop the PCB leak is good news.
She said the slowdown in the secondary plan is unfortunate, but understandable.
“I would love for it to be done tomorrow. But there’s also the economic challenges of doing all this work and moving forward, and the changing federal and provincial policy changes, and opportunities are changing,” she said.
“It’s an understandable kind of pause in the secondary plan process.”
McPherson said city staff are reporting back on the project in the spring of 2025. Until that time, she expects the owners will continue with the assessments they’re doing and, hopefully, start to move forward on the other ones.
She said she’s felt in meetings she’s had with the owners that they are committed to doing something.
“It’s just the site was such a mess. It was such an absolute mess … I think a lot of people didn’t know necessarily just how bad it was going to be,” she said.
“I’m feeling confident that things will keep moving forward, but it probably isn’t going to be things that most of us can see.”
The Ontario Street corridor secondary plan will create a vision for the former General Motors property and the stretch of Ontario Street from the QEW to Welland Avenue.
City council approved terms of reference for the study on May 30, 2022, and authorized a memorandum of understanding with the ownership group on Aug. 8, 2022.
A public open house on the plan was held in February 2023.
The next step was supposed to be a visioning for the study area and evaluation of alternative approaches to development. But Kitay’s memo to council said the background studies must happen before that visioning can proceed.
Kitay wrote it’s “imperative” any outcomes are “grounded in the reality of the site’s known constraints.”
With the delay of the Ontario Street corridor secondary plan study, planning staff are being redirected to other tasks, including housing accelerator fund commitments, community improvement plan review, an official plan update and other priorities.
General Motors halted operations of the Ontario Street plant in 2010 and Bayshore bought the property in 2014. Mortgage lender Movengo Corp. is overseeing and financing the cleanup with partners.