Tainted properties ripe for revival
08/07/2007
by -- Meghan Waters, Calgary Herald
www.canada.com
Calgary, AB - Evelyn Buchan loves the close-knit community feeling of her neighbourhood near Ogden Road, but she would like to see the city clean up the surrounding land.
Vacant lots and abandoned buildings seem to encourage graffiti, she said.
"The city has a lot of land they could build on," she said. "Personally, I'd like to see them do something for the kids."
Buchan, an 18-year resident of the area, wants more parks and affordable housing built on vacant property.
In fact, the city has plans for empty property across the city, including the Manchester Yards, the former Nose Creek landfill, the home of the future science centre and the area near Buchan's neighbourhood.
In spring, the city announced a plan to examine 10,000 municipally owned properties to identify contaminated and derelict sites, also called brownfields, that are ripe for redevelopment.
About two-fifths of the properties have been looked at. The city hopes to complete the list in 18 months.
This comes shortly after the city reached an agreement with Imperial Oil on the future of Lynnview Ridge, a community contaminated with lead and other carcinogens that has the city paying $20 million to clean up the site.
With the soaring cost of land, city officials are looking at previously undesirable properties with an eye for future profits if these sites can be cleaned up.
A national report estimates there could be 30,000 such sites in Canada, but no one knows how many there are in Calgary.
"It (brownfield land) is an asset the city has and yet we don't really know what we have to do with the land to sell it," said Ald. Gord Lowe.
"There's a need for this kind of land on the market."
Past studies show that every hectare of contaminated land redeveloped for residential use can save $66,000 in transportation costs and 4.5 hectares of unused land in an outlying area.
Urban sprawl and the rising cost of land has made city hall look twice at these toxic eyesores after years of leaving them to rot.
"In Calgary, the whole Lynnview Ridge thing has put a bit of a chill on brownfield redevelopment," said Alex MacWilliam, co-chair of the National Environmental Law Group for Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP.
"It made the city pretty gunshy about getting involved with contaminated or formerly contaminated properties and made it difficult for people trying to proceed with brownfield redevelopment."
MacWilliam, who has practised law in Calgary for 18 years, helps developers buy contaminated land in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan.
In Calgary, he says, there is a heightened concern toward such sites.
The advantages of fixing brownfields are clear to MacWilliam because they are prime locations often serviced by existing infrastructure.
The city has promised to use brownfields as the site for future municipal buildings where possible.
"There are a number of key pieces of land in existing communities that can be cleaned up," said Mayor Dave Bronconnier.
"This is part of our curbing sprawl and smart growth principles."
Properties not used by the city will be cleaned up and sold to developers, said Kevan van Velzen, manager of environmental assessment and liabilities for the city.
A robust economy like Calgary's is a good incentive for developers leery of building on contaminated sites, he said.
Developers are often leery of building on contaminated land, and because of future liability, they are scared of a repeat of Lynnview Ridge.
Today, the city is considering several options to make it easier for private developers to build on brownfields, including a streamlined application process and offering loans or incentive grants.
This year, the City of Edmonton decided not to renew a pilot project that promised developers up to $100,000 for help with redevelopment costs on brownfield sites.
Although developers were enthusiastic about the program, none of them have started cleaning up the properties, said Gary Woloshyniuk from Edmonton's office of the environment.
"With the economy having changed the way it has in the last year or two, costs have escalated on all fronts," he said.
The city hopes to bring back the program in another form, he said.
Like Calgary, Edmonton is hoping to develop a reliable inventory of brownfield sites. The best guess right now is that the city owns about 200 contaminated properties.
Across Alberta, communities have grappled with the most effective way to clean up contaminated properties.
In Cochrane, Tim Giese and a group of concerned citizens pushed for redevelopment of the former Domtar site, land tainted with a mixture of creosote and arsenic.
"It just basically soaked into the ground," Giese said.
Although measures have been taken to stop the toxic brew from leaching further into the ground, it's still an eyesore.
"It's front and centre, no matter which direction you drive into Cochrane," said Giese.
A previous developer walked away from the project and a new developer wants to bring in big box stores.
The province says it's had a certification program in place since the 1960s that requires industry to produce a cleanup plan before they're given permission to start up.
"The companies that disturb the land or contaminate the sites are responsible for cleaning it," said Lisa Grotkowski of Alberta Environment.
Some developers who take on brownfield projects have been handsomely rewarded.
When CFB Calgary closed in 1998, it left behind a mix of hangars, houses and unsafe land.
Although contamination of the base was limited to buried garbage and spilled gasoline, redevelopment costs topped $2.5 million and required the removal of 8,000 cubic metres of contaminated soil.
The area is now home to the tony, innercity community of Garrison Woods where average house prices hover around $800,000.
With the size of Calgary exceeding that of bustling Manhattan, the move towards urban density is on city planners' minds.
"We can't keep spreading out like we're doing. There's a big push in this city and other cities towards higher density," said Mark McCullough, general manager of Canada Lands Co., an arms-length Crown corporation that redevelops old train tracks and army bases for the federal government.
McCullough says people need to stop thinking brownfield redevelopment is simply for do-gooder hippies. Instead they need to understand their merits, and the savings to taxpayers in not having to build new infrastructure.
"They're a better use of the system. There's no new library, no new firehall -- you use the ones already built," he said.
mwaters@theherald.canwest.com
CITY-OWNED BROWNFIELD PROPERTIES
1. 16th Avenue North corridor
2. East Village
3. Nose Creek Landfill, north of the zoo
4. Rivers Project
5. Manchester Yards, east of Stampede grounds
6. Beltline
7. Former refinery site near Lynnview Ridge
8. Ogden industrial area
9. 17th Avenue S.E., near former Hub Oil site
(Source: Canada.com, August 4, 2007, www.canada.com)
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