What is the AEGD?

The Airport Employment Growth district rezoning was finalized in 2015 when the urban boundary of Hamilton was expanded and 1300 acres of prime agricultural land, headwaters and wildlife habitat north and east of the Hamilton Airport was rezoned from “Agricultural” to “Industrial” and “Institutional”. This rezoning now permits industrial developments such as warehousing or manufacturing to be built in this sensitive area. As it happens this part of the Hamilton mountain is also the highest point of land between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and so forms the headwaters of many of the creeks and streams flowing over the escarpment in the City of Waterfalls. These headwaters, wetlands, springs and groundwater recharge areas are all at risk of destruction at the hands of industrial sprawl in the AEGD.

Where is the Garner Marsh located?

140 Garner Rd East is a parcel of land labelled with the letter H on the map to the right. It is 89 acres of prime farmland and the wetland is situated to the east side of the property surrounded by fields of tomatoes, sunflowers, horseradish, pumpkins and poppies, all farmed by local Ancaster farmers. There are also three woodland communities on the property that support several species at risk. Important to note is that even if the Marsh is saved the farmland here is slated to be paved for warehouses. Whether warehouses or houses, sprawl is steadily eating away at our prime farmland, headwaters and habitat.

History of the AEGD

The Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD) was originally known as the “Aerotropolis”, an idea floated about 2001 by local boosters and the private company that secured a 40 year management contract for the airport in 1996. The “idea” was that airports are becoming the new centre of economic development in the way that railways or ports or highways have been considered at various points in the past. At one time, cities with large ocean ports were the most economically active, for example, but the aerotropolis advocates claimed the future super successful ones would be centred on airports.

About 2002, the newly amalgamated City of Hamilton embarked on what they called GRIDS (Growth Related Integrated Development Strategy) which mainly focused on expanding the urban area by as much land as possible. These expansions are usually focused on new residential lands, but Hamilton’s population growth was so slow, this could not be justified. This was especially true when the Liberals took over Queens Park with plans to control sprawl. In 2005, they introduced the Greenbelt Plan, as well as the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe that set rules on when municipalities could expand their urban boundaries. It was clear that was becoming much more difficult, so part of Hamilton’s “answer” was the aerotropolis – an expansion allegedly required to provide for sufficient employment (formerly known as industrial zoning). At the same time, GRIDS was to determine where future residential growth would happen.

About 2005, six potential growth plans were presented for public consultation. All six included a huge boundary expansion around the airport for employment lands. The differences in the six draft plans was where future residential growth would take place and this is where Elfrida was selected as the number one choice. The city tried to “earmark” Elfrida as a “future growth area” – a step that the province said was not allowed. The province understood that as soon as an area was earmarked for growth, the end of its agricultural use was sealed and farms within that area would be ‘mined’ (for sod farms for example) and any protection of fertility would go out the window.

Despite the provincial warnings against earmarking, city council approved a new official plan in 2009 that earmarked Elfrida as a future growth area. The provincial government makes the final decision on municipal official plans and in 2011 it came back with a modified one that excluded references to the Elfrida future growth area. The Elfrida landowners filed an OMB appeal against this official plan and convinced a council majority to make the city a joint appellant.

Isn’t the AEGD part of the land that was just saved from urban expansion?

No, the City approved an urban boundary expansion resulting in a massive land grab in 2015 and this brought the AEGD into the boundary at that time. The AEGD is located to the east of the “whitebelt” lands that were just saved from a further boundary expansion when Hamilton city council voted on Nov 9, 2021 to freeze Hamilton’s boundary. Whitebelt lands are shown on the map to the right.

Hamiltonians have been fighting urban expansion for decades

There was a lot of opposition to the formation of the aerotropolis – sufficient that the city changed its name to AEGD – led by Environment Hamilton and a new group called Hamiltonians for Progressive Development (HPD). There was also push back from provincial planners on the proposed size of the AEGD. The combination of public and provincial pressure whittled down the size of the AEGD. Both Environment Hamilton and HPD appealed the city’s plans but the OMB eventually approved an AEGD of 551 net hectares of developable land (695 gross hectares) in 2014. It then oversaw a drawing of the boundaries that was finalized in 2015. In this latter process the Twenty Road West landowners got their properties excluded from the AEGD and left as rural islands surrounded by the urban area that now included the AEGD lands. In that process, behind closed doors, there were some lands added to the AEGD to make up for what was removed for the Twenty Road West landowners group. The final settlement also committed the city to launch a new Municipal Comprehensive Review to determine where the boundary should be expanded for residential development. That’s the current MCR/GRIDS2 that began in 2017. This commitment was demanded by the Twenty Road West landowners who saw it as a way to get their rural islands converted to new residential subdivisions. The agreement, however, stated that the city saw Elfrida as its number one choice, the Twenty Road East lands as it’s second choice.

The AEGD contains Natural Heritage areas shown in green below and identified in the Urban Hamilton Official Plan as Core Areas to be preserved. There are many more sensitive areas on the mountain, including the Garner Marsh, that are not identified on the Urban Hamilton Official Plan.