From this

To this?

Scroll down to see what Hamilton farmland is at risk of warehouse industrial sprawl

370, 378, 412, 436 Garner Rd East is one property situated on the southeast corner of Highway 6 and Garner Rd.

Some of what’s at risk

  • Tributary of the Ancaster Creek

  • Small meadow marsh connected to the Significant Woodland

  • Removal or potential injury of nine endangered Butternut trees

  • Eastern Wood-pewee habitat

  • Hedgerow wildlife corridor

  • Potential breeding and dispersal habitat for endangered Jefferson Salamander

  • Potential habitat for species at risk bats and bat maternity roosts

Write to james.vanrooi@hamilton.ca to request:

“Please add me to the list of persons to be notified about developments concerning application 25T-202102”

What is proposed for this property

  • Twelve block Industrial Subdivision with an area of 121 acres of impervious paved surfaces

  • Around 200 parking spaces for cars

  • Around 100 surface parking spaces for transport trucks

  • Around 300 loading bays for transport trucks

  • 6 acre stormwater management pond

700 Garner Rd East, Ancaster

Some of what’s at risk

  • Grove of 48 endangered Butternut trees

  • Several headwater tributaries of Tiffany Creek

  • Open water mineral meadow cattail marsh used extensively by local wildlife as a clean drinking source

  • A second wetland also identified as a mineral meadow cattail marsh

  • Habitat for spring peepers, toads, coyotes, muskrat, deer, coywolves, coyotes, foxes, wild turkeys

  • Several Birds of Prey including a pair of sharp shinned hawks

  • deciduous and coniferous hedgerows used as wildlife corridors

  • Significant wildlife habitat

  • Potential Bat maternity colonies

  • Potential waterfowl stopover and staging area

Write to james.vanrooi@hamilton.ca to request:

“Please add me to the list of persons to be notified about developments concerning application 25T-202105 at 700 Garner Rd E, Ancaster”

What is proposed for this property

  • 61 acres of paved surfaces

  • 1 stormwater management pond to replace a wetland used extensively by local wildlife as a clean water source

  • 1 stormwater management pond to be constructed beside an existing wetland

  • 1 acre of natural heritage

  • Around 900 surface parking spaces for cars

  • Single storey library

  • Single storey Community Centre

  • Three storey Secondary School

  • Five storey Long Term Care Home

  • Seven storey Retirement residence

  • One storey place of worship

  • Two six storey medical buildings

 9236 and 9322 Dickenson Rd West

Some of what’s at risk

  • Barn swallow

  • Eastern Wood Pewee

  • Eastern Garter snake

  • Wild Turkey

  • Vesper sparrow

  • Spotted Spreadwing

  • Monarch

  • Indigo Duskywing

  • Belted Kingfisher

  • Provincially Significant Wetland

  • Streams to be realigned or removed

  • Removal of hundreds of trees

  • Three pure Butternut trees

This application has been approved with the wetland being transferred to city ownership.

What is proposed for this property

  • Four industrial buildings and roads with an area of approximately 77 acres of impervious paved surfaces

  • Around 600 surface parking spaces for cars

  • At least 200 surface parking spaces and loading docks for transport trucks

  • Realigned Twenty Mile tributary creek converted to “storm conveyance channel” to pass between buildings 1 and 2

  • Warehousing surrounding half of a Provincially Significant Wetland

The plan to destroy the Garner Road marsh in the headwaters of Ancaster Creek is part of a wide assault on Hamilton’s wetlands and headwaters. That’s additional to the already severely compromised waterways and ecological integrity across the community. Sewage and contaminated stormwater are already regularly damaging Cootes Paradise and Hamilton Harbour and all the streams that flow into them. The same is true of the streams which flow across Hamilton’s borders into Niagara, Halton and the Grand River watershed. The destruction of more headwaters and wetlands means more contamination and more likelihood of flooded homes and businesses downstream.

This assault must stop! We have lost too much already, and we are already paying a huge ecological and flooding price, that are both being rapidly worsened as climatic impacts multiply and intensify. The climate emergency and the ecological emergency can only be minimized by protecting all we have left and working to restore at least some of what we have lost.

In the Ancaster Creek watershed Over 90 percent of the wetlands are already gone. Two of its three headwater streams are currently threatened by warehouses. These would replace wetland sponges and prime agricultural land with buildings and parking lots that push more stormwater downstream.

Immediately east of the Garner Marsh warehouse project is an even larger land block designated for more warehouses. In between the two warehouse projects the Ford government is promising to double the width of Highway 6, destroying even more headwater areas and significant forests.

Meanwhile the logical place for warehouses sit largely empty along the harbour where old industrial areas adjacent to the largest port in the Great Lakes are also immediately next to major highways and railways. Instead of reusing these older industrial areas, much more pristine areas are scheduled to be destroyed.

The warehouse business model is a replacement for the big box complexes whose lands were also devastated with pavement and cheap buildings and are now being replaced by on-line consumption and direct-to-buyer delivery. Thus one highly destructive commercial model is being replaced by another even more destructive one and more foodlands, wetlands, forests and waterways are sacrificed for this latest economic trend. Like the big box business model, the warehouse craze also means more greenhouse gases, sidelining pedestrians and cycling with trucking of single purchases to consumers who pay higher prices and more to repair roads and other public infrastructure.