UPDATE: City given six months to extend Harbour Road

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

The City of Oshawa is potentially on the hook to construct a full extension of Harbour Road past Farewell Street.

At its Sept. 24 meeting, council narrowly voted against a potential agreement that would see the Oshawa Port Authority (OPA) build a private driveway, running east from the end of Harbour Road.

The OPA had agreed to cover the full cost of the potential driveway. The port points to growing truck traffic with the new McGinnis Cement operation and the upcoming installation of a grain storage facility as the reasons for needing another access to their site.

At its June 29 meeting, council had turned the proposal down, then moved to approve it after it became clear the OPA could trigger an agreement signed in 1976 that binds the city to build a full-service road in the area.

The 1976 agreement stipulates that the road would be 1,983 feet, asphalt pavement with complete concrete curb and gutter work, storm sewers, and sidewalks. The agreement states construction must begin upon six months of the written notice from the OPA with costs split between the city and port.

In agreeing to the proposal in principle, the city had requested it receive a 120-metre strip of land to act as a buffer for the nearby Second Marsh.

The federal government owns the land in question.

At the Sept. 24 meeting, staff brought back a revised proposal for council’s consideration.

In late-August, the port advised the city it had consulted with the federal government on the matter.

It was suggested the best way to create the Second Marsh buffer was to extend the term of a land use agreement between the OPA and the city for an extra 25 years.

That agreement is currently set to end on July 15, 2020.

On Sept. 26, the city received correspondence from OPA CEO and harbourmaster Donna Taylor giving the city six months notice to construct the full-service road.

The city’s share of the road is expected to be approximately $1.3 million of capital costs for initial design and construction, plus another $3 million in capital costs over the first 100 years of the road’s life.

Annual operating costs are pegged at approximately $200,000.

Again, these are estimates as the project has yet to receive tender.

On Friday, Sept. 28, council again met to address the OPA’s notice.

Two advocates for Oshawa’s waterfront, Tom Mitchell and Larry Ladd, appeared as delegates.

Mitchell questioned why the city would take the OPA’s notice seriously.

He noted that Port Authority has to pay FarmTech $4.1 million as a result of the cancelled ethanol plant at Oshawa Harbour, and its own auditors said the organization’s financial situation was on shaky ground.

He went on to say the city entering into any agreement, much less one of 25 years, would be an “act of extreme recklessness.”

Ladd thinks if the OPA wants a road built, it should pay its share before construction starts.

He wondered why no one from the port authority had spoken at either council meeting and accused the body of not being “forthcoming.”

“It’s high time there was public consultation on the city’s dealings with the Port Authority,” Ladd said.

Ladd says he has seen no commitment from the OPA that there won’t be future efforts to attract another ethanol plant to the port.

At the outset of the meeting, Mayor John Henry urged council to reconsider its decision.

Councillor Amy McQuaid-England immediately moved to have the notice received for information.

However, Councillor John Aker called it a “significant letter” that “deserved” debate.

Aker said should the city build the road, it would be one the “citizens of Oshawa will not use.”

“It is of very little benefit to the residents of Oshawa,” Aker said.

Councillor Gail Bates said receiving the notice didn’t do enough, as in her view, council “didn’t even know what the OPA is thinking.”

By a 6-5 vote, the matter was referred for the consideration of members of the 2018-2022 council term.

That decision is worrisome to Henry.

“They want to push it off onto the next council, but there was a drop-dead date of Sept. 30 [for the city to respond to the OPA],” the mayor stated.

Henry says it puts a “burden on the next council for negotiations.”

“I worry about that,” he says.

The mayor wondered if the consequences of the 1976 agreement had been fully considered by all councillors.

“I’m not sure all members of council understand, or they may and this was just their decision, that was a binding document that goes back to when I was 16 years old.”

Councillor John Shields reached out to The Oshawa Express after the meeting to explain why he supported referring the matter.

“We need to hear from the OPA. To make a final decision…it would have been nice to have a presentation,” Shields said.

He believes council shouldn’t “be making decisions of this magnitude” without hearing from the federal government.

“The OPA has stated the federal government will not allow for this. In my opinion, we are discussing an important condition of this agreement with a party that can not make the decision,” Shields wrote in an-email. “If the OPA does not have the authority to convey the land, then we need to be speaking directly with the federal government, Transport Minister [Marc] Garneau specifically.”

Shields says the majority of costs to build the road have already been adressed.

The project was included under the city’s 2014 development by-law charge for 90 per cent of eligible costs. The rest will come from another city reserve or the city tax levy.

But Henry isn’t sure of the validity of the $1.3 million cost estimate.

“Don’t forget it is an environmentally-sensitive area, so that doesn’t include the EA that would have to be done, it doesn’t include what water and sewer will be,” Henry says.

Lastly, Shields took issue that the mayor and Deputy Mayor Nester Pidwerbecki “were the only ones [members of council] involved in discussions.”

He called it “flat out wrong” that the OPA has no interest in “presenting to Council [and] answering our questions and concerns.”

McQuaid-England shared similar concerns at the Sept. 24 meeting.

“I just feel we’re missing a huge piece of this, which is the public crown’s decision,” she said, adding that she didn’t “trust” what the port was telling the city was “accurate.”

“All we have is broken telephone with the port…,” McQuaid-England said. “I just don’t think we have enough information to make this decision.”

Commissioner of Development Services Paul Ralph noted that a past letter from Garneau stated there were no surplus federal lands in the area available for sale to the city, and the OPA’s message was “consistent” with that.

Gary Valcour, chairman of the OPA board of directors, told The Express this message has always been known to the city.

Back in June, when council first supported the driveway proposal, Valcour says the condition of giving the city the land “came out of left field.”

“It was the city who introduced that there ought to be something else,” he says.

Valcour says the OPA attempted to meet halfway with the city to make the proposal fair work for both sides.

“At the very last minute, they threw in this idea that we should give them land.”

And while he said that was surprising to him, council’s interest in the lands is not new.

“The city has been writing letters asking ‘give back the Gifford Farm’ or however they phrase it. The city never owned it in the first place, they just want that parcel of land,” he says.

Valcour said the OPA pitched the idea to the feds, and “our staff confirmed with the federal government that [its] opinion hadn’t changed.”

Regardless, he argues the city is not in a position to demand the land be given to them.

“Most importantly…which is something that [some of] these city councillors, whether they don’t understand or don’t want to acknowledge, I don’t know what the reason is, this is Crown land administered by the Port Authority. We have the final say in what happens to it,” Valcour says.

As far using the 42-year-old agreement, Valcour says the city tied their hands.

“First of all, this agreement was triggered now because we had no choice really. The reality was, it was made pretty clear that if the port needed a road, the city had to build it. It’s very straightforward,” he says.

Shields claims that both the city and the OPA had signified they did not feel “this 1976 agreement is mutually beneficial to either party” in the past.

He provided a June 2017 letter to the Express from Taylor to City Manager Jag Sharma about possibly revising the agreement.

“There are many options available that could benefit both the City and the Oshawa Port Authority and I look forward to being able to commence discussions with you at your earliest opportunity,” Taylor wrote.

Valcour acknowledged those discussions, and from his standpoint, both sides had tried to find a suitable solution.

“We went to that exercise. None of that was able to get us to the point where a group of councillors were able to accept alternate terms to that agreement,” he said. “We’re sort of at the point of what else can we do.”

In fact, Valcour stated that he is “appalled that council can’t figure out what was on the table and negotiated in good faith by the mayor, deputy mayor, ourselves and members of city staff.”

“I shake my head. I don’t get it. I don’t understand,” he says.

Valcour said if any councillors question the OPA’s intentions, that’s for them to deal with.

“[The land] has been earmarked for a long, long time as a buffer zone. We’re not going to use it for anything else,” he says. “If there are people on council who don’t trust that is the case, that’s on them. There is no legal obligation. We can use it for whatever the hell we want, but we’ve made a commitment we’re not going to do that.”

Valcour says there is “certainly no present plan” bring an ethanol facility back to the port.

“I can tell you that quite categorically. On the other hand, we are obligated, by law, to listen to anybody who says ‘I need to access the port for my business’,” he said.

As for dealing with the next council, Valcour didn’t completely dismiss the possibility of the two sides sitting down again.

“I would never say no to the idea of some discussions that might benefit everybody,” he says. “I don’t think my board members are going to say that, and I don’t think our CEO is going to say that.”