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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEcon Dev Adv 2010-01-27 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES January 27, 2010 City of Kitchener The Economic Development Advisory Committee met this date, chaired by Jeremy Auger; the following members were in attendance: Adrian Conrad, Councillor John Smola, Councillor Christina Weylie, Steven Voll, Brian Bennett, Mark Collins, Bob Denton, Rebecca Short, Peter Benninger, Bernie Nimer, Dan Piedra The following people sent their regrets: Mark Bingeman, Howie Budd The following people were absent: Staff in attendance: Rod Regier, Tracey DeVille, Janette MacDonald, Valerie Machedo, Rob Morgan, Terry Boutilier, Jeff Willmer, Shelley Adams, Alain Pinard, Cory Bluhm, Tina Malone-Wright, Sarah Longstaff Approval of minutes - On motion, the minutes of December 2009 were approved. New Business: 2.1 Employment Lands Tina Malone-Wright provided the Committee with a presentation on the Comprehensive Employment Lands Review as part of the approach to employment lands within the official plan review process. Including how we respond to the challenges within the employment lands inventory and answering the question on whether or not these lands meet our needs. Janette MacDonald also provided an overview of the breakdown of employment by industry and the projections for future employment. Ms. Malone-Wright advised the Committee that she was here to gather comments from the committee as part of the overall report to council. Additional insight into what the group can offer in terms of the assumptions of employment by industry forecast The committee provided the following questions / comments: What types of things are in the wellhead protection areas? - The regional official plan outlines what uses are allowed and not allowed in each area in order to protect the water supply for the city. The province outlines the number of employment jobs – how much of a buffer is built into that, what happens if this region takes off and our projected margins are small then what? - The province is providing a min and yes, we may not have enough lands so were are hoping to use the numbers that will provide us with larger abilities How often will this be reviewed? - We will be reviewing this every 5 years How many vacant acres are in the inventory now and how many employment jobs are there to be per acre? - Currently the Kitchener Growth Management Strategy assumed 1 job per 92 sq metres and looked at 25% coverage for industrial land, in terms of vacant parcels there are about 124 parcels that are vacant now. If for some reason a large manufacturing firm comes in and takes large parcels without meeting the number of jobs, reducing inventory, what measures are in place to deal with that? - We are hoping that the development policy will allow for protection of that. There are several things that could happen so this is a lot of assumptions. With the anticipated growth in the region, there has been talk to open land up around the airport, should the employment numbers for Cambridge and Woolwich not be higher then? - The airport lands are seen as the location for large industrial, for example if there was a large industrial use attracted to the city, we do not have the capacity to accommodate so they would be directed to those lands. The east side lands were originally in the Economic Development Investment Fund to cover costs to service those lands, that has not been done yet; however, is still an option. There does not seem to be much excess capacity built into this, could that cause problems for us in the future? - The way that we have looked at it is the density that is being proposed as 1000 sq ft per employee is typical manufacturing density, so there is a lot of breathing room in there for higher density employment and if you look at lower density employment, manufacturing etc., they are declining as a share of employment in the region and the higher density are looking at 4 to 5 per 1000 sq ft or more. This study did not include the transit hub or the urban growth centre, for example The Tannery is not included in this study due to their location. What is the Fischer-Hallman Study area and why was it excluded from the study? - The study is the south west community plan that is currently going on. These are lands that were identified in the Growth Management Strategy as future development for a future corridor, we identified that this is the one area in the community that does not have a key focal point, and it is also the largest remaining Greenfield area in the city and we want to investigate the feasibly of establishing that community. We have carried that forward and we have now hired a consultant to assist in establishing that area, there are lands on the east side that have old zoning. Fischer-Hallman would become a spine for a larger community in the southwest with higher density then other urban areas. How can you exclude these lands from this study? - We need to complete this current study first, to show that we have enough employment lands to exclude this – our numbers show we do. City analysis is showing a large buffer for capacity compared to the region – are we still gong to be able to meet our regional target. - We want the numbers that are higher but we need to work off the region numbers instead of our numbers - We would like the region to tell us why they do not think that Kitchener has the ability to grow at the projections we have proposed. - Some parcels are being used for industrial and there is opportunities to bring those into the plan and convert them to greater use Even though you have to publish the region number can we show the city numbers? - Yes we can. On an annual basis we can revise our numbers. What we have identified in this is all the land we want to protect and there are other lands we want to study for future. So once this is complete and we want to change designations do we need the province’s approval. - We can’t change this until after a 5 year review then once approved by the city it is approved by the region. If you set your criteria by the city’s standards which are higher than the Regional Official Plan are you subjecting yourself to more challenge by developers? - We have the authority to establish our cut offs, we have to abide by the minimum as set by the province, at the end of the day the outcome of the study has to be implemented through the official plan and then someone can appeal if they want. We are mandated to review the official plan every 5 years – we don’t see large changes but minor tweaking. Do we know the density numbers that are prescribed for Kitchener and how those numbers look against what the province has outlined? - We have the density per parcels but not overall but not in that capacity. We have the targets we have to meet but not what we are currently at. There is a study underway right now with the region to determine those numbers. Has there been any discussion with the surrounding cities and their projections? - Waterloo has completed their study and their numbers match the region, Cambridge is currently working on theirs. We are working together with the region but not the other cities. There is so much that will happen over the next 20 years and how do we see that? - This will help to form the path that we need to be on, with regular reviews and understanding we will update – this is not set in stone, we are planning for the future 2.2 2010 Calendar Adrian Conrad asked that everyone have a look at the proposed yearly agenda and provide any comments. He advised that these are the items that were identified as priorities coming out of the December brainstorming session. He advised that need to think how the discussions will take place with culture and tourism since they are connected. Most of these discussions will take several meetings and we will need to have an observation of where we are and what we need to move forward. We are interested in culture as an economic driver within the City of Kitchener and we need to look beyond that and see who else needs to be part of that discussion. It was also advised that the Committee needs to think about the strategy to attracting talent to the region. Due to the size of this topic we need to have a roundtable discussion to identify the challenges from EDAC’s perspective. The members provided the following comments / suggestions: - off site meetings (school of pharmacy tour) - concern that if we push these off they don’t get looked at for the year - some volunteers to prep some of the work would be helpful – we could use some to help with these discussions – - Arts and Culture Advisory Committee has requested that there be a joint meeting – they will be invited to one of our meetings – staff / chairs will work with them to get this together - digital media missing from the list The committee was reminded of the Business Heritage Awards on Tuesday February 2, 2010 at 5:00 pm. On motion the meeting adjourned at 12:45 p.m.