Welland Brownfield Community Improvement Plan (CIP) Update

The City of Welland, located in Southern Ontario, in Niagara Region, on the Welland Canal between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, has 200 ha of brownfield sites created by its industrial and marine heritage. It also has the highest unemployment rates (8.8%) in Ontario. To address these challenges, the City of Welland will prepare an update to its 2007 Brownfield Community Improvement Plan (CIP). With this update, Welland aims to reach the following objectives: remediate contaminated sites, create jobs during the planning, remediation and construction phases of brownfield redevelopment projects, develop brownfields more intensively, use land efficiently and sustainably, increase significantly assessment value and long-term property taxes, as well as increase and diversify employment business opportunities as brownfield sites are redeveloped for industrial and commercial uses. The initiative’s methodology is to identify preliminary sustainability criteria and develop vision and targets, review brownfield programs in comparator municipalities, as well as conduct planning analysis on priority brownfield sites. The planning analysis of priority brownfield sites is designed to help address the remediation and redevelopment of a number of brownfield legacy sites. This analysis will examine market opportunities for redevelopment of these legacy sites. In addition to the land use history and environmental status of the sites, this planning analysis will review other possible barriers to redevelopment such as servicing and land use compatibility issues. The CIP will incorporate and coordinate the priorities of various departments and key strategies directions of various city plans and policies through a cross-departmental systems approach. The project steering committee will include head members from other City departments and a Niagara region member. The initiative will also include a critical review of existing Brownfield CIP, a strategically focused consultation program, and an incentive program evaluated with a triple bottom line approach. The Brownfield CIP will specify a monitoring program that includes the type of data that the City will collect for each brownfield redevelopment project that is approved for the incentive programs contained in the CIP. The deliverables are the New Brownfield CIP, the updated Brownfield Incentive Program Implementation Materials and the Completion Report to FCM. The specific CIP is designed to work in harmony with, complement and enhance the existing 2014 Downtown and Health and Wellness Cluster (DHWC) CIP and the regional Niagara Gateway Economic Zone and Centre CIP. The DHWC CIP was implemented in 2015. By June 2016, it had provided assistance for the renewal and redevelopment of 13 properties in the Downtown and Health and Wellness Cluster Project Area. Building on the direction of the current Brownfield CIP, the incentive programs to be developed for the updated Brownfield CIP will be designed to promote the Smart City principles of liveability, workability and sustainability. Finally, the Brownfield CIP will also dovetail with the Region's Smarter Niagara Incentive Programs, which are also scheduled to be reviewed and updated at the same time as the Welland Brownfield CIP. Through its past experience with Brownfield redevelopment and the proposed update, the City of Welland will be able to share numerous lessons learned with respect to municipal administration of brownfield programs; what those programs mean to private developers and applicants; and how improvements can be made to promote understanding of environmental sustainability. (Project description from original funding application)