Wheels keep spinning on landing more industrial land

While “never say never” is a wise caution, it now looks like Peterborough and Cavan Monaghan Township might never do the big annexation deal they have been circling around for 20 years.

That deal to have Cavan Monaghan transfer 4,160 acres of land to the city in return for $70 million and a number of other concessions is the best solution to Peterborough’s crippling lack of business/industrial development land and would deliver a handsome payoff to the township.

On Monday, city council officially turned away from a deal with the township, which seemed to have been completed four years ago but fell apart when the city tried to alter the payment schedule.

Council instead agreed that an updated version of the Official Plan will shift future strategy for development of large-scale business and industrial park space. The official direction will now be to use currently vacant land within the city boundary.

Because there is currently no vacant land designated for industrial use, housing developers who own large chunks of empty space would have to be convinced to switch gears on how it will be used.

The city planning report that recommended the shift outlined three ways that could happen.

Developers with land already designated for housing could agree to build industrial/business parks instead, on the model of the Major Bennett Industrial Park at Highway 7/115 and Sir Sandford Fleming Drive.

If there is no appetite to switch, the city would offer to buy the amount of land needed and initiate the industrial park process itself.

As a last resort, if housing developers refused to sell, the city could expropriate the land it needs.

The city needs 320 acres over the next 30 years. That figure is based on the provincial government’s growth strategy, which directs Peterborough to add 18,000 jobs by 2051. The city’s calculations show it will take 320 acres of fully developed business and industrial park to hit that number, even with other job growth.

The issue has come to a head because the Official Plan update, already years behind schedule, is stalled.

An Official Plan is like a jigsaw puzzle, one the planners say can’t be started until all the pieces are laid out and ready to connect to each other. Job development strategy is a necessary piece.

However, this new strategy is at least as big a gamble as relying on Cavan Monaghan to come back to the table on an annexation deal.

Industrial land is not worth nearly as much as housing land, so it is unlikely developers would take a financial hit and agree to that switch.

Approved, vacant housing land sells for roughly $250,000 an acre. Buying 320 acres would cost $80 million — roughly the payment to Cavan Monaghan — but there is little incentive for developers to walk away from the profits to be made building and selling homes.

Which leaves expropriation. If that’s the solution then the city should press for expropriation of the Cavan Monaghan lands, which would also bring Peterborough Airport inside the city.

City council approved the new Official Plan direction but built in an option to go back to annexation talks with Cavan Monaghan if it fails.

That feels more like spinning around than setting a direction, setting up a repeat of two decades of frustration.