The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

w at er lo oc hr on ic le .c a W at er lo o C hr on ic le | T hu rs da y, D ec em be r 19 ,2 01 9 | 4 to redevelop the Southworks An- tique Mall in Galt, became the 23rd and 24th projects under the region's tax incremental grant (TIG) pro- gram which, along with local lower- tier municipalities, provides mil- lions of dollars of financial incen- tive to get developers to clean up of contaminated, underdeveloped properties. Prior to their approval at a plan- ning and works committee meeting last week, Rod Regier, the region's commissioner of planning, develop- ment and legislative services, said the TIG program had offset about $40 million worth of property taxes across 21 projects since its inception in 2006, leading to more than $800 million in total assessment value, with thousands of new residences and offices and retail space. Following redevelopment, the program waives property taxation for 10 years or up to the full cost of remediation. The TIG program was recognized with a Brownie Award by the Canadian Brownfields Net- work in Toronto last month in a cat- egory that recognizes organizations for bringing down barriers to brownfield redevelopment. Cost is usually the No. 1 barrier. What's costlier from a municipal perspective is having developers opt for greenfields on the outskirts of town, adding to the need for new infrastructure such as roads and sewers, said Regier. Allowing serviced, underuti- lized land to sit vacant is a lost op- portunity, he said. "The question is, can we leverage that land base? Can we put it back to work?" An approved TIG isn't paid until after remediation, redevelopment and reassessment of a property, which ensures the municipality will realize future benefits, accord- ing to Amanda Kutler, manager of development planning. "It makes a lot of sense to have these initial commitments up front," she said. "We won an award because we went at it hard," Regier said. "We put in an aggressive program to support remediation and have had some big sites come forward." The former Budd industrial lands in Kitchener represent the largest project announced to date under the TIG program from an ar- ea perspective. Other projects have involved costlier remediation work. Typically those approved are within the central transit corridor or well positioned with transit in- frastructure. "A lot of our sites have taken ad- vantage of that location to build high-density projects," Regier said, referring the Breithaupt Block in Kitchener, Cambridge's Water- scape and the former Brick Brew- ery Site in Waterloo. HIP development's proposed project on King Street features 321 residential units atop a four-floor podium, with thousands of square feet for retail units and STEAM learning space for youth. The total assessed value is estimated at $103,857,000 compared to $2,425,000 in 2019. It's the third successful joint TIG application for the City of Waterloo, which is responsible for providing about 35 per cent of the financial in- centive. According to a staff report, con- taminants of concern were identi- fied in the soil and groundwater during an environmental assess- ment in 2015 and HIP is pursuing a risk assessment and a record of site condition (RSC), which is a require- ment to redevelop the lands. Canada Post is still the regis- tered owner of the site and has en- tered into an agreement of pur- chase and sale with the applicant, providing permission for HIP, the future owner of the property, to ap- ply for the TIG. NEWS Continued from page 1 'A LOT OF OUR SITES HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THAT LOCATION TO BUILD HIGH-DENSITY PROJECTS' THE ISSUE: BROWNFIELDS REPRESENT LOST OPPORTUNITY IN TERMS OF TAX REVENUE AND LAND USE LOCAL IMPACT: A FINANCIAL INCENTIVE PROGRAM OFFERED BY THE REGION OF WATERLOO TO REMEDIATE THEM GENERATES A 20:1 RETURN ON INVESTMENT STORY BEHIND THE STORY The region was recently honoured for its work to assist with the cleanup of brownfields and approved two additional properties for future financial incentives to spur redevelopment in Waterloo and Cambridge. The final design for a new 15,500-square-foot Waterloo Public Library branch that will be tacked on to the southeast corner of the RIM Park Manulife Financial Sportsplex was presented Monday evening. The new addition, WPL's fourth branch, is estimated to cost $10.3 million, with groundbreak- ing planned for next spring and oc- cupancy slated for June of 2021. "I don't want to get too deep into just saying how much this means to the east side, because I'll prob- ably crack up," said Coun. Diane Freeman. WPL's CEO Laurie Clarke said the dream essentially started back in 2005 when the library board presented a plan to remedy a def- icit of library space. The John M. Harper branch opened in 2011 on the west side of the city, and soon thereafter council committed to a feasibility study for a branch on the east side, with a strong empha- sis on technology based programs, places to meet and dedicated spac- es for different age groups. The new branch embraces the concept of flexibility for diverse program needs, which was a theme at the forefront of public consultation, noted Clarke. "The public wanted all of the users to be able to use the space however they needed at their point of need," she said. "And when you see the designs that will be presented tonight, you'll see we embraced this idea wholehearted- ly." Furniture, display walls and partitions can be moved around at a moment's notice. An open, flexible space coined a "collaboratory" will facilitate community programming and maker activities with higher ceil- ings and glazed, continuous win- dows, with views to an adjacent forest school - an enclosed, natu- ral, outdoor space that can be used for programming - as well as the main driveway, displaying the li- brary's programs to the communi- ty, noted Tina Ranieri-D'Ovidio, a principal with ward99 Architects. The "northern bar" is quiet por- tion of library with lower acoustic ceilings and collections, Ranieri- D'Ovidio explained. There are two innovation spac- es included in the design, as well as a gaming and digital area adja- cent to a new, barrier-free family washroom. Renderings show a "trombe wall" that will be used for passive solar heating, an electric fireplace and decorative colourful light rings over a children's area. "This is looking fantastic," said Coun. Tenille Bonoguore. "First of all, I can imagine families loving this space." "The basic premise working from the feasibility study of the fa- cility is that as an addition at the southeast corner of the sportsplex building, it would take advantage of some opportunities to share within the building and without," said architect John MacDonald. "Two existing entrances to the sportsplex means patrons will be able to enwrap all of the activities in this wonderful municipal insti- tution." MacDonald said the project team considered patterns of cir- culation on the site to accommo- date users. "There's a major trails system connecting communities nearby and we have provided a new front door for them so to speak," Mac- Donald said, alluding to a trail connection at the front entrance. Kevin Van Ooteghem, senior project engineer, said the project team didn't want the new library branch to get lost in the address, but its prominence at the front en- trance to a major sports facility is something that created a need for traffic calming measures. "It's something we've been cog- nizant of from the very beginning with this project, understanding that the building is basically at the main entrance to the parking ar- ea," Van Ooteghem said. Councillors expressed the need to continue to work on connectiv- ity and transportation links mov- ing forward. More information can be found at wpl.ca. PLANS FOR $10-MILLION LIBRARY BRANCH ON EAST SIDE UNVEILED BILL JACKSON bjackson@kitchenerpost.ca COUNCIL An architectural rendering of the Waterloo East Side Branch Library. John MacDonald/ward 99 Architects