Raise the Hammer

On the plus side, we should be happy to hear that Wal*Mart seems to think the lower city is worth investing in... they keep trying to cherry-pick sites on the edges of these important parts of town.

Now if only we could get businesses we liked to do that.

Now, I'm not a die-hard - I wouldn't mind a Wal*Mart somewhere in the lower city. But places like the West Harbour/Rheem lands and Ottawa street? No thanks.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2011-09-15 12:14:55

50-year lease? Egad! That's half a Jackson Square!

I just realized that the Walmart logo has now been officially placed within the cleared land at 1085 Barton St E. on the Redcliff Realty Inc. site.

There are () in the link so it doesn't seem to work right in the traditional coding manner? Ryan? For now, I used Tiny.cc to change the URL. :)

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-09-15 14:27:25

Well gee. This guy Scott Baldry should be known to everyone and I've never heard of him. Business and Licensing Facilitator? That sounds like the most important job a city hall.

Just a quick note - Scott Baldry hasn't been a Licensing Facilitator for quite a while. The new guy's name is Ilya.

Thanks for the heads up. I looked up his title after I talked to Scott. I'll be calling him today to follow up on this matter to see the timeline and ask a few more questions about the process in general.

I found his title from this article. Hamilton.ca search engine wasn't all that helpful when docs from 2007 top the search list.

Thanks Ryan.

I can sympathize with your comments.

Whenever I hear some of these "bad news stories" my response is either despair and melancholy, or rage...

Looking at the "little successes" and the way individual citizens are trying to make a difference is the only thing that gives me hope.

I had a comment for you G but my browser flipped suddenly to MSNBC for some reason and I lost it. I don't even have them on my favorites bar???

Don't go man. Let's fight but by selling Ottawa Street instead of fighting Walmart. I have had my 'keep them out say' and opposed the lease extension but if they still move in and they likely will, I'll switch my focus.

I love your idea and I am ready to be a part of Walmart at Ottawa, possibly being the first one ever to run for the Bay with their Made in China tails between their legs.

Passionate people like you leave, and Walmart has won. They haven't won by setting up shop or by putting people out of business. They win when they break you.

Let's get a big group together and meet like our little RTH in-person group is doing, and come up with ways to change shopping habits and show the benefits of supporting local businesses. I need a lesson or two or three too. I am proof that people can be changed. It takes awhile at first but then a breaking point is met and it's like someone turns on the lights. :)

Stand with me man. Don't leave Ottawa Street. I also want to start a factory but haven't a dime in my pocket. All we need is an idea. Made in Hamilton by Hamiltonians for Hamiltonians. No export. I've got some ideas but I am no entrepeneur. I am just sick of Walmart and US Steel and we need jobs in this city now and we also need to prove with our hearts, our time, and our wallets, how we can change the need for more highways and faster ways in and out of town.

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-09-16 11:23:12

Looking at the "little successes" and the way individual citizens are trying to make a difference is the only thing that gives me hope.

Me too Robert. It's time for way more of these 'little successes' or better yet, some big ones.

Looking at all that friggin parking...

Thanks again Ryan. I need to keep all these tips somewhere. :)

Here is a summary of what this committee of adjustment is and the process.

Thanks for the article!
It makes sense to me that Bernie Morelli and his staff would be involved in all these discussions, but isn't this proposed development actually in Ward 4?

Thanks James.

It is but the agenda stated Ward 3 which got my attention. It's across the street from Ward 3 so I would think anything within so many metres, is still Ward 3's business and in fact, part of Ottawa Street is in Ward 3 so this business would/will affect my ward. It also falls into the Crown Point boundaries albeit Crown Point East but the Neighbhorhood Association is called The Crown Jewel and covers all of Crown Point.

As for Bernie or Sam ... I don't want to ponit fingers. I can't imagine how any one councillor or their office of one or two staff, could possibly manage all this data. This committee alone meets three times a month. How do you keep up with all the amendments and emails and phone calls and, and, and.

A database is needed to track all incoming correspondances and the status of those items. We also need to change the internal City Hall processes. A 11x17 sign (of which I seen nowhere although I didn't walk around the entire property to look for one), could not be found. There should be a point of contact within the community whether it's the Neighbourhood Association lead or a tab on Bernie's website managed by the Office of the Committee of Adjustment or any committee, that fills the neighbourhoods on items related to them. 1085 and 1149 are flagged and emails should auto-send to those who would share this with the public so proper public notice is given. Not some quietly placed sign. Someone could propose a strip joint back on Barton and if I wasn't lucky enough to stumble upon the request, I and my fellow neighbours would be sol.

I don't want to blame council anymore. Let's come up with these ideas ourselves like others - including guys like Joey Coleman, are doing. There is a lot we can do without their consent and then other things we will need to push like opening up certain data. But what is alredy public, we can change how it makes it's way to the public and show them that now that it's built, if your staff update the data how we have formatted it, it will make their job much easier and it will change the dynamics of how our cities run substancially.

Awesome. I searched for you. Who says you aren't influencing. Don't sell yourself short. You just made it that much easier to search the cities site.

What else can you do? The one-stop button for emailing council is great too. Perhaps all these tools related to the cities site, could all be on this page you pointed to?

Is there a complete list of all staff working for the city in public/committee/decision making roles, with their titles, numbers, emails, pdf documents like I linked to above, that outine what those department mandates are and the processes?

No more Walmarts, period!

The city's website is a joke, it's one of the least user-friendly sites I've ever seen. Tonnes of information, most of it outdated, and as you noted, a terrible search engine.

You tell 'em Fidel!

Check this out, it sums it up pretty well I think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2...

What a perfect setting for a Walmart. Perhaps we can build a patio on their extensive rooftop so that shoppers can see the ruined husks of our local industries.

If Walmart wants to argue "free market competition", then it can stop producing it's goods in Communist China.

If I were you guys, I'd start talking with Councillor Brenda Johnson about what it's like to fight Walmart. She's actually pretty approachable. Although I guess in the end, Walmart was the ultimate victor so your mileage may vary.

What's happening with that Walmart anyway?

Why not?

They seem to be busy all the time. Someone must like them.

Just because a few of you think your too good to shop there, doesn't mean the vast majority of the population who do should be deprived of the opportunity.

"FYI, Target has already said it will be converting the Zellers at Centre Mall into one of its stores."

Correct, right next to the Metro Grocery Store, the Walmart lot is between the Brewers retail and the LCBO and the Tim Horton's is going on the other side near the food court and Boston Pizza. I'm not a fan of of the big box revolution but I don't have a phobia about it either. I noticed there is still a few small lots empty around the front next to Bell and the food court, still ripe for the small niche store or restaurant. Personally, I would love to see a UPS store, a Petsmart, and a Pam's Coffee franchise along with antstore that can offer good quality made Canadian goods at a fare price.

(Slips on his Mr. Contrarian hat...)

I'm re-reading 'A Consumers' Republic' by Lizbeth Cohen. http://tinyurl.com/6zu5cjy ) This book alone would make for a great RTH salon series. It explains how we got here. ('consumerism' isn't something that's been around forever in the form we know it today)

But even putting that aside, I'm very curious whether those who see Wal-Mart (and their like; it's not as if they're alone out there in doing what they do) in the light they do would be willing to take a good look at the general path to this state got this way, and moreover, how willing most would be to have the kind of society that not having the Wal-Marts, et al would mean.

In other words, we've all been complicit in this from the start...even if we're talking about your parents, your grand-parents...and your great-grand-parents.

(By the way, I'm not dissin' Lawrence; he's on the Town Halls Hamilton steering committee and we need his passion and dedication. So I offer what I offer advisedly.)

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-09-18 17:34:03

Consumerism is a logical product of industrialism. Mass production makes set-up very expensive, but individuals very cheap once that's done. This means that in order to be efficient, these systems must produce a LOT of identical units. At some point, though, these kinds of systems hit a wall - what happens when there's no more demand for the products? They can't just go back to producing small numbers of units to replace those that wear out - that wouldn't spread the cost of the assembly line thinly enough to break even. They could return to simpler production methods - but then what advantage do they have over the competition? At the end of the day, cultural engineering to drive up demand was the only way for these industries to survive.

Was consumerism a product of "choices people made"? To a degree, though most of those choices were made by a very small number of people. Fundamentally, though, consumerism is a part of our economic system, and can't just be halted without far broader changes. Pretending otherwise would be like saying "I'm going to stop breathing out, but I'm going to keep breathing in".

Well said, TnT, very funny. "My dreams of a retirement have gone up in a blaze, now I'll be scrubbing toilets till they put me in my grave!"

A sad analogy for my uncle and his brethen on the US Steel picket lines.

That is a very depressing view, @Undustrial. It is a terrible reality for people, especially people living in the poorest wards of the city. I bet many of them would have had trouble affording Zellers, but Walmart is markedly cheaper. I'll hazard a guess that the vast majority of people living in that Code Red Zone would actually cheer the Walmart coming there. Maybe if it is called Welfare Mart cynically, but those people on assistance aren't concerned about hurting the 70+ dollar an hour factory worker by shopping at Walmart. I imagine that the welfare crowd in those areas would greatly benefit by the hiring spree of minimum wage jobs and they place would actually see a short term improvement.

A Canadian documentary shared on the Ward 3 Residents Association page: Wal*Town

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-09-18 22:53:20

Consumerism is a logical product of industrialism.

Absolutely. But I can't help but believing that a society that's based on 'consuming' is doomed.

What's fascinating to me is that the subtext of most non-dystopian science fiction (at least what I've been exposed to) is the notion that society has moved on from materialism, that the world has managed a migration to an experiential model.

Is Wal Mart really all that cheap? Sure, compared to middle-class mall shops or Westdale boutiques, they're cheaper. But most people I know on welfare have a few dozen dollars of spending money a month at best, which still won't fill up a Wamart shopping cart or handbasket. Dollar stores and thrift shops? Sure, maybe even Giant Tiger, but I've always seen Wal Mart as more of a venue for cheap, tasteless middle-class people.

"Everyday low prices" aren't going to help people on welfare if they continue and accelerate the trends which are destroying Hamilton's job market. And as we've witnessed in too many states, working at Walmart isn't exactly an alternative to welfare. Several state governments have had to sue them for encouraging workers to go on welfare for the significantly better health benefits.

Wal Marts have a nasty habit of eating three jobs for every two they create. Hamilton can not afford such a loss - not in our retail or industrial sectors, and surely not at Barton and Ottawa.

Agree entirely, a consumerist model is great as long as people are struggling to make ends meet, or aspiring to obtain luxuries, but when most people are living so oppulently, and even the poorest among us seem to have cellphone and tvs and computers which couldn't be dreamed of 100 years ago, you have to wonder how much more society can consume? How much more can we buy? What other luxuries are available to us?

I think in part this feeds into our current economic difficulty, people simply don't need anything more, so they aren't buying.

Imagine if all that labour and effort focussed on consuming (and advertising to induce demand) was instead focussed on something useful?

I thought it was great that there was a Canadian Michael Moore type doc on Walmart. Good on them. I'll be buying that one for sure. Seems like a great film to find a large space and engage in some discussion afterwards.

We'll get together soon re: your thoughts way above. I have a crazy week but next week for sure we'll meet up for a coffee or something.

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-09-19 11:30:28

...when this happens one must start all over again.

That, my friend, is the second wall. The point at which most goods produced by this system can again be produced cheaper and more effectively by most people than they can purchase them. The incredible drop in quality of our goods over the last fifty years has led to a point where most kids could learn to do as well with a few tries. This isn't an accident - it's a direct product of how these factories work. The designs have to be simple enough for children off the streets of rural third world nations to build, because in a great many cases that's exactly who's building them. Especially at Wal Mart.

Trying to work this out in numbers would take a lot of data about average wages, prices, and production styles, but I'd bet that this point fell around the 90s for most goods (other than microchips, etc). It isn't that we can beat the import prices, but once it hits the shop floor with all the associated first-world markups (profits, wages, advertising, land etc) they're nowhere near as cheap. If they carry brand names, they're often as expensive as well-built local versions.

On the other hand, one need only visit Instructables to see what people are capable of in their garages these days.

Where are you heading too? I hope you will still be active on the site as your input is entertaining and insightful.

An appeal went to the OMB, but the appellants didn't have enough money for a long drawn out battle, so it was withdrawn. I do not know if the developers have broken ground yet - but I don't think so.

I know the feeling. I'm only working right now because of the misfortune of another I know, and as you can see by my presence on here, I sure ain't workin' hard.

The job situation in this town is utterly miserable. There's call centres, peddling, temp agencies, and a GO station. Given those options, I can't blame anyone for choosing the latter. I wish you the most luck, though, finding decent work before you list your place. Hamilton needs people like you - bright and handy. Intellectuals can only do so much...

Heads up, downtown!

http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/597775--walmart-canada-to-try-smaller-urban-stores

Just about to post the same.

I have young children. I want them to have a great life. The environment is going to affect them. And I’m lucky enough to be in a job where I can do something about that.

Maybe stop producing things in China while you're at it so your kids have jobs to go to when they get older. Are you in a position to do something about that?

Ouch. That's what happens when "journalists" copy and paste corporate press releases instead of researching their stories.

How can somebody write about Wal Mart's supply chains without mentioning China and keep a straight face? Or their packaging policies, environmental policies in general, or "tough times for consumers", without mentioning a flip-side to those issues?

And they wonder why I won't pay for their "news".

Have you ever thought about all of he seniors, in the area of Centre Mall, who find it difficult to get around in that new facility never mind find affordable
places to shop? Walmart would be a one stop shopping spot for them.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, business in not exactly booming for the merchants who are now paying higher rents. If Walmart came, it would attract a
much bigger crowd of people who are now travelling all the way to the east end.
As for Ottawa Street...it has stood on its own for all these years. Why would you think that Walmart is going to make a difference to them other than to possibly create more business?

Agreement clears path for Fifty Road commercial (Winona Wal-mart) and transit developments

Hamilton, ON – November 7, 2011 – An agreement that implements the City’s vision for the development of commercial lands in Winona has been reached and is expected to benefit both the City of Hamilton and local development partnership, Penady. The agreement, approved by City Council, will allow for a commercial complex to be built on the site and will allow for the City to proceed with planning for the proposed transit hub that could accommodate future HSR and GO transit service. The City and Penady have completed discussions, looking at ways to work together on the development of property on the southwest corner at Fifty Road and South Service Road.

The proposed 443,000 square-foot commercial development can go ahead. The City will receive one acre of land, at no cost, for the proposed transportation hub. As well, Penady will withdraw a lawsuit against the City of Hamilton and Councillor Brenda Johnson, amend a severance application before the Ontario Municipal Board in accordance with the agreement with the City and, has already withdrawn a “bump-up” request on the GO Niagara Environmental Assessment.

Penady is pleased with this resolution which will result in a much needed development and transit hub proceeding and would like to acknowledge the integrity of Councillor Johnson and the City in reaching this resolution.



“At this time, we would like to thank Councillor Johnson and City staff for their vigilance in moving this resolution forward in the best interests of the community”, said Leger Xavier, Vice President, Development and Leasing, PenEquity Realty Corporation.

The City is expected to receive approximately $7 million in development charges for the property, in addition to annual tax revenues. The City’s contribution for infrastructure improvements to the South Service Road will be approximately $100,000.

At the recommendation of Councillor Johnson, Penady have donated $2,000 to the soon to be Winona Recreation Centre.

“The agreement helps meet Council’s vision of the area. This settlement allows the development to move forward in a way that meets the needs of the community which includes the transportation hub as originally planned”, said Councillor Brenda Johnson.

“Staff can now proceed with a fiscally responsible transit strategy that meets the short-term and long-term goals of the City”, added City Manager, Chris Murray. “City ownership of property at the site will allow GO to develop a business case for service to Fifty Road, in addition to stops at Centennial Parkway and James Street North.”

Councillor Johnson stated, “I look forward to continuing to work with the Community Liaison Committee and Penady representatives to maintain a continued consultation with residents as the development proceeds.”