The battle for the unused former Davis Tannery land in Kingston has been taken to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
After winning a Kingston City Council vote against developer Jay Patry in September 2022, No Clear Cuts Kingston is taking the developer on again at the Ontario Land Tribunal for a hearing predicted to last weeks. No Clear Cuts Kingston spent the last few months fundraising with the support of Queen’s students.
The case between Patry and No Clear Cuts Kingston isn’t new. Patry is arguing his proposed development of the 37 acres in question will relieve pressure from Kingston’s strained housing market, while No Clear Cuts Kingston believes the existing wetlands are vital for the wellbeing of the Kingston community.
Queen’s students, including the AMS Commission of Environmental Sustainability and Queen’s Backing Action on the Climate Crisis (QBACC), raised money to help No Clear Cuts pay for expert witnesses at the upcoming tribunal. Students across Queen’s hosted a “Stop the Chop Gala” in November, which raised approximately $12,000 in one night.
READ MORE: Stop the Chop Gala wants to axe developer’s plans
For QBACC Co-President Sienna Margorian, ConEd ’24, housing is a problem, but Margorian cast uncertainty on Patry’s development as a solution.
“Patry Inc. has a history of not maintaining units properly. A few years ago, one of the units burned down because it wasn’t properly maintained,” Margorian said in an interview with The Journal.
Jay Patry Enterprises Inc. was fined $60,000 in 2015 after pleading guilty to not fulfilling measures in the Construction Projects Regulation, after a fire broke out at one of their construction sites. Jay Patry was identified in 2015 as an owner.
Patry was contacted multiple times for comment but was unable to respond to these allegations in time for publication.
Patry maintains Kingston needs housing fast and revised his original proposal, which now wouldn’t overlap with the wetland boundary. The tannery development would create 1,600 units at the heart of Kingston, but would require chopping more than 1,600 trees. Part of the wetland would be filled to support construction.
“We’re losing really important wetlands, of which in southern Ontario, we’ve lost a lot of. Plus, it’s getting developed by someone who we may not trust to run these buildings after [they’ve] been built,” Margorian said.
According to No Clear Cuts Kingston representative Kathleen O’Hara, Kingston has been identified as a future extreme heat zone. Urban forests like the tannery site provide shade and naturally cool the surrounding community.
Environmental groups are concerned disrupting soil during construction will release toxic compounds left over from the tannery’s industrial processes. According to a study completed by Queen’s Biology Professors in 2009, the site had high levels of mercury, which could leach into surrounding ecosystems and waterways if disturbed.
Students and No Clear Cuts Kingston remain optimistic about the outcome of the hearing, and have hired planners, ecologists, and chemists as expert witnesses.
“The appellant has about 14 [expert witnesses], because the appellant has bottomless pockets,” O’Hara said.
In 2022, The Hamilton Spectator reported that 97 per cent of Ontario Land Tribunal decisions sided with the developer. Though the opposition has more expert witnesses than No Clear Cuts Kingston, those fighting the developer remain confident they’ve garnered the community’s support.
“There were a record number of participants who applied to be part of the Tribunal hearing,” O’Hara said.
“I don’t think I, or the few people who were helping me, could have done it without showing the City so many people cared, they just didn’t want to see these trees and this forest cut down.”
Tags
Environment, No Clear Cuts Kingston, tannery
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Zedrick Serson
No Clear Cuts Kingston should take their noble advocacy against building anything anywhere to Pripyat, Ukraine. After all, there’s plenty of contaminants there that should rightly be left undisturbed!