A sprawling residential proposal for Davis Tannery land has been pushed back due to the number of trees that would need to be felled.
A local grassroots group says it is in the city’s interest to refuse the housing project and use a natural treatment for the land with the help of a Montreal-based NGO.
“It will become a desert, basically,” says No Clearcuts Kingston member Kerry Hill.
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Concerns over the 37-acre property along Kingston’s Inner Harbor are mounting. Over the past five years there has been controversy surrounding a proposed new residential and commercial development for the former tannery grounds.
This may mean cutting down around 2,000 trees and filling in part of a wetland to allow for the construction of a new housing estate.
However, the area is largely contaminated from a century of heavy industrial use, notably when it was the site of the Davis Tannery.
The proposed project includes an environmental cleanup by developer Patry Incorporated, which the Greater Kingston Chamber of Commerce says will be good for business.
“The Greater Kingston Chamber of Commerce supports Patry’s development as it aligns with several business and environmental initiatives,” the chamber said in a statement.
Hill, a member of the No Clearcuts Kingston group and a former Queen’s University biologist, says the commercial benefits of the development should not outweigh what she claims is a significant environmental impact on the region.
“No mature trees will be able to grow on the covered property,” Hill says.
“The shore, which is now home to all kinds of wildlife, including plants and animals, and that will be gone.”
Instead, the group says the city should buy back the property and remediate the land naturally using something called phytoremediation.
A Montreal-based organization called Phyto Action specializes in the process.
“We generally favor plants with high evapotranspiration like willows or poplars, which act as pumps in the soil, and therefore they really concentrate the soil solution in the roots”, explains Béatrice Gervais-Bergeron, vice-president of Phyto Stock.
Anabel Mills, Clearcuts Kingston member and Phyto Action contact, says it’s a cheaper solution that could also have economic benefits.
“We would attract national, even international recognition,” she says. “Which would actually bring more tourists to Kingston and ultimately produce more funds for the city.”
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However, Latoya Powder, an urban developer working for Patry Incorporated, says the company’s environmental experts say the method won’t work here.
“We have heavy metal contamination, and the plants couldn’t leach through the chromium, lead, and mercury,” Powder says.
No Clearcuts Kingston says it will continue to fight, as another debate on the proposal will take place at the city’s planning committee meeting on Thursday evening.
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