The relationship between humans and the harbour has defined generations of Hamilton’s history. Now, alongside Hamilton’s wave of modernization comes a brand new type of development aimed at making the waterfront a destination in and of itself.
In the 1800s, the Hamilton Harbour was an engine for economic and urban growth. The proximity to fresh water made the area ideal for industry.
The harbour was a popular swimming place for many Hamiltonians, especially working-class families in the North End. However, pollution resulting from industrial development, sewage and garbage resulted in heavy contamination.
Even after the factories closed, the waterfront land remained closed off to the public due to high levels of pollution.
Citizen-led movements beginning in the 1960s lobbied to clean up the harbour, reduce pollution and make the shore publicly accessible.
In 1992, a Remedial Action Plan was introduced to restore the health of the bay. The RAP has guided numerous restoration projects over the past 30 years, leading to the gradual improvement of water quality and wildlife health.
The environmental cleanup opened up possibilities for further development. In 2013, the city of Hamilton gained control of the Pier 7 and 8 lands and began implementing long-awaited development plans.
The Waterfront development is a multi-level project to redevelop the West Harbour area bounded by Hamilton Harbour, York Boulevard, Cannon Street and Wellington Street North.
The city of Hamilton website states, “This $140 million redevelopment project will transform the West Harbour into a vibrant, mixed-use, transit supportive and pedestrian-friendly community that is the jewel on Hamilton’s waterfront.”
One pillar of the development plan is a transformation of Pier 8. The 5.24-hectare site currently houses the Discovery Centre, skating rink and Williams Café.
The redevelopment plan will transform the area into a mixed-use commercial, residential and institutional neighbourhood at the edge of the waterfront.
According to Bruce Kuwabara, founding partner of KPMB Architects, “we are […] creating the kind of dense, compact, diverse, and walkable neighbourhood that is the future of urban living.”
The design for Pier 8 aims to reflect Hamilton’s unique identity as a city. Having grown up in the North End, it is important to Kuwabara that the design is representative of Hamilton.
For example, the brick and steel design of the buildings aims to celebrate Hamilton’s industrial roots.
Additionally, buildings will not exceed eight stories tall. According to Kuwabara, this is because low rise housing is characteristic of the North End and allows neighbours to cultivate a sense of community.
According to Chris Phillips, senior advisor of the West Harbour redevelopment project, a main goal of the redevelopment is to improve public access to the Waterfront.
“The stage we’re at right now is to implement the plan to enhance public spaces that are already there and to create new public spaces,” he stated.
For decades, citizen advocacy groups have been campaigning to improve public access to the waterfront.
Forty per cent of the Pier 8 land will be open to the public. Public amenities in the design include two parks, a beach area, and a cultural plaza. There will also be 1.6 km of additional walkable space added to the waterfront.
According to Chris McLaughlin, executive director of Bay Area Restoration Council, improving public access to the waterfront will have positive benefits for people’s mental and social well-being. Additionally, if people are able to enjoy the waterfront for themselves, they will have more of an interest in protecting it.
“People care about things that they experience,” he stated. “By developing a sense of place you create that critical relationship between people and the Bay.”
The development plan includes 1292 new residential units, five per cent of which will be affordable. Affordable housing units administered by Habitat for Humanity will be dispersed throughout every block.
However, according to Mike Wood, chair of Hamilton Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the affordable housing offered in the new developments is not enough to meet the demand in the city.
Wood stated that the Waterfront development would better meet Hamilton’s needs if 10 to 20 per cent of the units were affordable. Currently, the waiting list for affordable housing in Hamilton is almost 7000, and it continues to grow.
“We've talked to many residents that are needing affordable housing,” said Wood. “A lot of these residents are also in an unhealthy and unsafe conditions while they're waiting […] We have individuals and families that are living in tents.”
There are also questions about what development will mean for people currently living in the nearby North End neighbourhoods.
North End residents have raised concerns about aspects of the development that may harm quality of life and alter the neighbourhood’s character.
Issues raised include amplified noise, increased density and grain dust pollution.
One major concern about the Pier 8 developments is the impact that increased traffic and parking will have on the residential neighbourhoods near the waterfront.
In a written statement submitted as part of a public hearing in May 2017, lawyer and North End resident Herman Turkstra highlighted that, as developments bring more people to the waterfront, traffic through the North End will increase.
Turkstra points out that high levels of traffic in residential areas can seriously impact accessibility and quality of life.
“The North End has been seen for decades by city hall and much of the broader community as a corridor from the gore to the shore,” wrote Turkstra. “We see it as a place where people live, and more importantly, a major civic asset.”
For the past hundred years, the waterfront and surrounding areas have been the subject of city planning, community activism, and economic development.
As this wave of development redefines yet again the relationship between people and the bay, the same questions remain central: who benefits from urban development? And at what cost?
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
Artwork in key public space at McMaster does not reflect the current student body.
McMaster was a historically upper-class, white institution and this continues to be reflected in the key symbolic public spaces on campus like Council Chambers and Convocation Hall.
But McMaster’s student body is now fully inclusive of both male and female students of different racialized backgrounds, religious beliefs and abilities. Having students, faculty and staff from diverse experiences enriches critical discourse at our institution—but artwork in key public space predominantly represents the homogeneity of McMaster’s past.
The lack of diversity in McMaster’s most important public space is incongruous with our institution’s values and may be alienating to some students.
McMaster has a history of diversity to be proud of. It was among the first universities in Canada to welcome women, when an initiative led by William McMaster’s wife resulted in the creation of the Moulton Ladies’ College as an arms-length academic department of an otherwise male university in 1888. McMaster became fully mixed with the move to Hamilton from Toronto in 1930.
Since then, McMaster has become increasingly diverse. The latest University Factbook says faculty currently represent 70 countries and international students represent 92 countries. No other metrics of diversity are published, but the roster of student clubs demonstrates the diverse cultural affiliations of the student body.
Specific aspects of diversity are recognized as an asset in the Strategic Mandate Agreement that McMaster signed with the province of Ontario. McMaster’s SMA highlights our retention of aboriginal, first-generation and students with disability as areas of institutional strength.
Given this commitment to diversity, the degree to which McMaster’s predominantly Caucasian, upper-class history past continues to dominate public space on campus is surprising. Particularly in ceremonial and prominent areas of campus like Convocation Hall and Gilmour Hall’s Council Chambers, portraits of university administrators loom over the halls.
Professor Jane Aronson, the Chair of the President’s Advisory Council on Building an Inclusive Community (PACBIC) says the Council has tangentially examined public space, but mostly in terms of physical space rather than art.
“We often worry about what looks like public space on campus actually doesn’t offer space or resources to some students,” said Aronson.
“One thing we’ve addressed is working with indigenous communities and, for example, access to rooms where they can do smudging ceremonies—sometimes the design of space, sometimes the physical plan or the lack of space quantitatively or the ill design of space. Its effects aren’t random”
Aronson agrees that images, even within campus promotional material like the first-year lookbook, have in the past represented a stereotypical student that may not resonate with the current student body.
“While you don’t want to get tokenistic about having some greater diversity in that portrait, you have got to do something about it.”
The issue of representation in public space is not unique to McMaster, Hertford College at Oxford University recently addressed this issue with a special exhibition.
The college replaced the 21 portraits of men in their largest public space with an array of portraits of former female students from different generations and career paths. The display was meant to not only emphasize the importance of the anniversary of welcoming female students to the college, but also broaden what success looks like and what they are proud of.
“All institutions find it difficult not to just pick out people that are in some way celebrities or very rich or very senior in certain public roles, they’re people that you know, are very impressive but they’ve achieved in a very narrow sense of the word,” explained Emma Smith of Oxford University, who organized the project.
“We wanted to show that we are proud of these different things people have done with their lives… we’re not just proud of people that are wealthy and might give back to the college or who have been promoted or become famous or whatever.”
The display is currently planned to last for a year, but the administration is now discussing what will happen next.
She said this type of initiative can be viewed as more than a political statement, but also an artistic one.
“Maybe don’t just think about it in sort of a political or ideological statement but an artistic statement as well, many people feel that the old institutionalized style of portrait isn’t very welcoming,” said Smith.
A Canadian institution, King’s College in Halifax, is also trying to display more diversity, but rather than removing the current portraits, they are simply adding new ones.
“Putting these pictures up isn't about cutting men out, lessening their accomplishments, or even chastising the institution, it's about ensuring that our spaces on campus tell the story of who we are, and that recognizes the people that have made our school what it is today,” said Clare Barrowman, a third-year student at King’s involved in the project.
“Women have been part of that narrative and continue to be. It's important that female students don't just hear that, but see it and feel it.”
A major challenge with implementing this type of project in any of McMaster’s key public space is that there is no single entity which decides how public space is used and what part of McMaster’s history should be commemorated.
A PACBIC working group could hypothetically be created to recommend ways to increases diversity in artwork, but any initiative would have to be cautious and respectful of the important role of the figures from McMaster’s past.
“There are huge ironies because PACBIC meets in Council Chambers, of course the institution has the history the institution has, but sometimes that makes for the most bizarre sort of counterpoint. I think it would probably take an occasion to legitimate the removing, to make that possible because so many people would experience that as dishonoring the people that have gone before,” said Aronson.
In fact, the very nature of donor-driven statues and pieces of art on campus means that a strategic vision would be difficult.
But student input suggests imagery in public space is worth addressing.
For example, through student consultation in designing the Mills library learning commons, Vivian Lewis, the McMaster librarian found that students not only notice what is on the walls, but it also affects their learning.
“The one big criticism [students] had is that there are these giant white wall with nothing on it and they said please, please, please put some art on the wall and make it student art.”
The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that they also sought student art for the Lyons New Media Centre and the Mills stairwell, which now features 5-foot by 6-foot self-portraits of McMaster art students.
“In terms of why [we wanted student art] was to meet the students’ need for the aesthetic part of learning… we recognized from talking to students that the aesthetic actually matters a great deal,” said Lewis.
As a research-focused, student-centred institution, it’s time to reflect on what our most important public space says about what we, as an institution, value.
