Research study looks at LRT’s impact on neighbourhoods
A new research project will examine how residents along Hamilton's proposed LRT corridor feel about changes to their neighbourhoods - those that are happening now and those expected to come once the transit line is up and running.
The Hamilton Neighbourhood Change Research Project is being led by Brian Doucet, a University of Waterloo professor specializing in urban change and planning issues, particularly related to transportation, gentrification and housing.
It's part of an ongoing four-year project that's looking broadly at the city's changing neighbourhoods and the impact of migration from Toronto to Hamilton.
There's certainly a relationship between a rail transit line going in and new investment, the gentrification of neighbourhoods and the subsequent displacement of lower-income populations," said Doucet.
The study will involve comprehensive interviews of 45 minutes to an hour with residents living along the LRT corridor, which will run from Eastgate Square in the east to McMaster University in the west. Doucet is hoping to complete 50 to 60 interviews, which will be analyzed to see how people perceive changes they're seeing in their neighbourhoods.
The questionnaire will tackle three themes - how the participants' neighbourhoods are changing, how the city is changing, and transportation - from three different scales: individually, at the neighbourhood level and at the city level.
Doucet plans to publish a publicly available report that can then be used by the city to help guide decisions that are looming around housing and transit.
If you think of tools municipalities have to really shape change, building a higher-order transit system like LRT is really one of the few transformational measures that a city has," said Doucet. It's going to shape development patterns and neighbourhood trajectory patterns for years if not decades to come."
Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF) is providing about $25,000 to help fund the study.
We've been beating the drum for five years now about the need for a comprehensive affordable-housing plan in conjunction with LRT," said Terry Cooke, president and CEO of HCF. (Without that) the risk is you'll get a ton of condo development as they did in Kitchener-Waterloo and you'll displace a lot of people - and you'll do nothing to keep people of low and moderate incomes able to live there."
Cooke cited the example of the recent sale of the former Delta Secondary School on Main Street East, which is situated along the LRT route.
HCF was prepared to guarantee a $4.6-million loan in partnership with non-profit builder Indwell based on an independent land value appraisal.
New Horizon Development, a private developer, was the winning bidder for the site with an eye-popping purchase price of $15.1 million.
So clearly, even before LRT is operating, there has been a speculative pressure on land values that is starting to have a fairly dramatic effect on the prospects of affordable housing and on existing tenants and owners in the corridor," Cooke said.
That's a bit of a sobering wake-up call for everybody."
Anyone living within one kilometre of the proposed LRT route who would like to take part in the study can sign up by visiting www.uwaterloo.ca/hncr and clicking on the Participate" bar. Those who take part will receive a $40 gift card to either Tim Hortons or Dollarama.
Participants' responses and data will remain anonymous.
Steve Buist is a reporter at The Spectator. sbuist@thespec.com