The Big Wieners

by Darrin DeRoches October 27 - November 3, 2011

The biggest real estate deal in Hamilton was kept a secret. Finally city hall is acting like a business instead of a three ring circus with 16 councillors trying to be the ring leaders. Maple Leaf announced a $395 million dollar meat processing plant to be built in the Redhill Business Park right next door to their bread plant. This deal would never have been granted to our city if even one of the councillors got wind of it. They would have used this platform to blow wind so they can get face time in the media. Politicians have no place in the business of the city of Hamilton, they just need look over the proposals and to vote for us citizens when the deal is done. Yes – if it helps our city. No – if it does not.     If the city managers had taken the proper business approach in the past debacles – football stadium, NHL hockey teams, and waterfront – we would have grown as a city. 100+ years ago Hamilton was one of the top cities in Canada, next to Montreal and Toronto was called Cowtown since all they had was cows. Toronto exploded into a world –class city and we have stayed stagnate mostly due to how our politicians handled business in our city. We now just had our city general manager of economic development; Tim McCabe tell the councilors to “trust me” when he explained the deal to them and only the councilor Brenda Johnson voted against the deal. She later changed her tune and is now behind the deal, but it is just a prime example how “politics” made her vote no with the excuse she was not given enough time or information to vote yes. The development is in her backyard and I am sure her constituents would have voted yes to the development since it will bring more money and higher real estate values to their land.     Our community has won hundreds of new jobs, more tax revenue by the hard work of the top managers in our city – not by the politicians grandstanding and media spin. I hope this is a lesson to the city and the managers continue to keep a ‘lid’ on business developments until they have everything tied up in a proper business plan and agreement. Maple Leaf is bringing all their production to our city and will make over 400 different products. They are starting by making all the hot dogs for the entire country in our city.  Hamilton will not be known just as the steel city but as the “Big Wiener City.” Kitchener, Toronto and Burlington have all lost jobs and taxes and for once it feels nice to be the big wiener – or winner that is! V     Darrin DeRoches is a local real estate and mortgage broker. He can be reached to answer questions, comments or stories about real estate experiences through this weekly column at mail@uniquerealty.ca.