To most Americans, Buffalo, N.Y. is the home of the Buffalo Bills or maybe the birthplace of Buffalo chicken wings. Few know that Buffalo was an industrial powerhouse whose growth began to skyrocket in 1825 when the Erie Canal opened.

As the western terminus of the canal, Buffalo became a transportation center and quickly began to turn the commodities that were arriving to be shipped through the canal into finished goods. Grain milling and steel became the main industries in Buffalo, and the city grew to be the third largest American steel producer in the 1950s.

Across the border, Hamilton, Ontario, grew as Buffalo grew. The Canadian city was called the “Pittsburgh of the North” because of its extensive steel production. Today Hamilton remains a major steel manufacturing center, largely because of the efficiency of the mills that remain.

To understand this region you have to look at a map of North America. The Golden Horseshoe, as the region is called, sits on one of the southernmost points in Canada. (Ontario reaches to the same parallel of latitude as the northern border of California.) This point of Ontario reaches far into the industrial heart of the United States, which means that it is truly a part of that heartland in spite of being in another country.

The region also sits on a natural bottleneck, a natural shipping point. The Niagara isthmus creates a shortcut from the American Northeast to the Midwest. The convergence of Lakes Ontario and Erie make the area a natural point for transshipment of waterborne goods—the reason the Erie canal began its journey to New York City in Buffalo,and the reason why Buffalo was the country’s largest inland port from the ’50s through the ’70s.

Those geographic factors continue to play a huge part in the economies of these cities, and it is the reason why we are examining a region, rather than our more usual exploration of a single city. These geographic factors also influence these cities’ brownfields programs.

Hamilton Harbor

The sites that once bustled with steel mills, grain elevators and mills, and the industries that used that grain and steel are still located in geographically advantageous areas. As Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello put it, “It just makes sense geographically. The land is there, available, and the infrastructure—rail, roads, waterways—is still viable.”

Both cities have seen their industries alter and shrink due to economic and industrial changes. In the case of Buffalo, steel began to disappear in the 1970s and the city lost a third of its population. In Hamilton, the steel industry remains vital (40 percent of Canada’s steel making capacity is there), but efficiencies have reduced employment in the industry and the amount of land needed by steel manufacturers.

The changes in each city have given them a great opportunity in brownfield development. But while the two cities share a great deal economically, their approach to brownfield development is very different, differences that are largely the result of culture, rather than desire or policy.

Simply put, the difference between the two cities is that Buffalo has been working on brownfield redevelopment for more than 20 years. Love Canal, near Buffalo, hit the headlines in 1978, and is considered the watershed environmental event and the birthplace of brownfield awareness. Because of that, the U.S. began compiling a list of the nation’s worst waste sites (the National Ptiority List) in the ’80s. As an outgrowth of that effort, Buffalo began identifying its brownfields, just like many other industrial American cities.

In contrast, Canada has only recently begun to look into brownfields. In fact Canada is still so new to the topic that a recent conference on brownfields featured a debate on whether to even use the term “brownfield.” The word was thought to be derogatory and negative and the fear was that using it would retard cleanup and development.

Like the U.S., the Canadian brownfield development initiative began at the municipal level and is slowly moving to the provincial and federal level, while in the United States, the brownfield process has grown from its Conference of Mayors and Northeast-Midwest Initiative roots to become a local, state and federal process.

The Canadian government has only recently begun to see the need to maintain the vitality of the country’s urban areas, while the governments of those cities are keen to keep their areas alive and well. According to Terry Cooke, Chairman of the Hamilton/Wentworth regional government, “Brownfield development in Canada has been driven by a grass-roots, municipal government effort. That effort has been a catalyst for provincial and federal government intervention. It’s reversing their failure to develop an interest in maintaining viable urban areas.”

While Hamilton is regarded and lauded as a leader in brownfields in Canada, the consensus is that Canada lags some 10 to 15 years behind leading U.S. cities’ and states’ brownfield programs. Led by Hamilton, some cities in Canada are working on Tax Increment Financing (TIF)-style incentives and others are developing cleanup regulations and standards, but there are only stirrings on brownfield policy and regulation at the provincial and federal levels. That means that municipalities have to create their own programs and many, Hamilton included, are looking to American brownfield successes for guidance.

Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello	Hamilton Mayor Robert Morrow	Hamilton Wentworth Regional Chairman Terry Cooke

In some ways Buffalo is a leader in brownfield development. As Buffalo Mayor Masiello put it, “We have to clean up and use brownfields in Buffalo; there are no other sites available in the city.”

That need to put sites back to use has led the city to develop master plans for several sites and the city has begun to develop or seek developers for them. While brownfields are scattered throughout Buffalo the planning has focused on two areas: the inner harbor and South Buffalo.

The inner harbor is located adjacent to Buffalo’s downtown and plans call for it to be developed into a technology and entertainment district. South Buffalo is slated for development into light manufacturing and commercial sites. In both cases plans call for extensive park development along the waterfront—the goal being to return the Buffalo River and Lake Erie shorelines to the public.

The waterfront portion of the inner harbor development involves reconfiguring the shoreline of the Buffalo River, moving several mothballed naval vessels, and opening slips for pleasure craft, according to Dennis Sutton, the City of Buffalo’s brownfield coordinator. “There are very few severely contaminated sites in the inner harbor,” Sutton says, “It’s not cleanup as much as it is getting the process underway.”

Working with the Empire State Development Corporation, a New York state body, the city has completed testing and remediation and construction is underway on the site. The city and Empire State are also negotiating with property owners and developers to complete construction on the site. One problem facing these developments is that New York state has been somewhat slow to create programs and incentives for brownfields.

Like many brownfield sites, Buffalo’s inner harbor development is being enhanced by external forces—in this case the Peace Bridge that links the U.S. and Canada. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) traffic on the bridge has boomed. Today some 6,000 trucks and 3,500 cars cross the bridge each day and there is an effort underway to expand the park that greets vehicles coming from Canada as part of other work on the bridge. “The Peace Bridge expansion is driving much of the inner harbor project,” Sutton says.

The Marine Midland Arena is another driving force in the inner harbor. The arena and its other amenities—a restaurant and conference center, among others—bring people to the area and its presence was one of the leading factors in deciding to make the inner harbor an entertainment district. Adding to the mix is Buffalo’s new light rail system which terminates at the inner harbor.

The South Buffalo project is focused on industrial development. That really means putting the land back on tax rolls and putting people to work.

At 1,500 acres it is one of the largest brownfield sites in the eastern United States, which is both a boon and a curse. Like many large sites, south Buffalo is wide open for development and well-served by existing infrastructure. Like other large sites the idea of assessing it, much less cleaning it up, is daunting.

Sutton acknowledges that development in South Buffalo is moving slowly, largely because they are still developing specific use plans for the area. David DiSalvo, Buffalo’s manager of planning analysis, adds, “We’re working on getting funding for this project, and we are in the process of hiring a developer, so it’s moving forward.”

Like virtually all large brownfield sites, overcoming inertia is the single largest factor in developing the site. “It’s frustrating, but that’s the nature of the beast,” says Mayor Masiello. “Everything in the process is slow—people are slow to deal with remediation and cleanup. They are slow to begin development.” Nevertheless, the mayor, who is also co-chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Brownfield Committee, sees some momentum building on the site and thinks that the city’s real estate market is beginning to heat up, which will help drive the south Buffalo project.

In Hamilton the problem isn’t putting one big site back to use, it’s finding uses for many small sites—3,700 acres of small sites— and convincing landowners to part with brownfield sites that potential new users are interested in purchasing.

Like Buffalo, Hamilton’s real estate market is slowly beginning to grow. An industrial property in Hamilton that had been on the market for the last few years recently sold, and several brownfield projects have recently been completed or are nearing completion. This change in the market is affecting the city’s approach to brownfields and is forcing it to examine its policies and the ways it works with developers.

For example, Hamilton’s planners would love to redevelop 15 and a half acres of the city’s waterfront, but they are stymied by the fact that the area is held by six different owners, has varying levels of contamination, and has active industrial properties as well as tax-delinquent sites.

“The city could step in and acquire pieces of the site,” says Luciano Piccioni, brownfield coordinator for the Hamilton Economic Development Department. “But that would be difficult because the cost to clean up small portions of the site wouldn’t make economic sense.” For example, the city could easily acquire a scrapyard on the site, but contamination levels are high on the small site, which would make cleanup costs prohibitive.

The other challenge facing Hamilton is that the owners of most of the city’s brownfields are unwilling to sell their properties, even those that are lying fallow. “Most of the problem is that they are unsure of what their liability might be,” Piccioni says. “We get calls all the time asking about certain properties, but there’s nothing we can do because the owners won’t sell.”

Because Canada does not have policies like the U.S.’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), or existing cleanup programs, owners of contaminated sites face many unknowns should they sell a property. On top of that there is a very strong sense in Canada that the people who made the mess should be the ones who pay to clean it up. Canadians are generally reluctant to have the government pay for cleanups, and Superfund style action is seen as a very last resort.

Hamilton, like many Canadian cities, is also hampered by the lack of incentives it can offer potential developers. “Hamilton is moving ahead with environmental restoration, but because they don’t have the full suite of incentives like American cities they are limited in how much they can accomplish,” says Beth Benson, Executive Director of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, a Canadian non-profit organization that works on environmental restoration and brownfield development. “Because of that Hamilton, and many other Canadian cities, are looking to other models for development. They are focusing on design issues as well as cleanup issues and thereby taking their brownfields in a different direction,” she adds.

The direction Hamilton is going is toward TIFs, according to Terry Cooke. “We are creating TIF-like districts because we can do that on a local level,” he says. “We are also moving to break as much red tape as we can from old planning rules and laws so development will be easier.” The region is also beginning to create no-fee zones, rebating planning and building fees, funding environmental assessments, and developing a marketing program that blends municipal investment with private investment to boost brownfield development.

As a further effort to build on their grass-roots efforts, Hamilton formed a private task force that is working on brownfield policies and is seeking showcase sites. “We want to develop some pilots to show what can be done,” says Glen Norton, director of commercial banking at CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce). “We don’t have a site yet, but while we are seeking one we are adding our voice on changing the laws surrounding brownfields.”

Lurking in the background of any discussion about the differences between the U.S. and Canada are the cultural differences between the countries. “Canada has lower crime rates and better social programs,” says Hamilton Mayor Robert Morrow. “We also don’t have the social divide that is such a problem south of the border.” Because Canada doesn’t have the same intensity of social issues, it’s brownfield market has certain advantages.

Canada’s brownfield market is further aided by its regional governments. “We don’t have the problem of pitting one city against another,” says Mayor Morrow. “Because we plan regionally, and because we have created regionally amalgamated governments, we can plan for what is good for the entire area instead of trying to take businesses from another town.” Hamilton recently joined with its surrounding suburbs to create a governing body that oversees all aspects of government in the region. The combined body will govern a population of some 500,000 people in six municipalities.

Regionalism has also played a role in Buffalo. According to Buffalo brownfield coordinator Dennis Sutton, the city of Lackawanna, N.Y., which sits on Buffalo’s southern edge, has spurred Buffalo to work harder on its brownfield conversions. “Lackawanna has a well-run and planned commerce park and it is driving some aspects of the South Buffalo project,” he says.

On a larger scale regionalism plays a role in almost every aspect of both sides of the Golden Horseshoe. Hamilton’s low unemployment (four percent, the lowest in Canada) is the result of the area’s closeness to the U.S., which is Canada’s largest market. Even though GM is closing one of its two plants in St. Catherines, Ont., which sits between Buffalo and Hamilton, it plans to remain in that city because of its closeness to the States. Buffalo remains an important transportation center because of its proximity to Canada and because of its location on the Niagara isthmus. Toronto and Rochester, as the outermost points of the horseshoe, feed goods and services through Hamilton and Buffalo, and feed their economies.

The desire to take advantage of that geography is evident in the calls Luciano Piccione gets at the Hamilton planning office and at the sales offices of the Main-LaSalle housing development in Buffalo where 30 housing units built on a former rail site have sold for more than market rate. People want to live and work close to the action, and the action is close in.

As people in Buffalo and Hamilton discuss the brownfield issues that face them one subject always comes up: the need to use brownfields in order to preserve the open, greenfield spaces that are now far from the cities’ centers: “We need the ability to use brownfields instead of greenfields because it makes great economic sense” —Hamilton Mayor Morrow. “We have limited space—we’re literally growing up the mountain” —banker Glen Norton. “There’s no land for development except brownfields, we have to turn them around”—Buffalo Mayor Masiello. “This is fertile ground, it needs to be converted” —Terry Cooke, Hamilton/ Wentworth Regional Chairman.

Brownfields make sense for this congested, populated area. Returning brownfields to productive use means bringing jobs where they are needed. It means preserving much desired open spaces and preserving the often pristine environment of this region. It means revitalizing the inner city of Buffalo and using the fallow lands in Hamilton. Putting brownfields back to work truly means putting the shine back on the Golden Horseshoe.