Provisions that made a future Hamilton, Ont. park exempt from allowing the city’s unhoused to pitch tents has become a hot-button issue that may see councillors at odds over an element of the city’s encampment protocol.
Weeks after a dozen delegates confronted council telling stories of neighbourhoods exposed to filth, theft and abuse since tents have been allowed on public spaces appears to be spurring some city politicians to begin drawing a line.
“‘My parks are off limits,’ that’s what I have heard from my residents. Loud and clear,” Ward 5 Coun. Matt Francis told Global News.
“I think parks are a very inappropriate space to have tent people, and to have lawlessness and crime happening in our parks.”
West/Central Mountain councillor John Paul Danko said he believes at least two parks in his ward should be free of encampments, arguing they meet the same criteria the city used to ban encampments at a public space in the city centre on Strachan Street East.
“Staff are looking at development options for that park, so that’s a totally fair reason,” Danko said. “I think that would apply to any park in the city.”
Danko has drafted motion to exempt Sam Lawrence and Southam parks and hopes it will pass a committee meeting on Monday and be adopted by council by Friday.
Two other motions, from Francis and Ward 6 councillor Tom Jackson, seek similar dispensations for Confederation Beach Park, on the waterfront by the QEW, and Mountain Drive Park on Concession Street.
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The councillors say the spots are currently or set to undergo redevelopments to enhance community-use spaces and that the work would has the potential to disrupt prospective tent encampments.
The basis of their ask is an existing exemption for a site between Bay Street to Ferguson Avenue North set to become Strachan Linear Park, a city-owned strip of land earmarked for a new outdoor recreation space.
The location, not far near the city’s harbour district and CN rail tracks, was all in as a homelessness sanctuary a year ago, when it was to be the destination for 25 tiny homes with supports accommodating some of the city’s unhoused.
However, the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters (HATS) opted not to proceed with the pilot project, citing the investment required to make it work “was too significant.”
The encampment exemption for the space was built into staff recommendations as part of the HATS development and has remained in place since.
Ward 2 councillor Cameron Kroetsch insists the exemption is still required to “incubate” new park space in the downtown core, which he argues is “not easy to do.”
Kroetsch says the asks for new exemptions are part of an “apples to oranges comparison” since the makeup of the Strachan space is not similar to the established parks
“This is a long strip, narrow green space and there’s actually a residential home on it,’ Kreotsch explained.
“There’s a bridge that abuts it, there’s all kinds of… major streets that intersect it. What we’re trying to do is figure out how to program that space over the next little while.”
The stretch of grass and asphalt is also right across from the delayed Jamesville development, a mixed-income housing project in the north.
“So this is not a typical kind of space,” Kroetsch said.
“In fact, I don’t think there’s a space like this in our city at all. So we’re not comparing these things in the same ways to Sam Lawrence Park or other kinds of parks that are established.”
Hints the motions could divide council come following a successful action from Danko that got the exemption stricken from the last encampment protocol update in June.
“When the encampment protocol was initiated… supporters were adamant that the encampment protocol had to apply equitably to the entire city, and that there could be no exemptions,” Danko said.
The item would be revisited days later at a council meeting when Kroetsch motioned to have it lifted for another vote to reinstate the edict.
Grace Mater, the city’s general manager, told councillors the provision wasn’t removed after the HATS project was shelved due to the likelihood there would be a quick turnaround for plans to develop the area.
“We didn’t want to disrupt individuals as they utilize that spot, just to turn around and have to ask them to move yet again,” Mater said.
A tied 8-to-8 vote would see Kroetsch win his battle to keep the exemption.
Prior to the vote Mayor Andrea Horwath addressed the apparent division in the room, advising council to have “a whole of Hamilton approach” to the homelessness issue and “not to go down a slippery slope” resulting in a “very bad ending.”
The encampment protocol in city-owned spaces has been operational since last spring, a temporary program with rules preventing tents from popping up outside sanctioned sites.
The protocol essentially is also a byproduct of an ongoing legal battle that started during the pandemic around the issue of whether evicting people from parks without providing another place to go violates their Charter rights.
The city’s housing division estimates around 1,600 people are unhoused across the city with 200 living rough in some 100 encampment sites, mostly in the city centre.
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