City Sketch: Red Hill Parkway inquiry back on table, along with skyline-changing Stoney Creek towers

Hamilton politicians will discuss terms of reference for the pending Red Hill Inquiry this week and they will also discuss what appears to be a major change to the skyline in Stoney Creek.

Red Hill Inquiry – Terms of Reference

City councillors are being asked to set aside $7 million as an “initial allocation” towards the judicial probe into the Red Hill Valley Parkway fiasco.

The figure is included within a staff report that will go before the general issues committee on Wednesday.

The report also includes a list of 24 potential questions for the judge to investigate.

Among them: who received a copy of a 2013 report dealing with friction levels on the parkway? Why wasn’t the information provided to council and the public and did that failure contribute to any accidents, injuries or fatalities?

The selected judge, however, will ultimately set out the scope of the inquiry.

Hamilton city council, on March 20, voted 14-2 to ask for a judiciary inquiry into the withholding the 2013 “friction” report which was buried for more than five years before it came to light in 2018.

Stoney Creek Towers

Six public delegations have been approved for Tuesday’s meeting of the city’s planning committee to speak to what could become Hamilton’s tallest buildings.

A developer is proposing three residential towers of 59, 54 and 48 storeys on Frances Avenue near the Stoney Creek waterfront.

New Horizon Development Group’s proposal needs site-plan approval, but it does not require zoning or official plan amendments.

The towers would result in 1,836 new condo units, marketed towards first-time home buyers and young professionals, as well as those looking to downsize from a single-detached home.

The 43-storey Landmark Place on Main Street East is currently Hamilton’s tallest residential tower.