Can Hamilton let go of the suburban dream?

This is the first in a week-long CBC Hamilton series, How should cities grow? Hamilton's boundary dilemma, examining urban sprawl and boundary expansion in the city. 

Lynda Lukasik stands at the corner of Queenston Road and Centennial Parkway, where Hamilton becomes Stoney Creek, and looks out over empty parking lots.

She hands a folded piece of paper to someone on her right. That person looks at it, steps sideways and hands it to the next person. Within five minutes, it's made its way around a semi-circle of people who've come on a walkabout with her to look at what urban planners call greyfields. Those are underutilized lots Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton, says are a partial solution to urban sprawl.

Lukasik's paper shows the Centennial Neighbourhoods Secondary Plan, a 2019 plan to add density to the area. The page shows where developers can build three or more storeys on what are otherwise stout, partially occupied buildings and parking lots deserted for hours a day.

"And just down the road…" Lukasik starts, and gestures toward Elfrida.

No one following city hall these days would need her to finish that sentence. Elfrida, on the outskirts of town where backhoes dig up dirt to make way for new developments, is the area on the front lines of the current debate over whether the city should expand its urban boundary.

Next week, after months of public input, city councillors will once again discuss expanding the boundary.

That move would see houses built on so-called whitebelt land between the edge of urban Hamilton and the lush, provincially protected greenbelt.

Planning staff say an expansion of 1,340 hectares is essential to accommodate an expected population growth of 110,300 households by 2051. Lukasik says the unrealized plan for the Centennial Parkway area is an example of another option.

There's enough underdeveloped land in Hamilton's existing boundaries, she says. We don't need to eat into farmland.

"We support a firm urban boundary, for sure," she said. 

The issue is complex, and council has talked about it for years. The city's planning department calls the current version the Growth Related Integrated Development Strategy 2, or GRIDS2.

In March, the city started a land-needs assessment and survey to determine how much land it needs to handle expected population growth, and the housing and jobs needed to go with it.