Burlington asked to join Hamilton's 2030 Commonwealth Games bid

City business leaders were briefed on Friday of the possible billion dollar opportunities offered should Burlington join a bid to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games.

The Hamilton 100 bid would see the Games return to the area for their Centenary event. The earlier Games version, the British Empire Games, were held in Hamilton in 1930.

Speaking at the Nov. 4 breakfast meeting hosted by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, bid team leader Louis Frapporti said the city could gain much by joining the bid alongside Hamilton and other communities like Milton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Mississauga.

"The Games offer a massive platform for community regeneration," Frapporti told BurlingtonToday.

"Beyond the event itself, in the years leading up to it, you would be looking at a really significant investment in terms of infrastructure and opportunities for the private sector.

"In the case of Burlington, we are also hoping to centre the athletes village here. And that project, which would be delivered at private sector expense, would be transitioned into a variety of housing components, including one which affordability as a key, student accommodation and so on."

A new neighbourhood

The location the bid team have earmarked for this development is 1200 King Road, undeveloped land close to the Aldershot Go station which is privately owned by the Paletta family.

Speaking at the breakfast, bid team partner and urban planner Antonio Gomez-Palacio suggested the area could become a walkable neighbourhood designed around enhanced quality of life. 

"What retains people?" he said, noting planning had changed a lot since the 1970s, when the focus was on easy parking. "Well, it is quality of life. So your employees have the affordable housing, they have access to transit, they have the coffee shop, they have a place where their kids can go to school, they have access to recreational trails and in sports and recreation and all these kinds of things. So, we need ot be thinking in very different ways. The real opportunity here for economic development is quality of life. If we can create environments that are truly and meaningfully elevating quality of life for everybody, we will be able to attract the businesses, generate the spin-offs to the local economy and bring all of those things into the area."

CEO of Commonwealth Sports Canada Brian MacPherson said one of the reasons for the broad catchment area associated with the bid was to maximize the impact and legacy of the Games.

Based on the experience of the previous hosts, it is believed the Games could bring $1.2-$2.5 billion into the area and the equivalent of 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

Hurdles to joining the bid

The City has been reluctant to join the bid, however. In May, a report prepared by the City Manager's office noted the proposed use of the land at 1200 King is not supported by the current Official Plan and zoning designations.

The report also noted the dearth of appropriate facilities in Burlington, as opposed to Milton which already has the Velodrome from the 2016 Pan Am Games.

This week, Mayor Marianne Meed Ward told BurlingtonToday the city is still open to dialogue but does not wish commit funds.

“The Hamilton100 Bid Committee has proposed a unique model for delivery of the 2030 Commonwealth Games that is private-sector driven, led and financed," Meed Ward said. " The City of Burlington’s role would simply be to allow access to any of our existing facilities that would meet their needs for the Games.

"We would not be supportive of significant government investment by our community to facilitate the Games.

"We know there is some excitement from the city around the Games, based on a privately-funded model using existing city assets. We are open to further dialogue on how this vision might be achieved."

The time frame for committing to join the bid is shrinking, however.

"We have been at this for a number of years now," Frapporti told BurlingtonToday. "We are at the very late stages of this process, the hosting proposal has been submitted to the provincial and federal governments months back and we are currently working through a consultation process with the province and a variety of other stakeholders on finalizing the bid."

The successful bid is expected to be announced in early 2023.

Decision time

"The expectation is that work, with respect to the assets that are needed, would start almost immediately," Frapporti said.

He added: "This is a complicated venture. It is an enormous undertaking, it has a variety of tentacles that are attached to it, including the necessity to be working with the city and regional council on all the approvals and support that is required to move something this big forward. So we have obviously met with Burlington city council and presented to council. But at some point in the very near future, the city itself with have to make a determination as to whether or not it wants to actively get behind the bid and bring these benefits to the community."

The main competitors for the 2030 Games are expected to be Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand, but Frapporti told those gathered on Friday that the "international winds are blowing in a very favourable direction for us" and Hamilton seems to be the favourite. 

Frapporti urged local business leaders to get behind the Games bid. "In the end, if this private developer doesn't get this project moving forward in this way, something much less ambitious and impactful will be here," he said. "You will look back on that in decades to come, especially if the Games do come to Ontario, with regret for the this community and the benefits that might have been here."