Farmland conversion and landfill sites

[danbrotherston]

Why would a land assembly of this size be impossible without expropriation? Housing developers assemble six properties inside and outside of the city all the time. There's no reason to suggest that such an assembly is impossible.

I am not saying that jobs are not a benefit to society, but you misunderstand what I mean when I say "commons". The jobs, the property, will all be owned and controlled by private interests. Whether the jobs benefit the city doesn't change whether the property is private or not.

Like I said, if the city (and by implication you, and all who support this) feel that industrial lands of that scale are valuable enough to justify expropriation, then the city should expropriate those lands and retain ownership of the property by the public, and then lease them to whatever corporation they feel will best utilize the land. That way, the public retains control over the common property.

Those land assemblies take place over the years sometimes decades. We do not have that type of timeline for a project of this scale. 

The Region would take on way too much liability to own the land that a factory of this size would be on. I can't see the municipalities legal department wanting to take on this much risk.  The tax revenue from this project would be worth more to the public then the liability of being the landlord.

So....we're not patient enough? Companies don't go build a factory of this size on a whim, same with housing developers.

And if the government is unwilling to take on that liability, why would that be? What is the liability? Are we expecting the industrial tenant to contaminate the land? Run an unsafe work site? What? I feel like that's actually a reason to retain MORE control over the industrial tenant, not less. In fact, I'd argue that if that was the justification, that's shirking our responsibility.

And I'm not saying that these choices aren't free....but we're so ready to bend over backwards for a corporation, we'll give them anything they ask for...why are we so pathetic about this. If we have valuable land and labour resources, *WE* have the power in this negotiation.

And don't tell me that the factory will just go to another city...maybe, but that's why we should have solidarity.