Ontario Construction News staff writer
Ontario is expected to designate Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport a special economic zone next week, a necessary step to fast-track its expansion.
The province passed a law Thursday enabling the takeover of all the land on the Toronto Islands where Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is located. According to Premier Doug Ford, the province will now work with the city and will only takeover land needed for the expansion.
Ford wants to expand the airport to allow jets to take off and land there. Runways are currently too short for jets.
The law will also allows the province to take Toronto’s spot in a tripartite agreement that governs the land, an accord that is currently between the city, the federal government and the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federal agency.
“We’re going to work with the Toronto Port Authority to ensure that we move forward with that and deploy the special economic zones and other tools that are needed to ensure that this project is moved forward,” Sarkaria said. “It’s too important for Ontario, for Canada, not to get this project moving forward,” he said.
“We’re talking about nation-building projects across this country, this is going to be one of them.”
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has called the project a land grab without consultation.
“Once again, Torontonians are the victims of provincial overreach, robbed of their say over the future of their own waterfront,” Chow said in a statement Thursday. “We have not seen a formal proposal for airport expansion. The province and the Toronto Port Authority must stop keeping Torontonians in the dark and release their plans now.”
The expansion is expected to cost up to $5 billion over 5 years
Port Authority CEO RJ Steenstra has said the airport, like all other commercial airports in the country, will be paid for by passengers and airlines. The expansion project is expected to cost between $4 and $5 billion over 25 years, he has said.
The province passed a law last year that gives cabinet power to create special economic zones, areas where provincial and municipal laws can be abandoned, including environmental assessments.
The change was meant to help build mega projects quickly. It was initially pitched as a way to approve and build mines faster.
