By Richard Leitner, News Staff

Stoney Creek Councillor Brad Clark says the province is being “absurd” in demanding the Hamilton Conservation Authority pay market value for feeder lands by the Eramosa Karst – a tab he puts in the $800,000 range.

The asking price, set out in a June 2 letter from the Ontario Realty Corp., contradicts statements by Mountain Liberal MPP Sophia Aggelonitis in March that her government planned to donate the lands for a nominal fee, typically $2, as occurred with the existing karst park.

Clark said the ORC tried to pull a similar move on the transfer of the 73-hectare park, initially demanding $780,000 before backing off.

He said he’s been unable to get government members to resolve the dispute, which led authority directors last week to pass a resolution stating the HCA will assume ownership of the 35 hectares for a nominal fee and bear all operating costs.

“This is just absurd,” Clark said. “I’ve been trying very respectfully to get a response to this without it becoming an issue publicly, but we’re now in September and we have no confirmation from the Liberals that they’re going to agree to this.”

But Aggelonitis said she’s confident negotiations between the authority and ORC will “find a solution that works for ORC but especially for the Hamilton Conservation Authority.”

She acknowledged she had vowed her government would donate the land, zoned as open space, for a nominal fee.

“My understanding of these negotiations is (they are) to transfer the land to the Hamilton Conservation Authority quickly and at a nominal fee. I have always been supportive of that and I am confident that there will be a solution,” Aggelonitis said.

“This is so important, not only for that community but all of Hamilton. I cannot tell you how many people have been talking about how pleased they are that we’ve protected these lands, just as I am.”

Clark, former Conservative MPP for the area, said he had expected the Liberals to wrap up the land transfer to bolster local election campaigns and won’t keep quiet if they don’t act soon.

“This is a significant legacy for the city of Hamilton and we shouldn’t be fooling around with this,” he said.

“If we don’t hear from them and get it confirmed that they’re going to transfer it to the HCA for the two dollars, then my position would be to the public, ‘Vote for anybody except the Liberals because they haven’t delivered what they said they would do.’”

The ORC initially sought to sell the land for housing, but in July formally withdrew those plans, which had drawn stiff opposition from local politicians, citizens group Friends of the Eramosa Karst, cave experts and a biologist who discovered threatened bobolinks breeding there.

The latter find added a new twist because destroying the birds’ nesting habitat potentially put any development in conflict with the government’s own Endangered Species Act.

Cave experts had already argued development would harm the karst, a unique formation of caves, sink holes, dry valleys and sinking streams by Upper Mount Albion and Rymal roads.