Michael Somers, co-chair of the OMB hearing, also granted party standing to the Hamilton Naturalists Club, which joins the City of Hamilton, POD Inc, a recently incorporated organization involving a number of Dundas residents, and Doug Hammond, who wants to construct the storage facility at 201 King Street East.

“There is wide-spread interest in this issue,” Eric Gillespie, a Toronto lawyer, who has been retained by POD (People Opposed to Development), told the cochairs.

In the first of two preliminary hearings to prepare for what is expected to be a complicated three-week hearing in January 2010, held Aug. 27 at the McMaster Centre for Continuing Learning, a number of participants and parties that will be involved in the hearing were identified, and time-lines established for witness statements and submissions of issue lists from the parties. Over 50 people turned out for the first pre-hearing to make sure they, or people they knew, were granted participant status. Another pre-hearing has been tentatively scheduled for Sept. 30.

It takes place at the former Flamborough Town Hall beginning at 10 a. m. The OMB cochair at that pre-hearing could grant more people participant status, as well as identify more precise deadlines to prepare for the hearing.

In an OMB hearing, a participant can make a statement, which is part of the evidence the chair will consider. A participant can also be cross-examined.

A party to a hearing, though, has more responsibilities, including providing witnesses, conducting cross-examinations and providing costs. The Naturalists Club’s official at the hearing, board member Terence Carleton, told the pre-hearing the club would represent itself during the deliberations.

The number of participants, plus the issues surrounding the proposed development, prompted the city’s attorney, Michael Kovacevic, to say he hoped the hearing can be completed within the timeline allotted.

“I would like to finish in three weeks and reduce the costs,” he said.

A slight majority of the people granted participant status seemed to oppose the storage facility.

First Dundas Leasing Limited, represented by Hamilton lawyer Brian Duxbury, appealed council’s unanimous decision earlier this year to reject Mr. Hammond’s rezoning and official plan amendments to permit a storage facility at the corner of Olympic Drive and King Street East, across from the Desjardins Canal and the former Veldhuis greenhouse property. The proposal involved changing the official plan on the property from parkland to general commercial and rezoning the land from park and recreation to highway commercial.

In their report to council, city planners recommended council support the applications. But politicians had reservations after listening to the groundswell of opposition from Dundas residents –over 1,500 letters opposed the project –and hearing concerns expressed by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Bay Area Restoration Council, Councillor Russ Powers and his community council members.