A proposal for a new industrial park for Hawkesbury has support from Hawkesbury and Champlain Township councils.

The Hawkesbury Industrial Investment Association (HIIA) wants to create a new industrial park site for the Hawkesbury area. The group has the support of both Hawkesbury and Champlain Township councils but for now verbal support is all that is available.

“We’re optimistic,” said Patrick Tallon, president of Tulmar, a high-tech firm in Hawkesbury, and one of two HIIA delegates who presented the group’s proposal to the two councils earlier this month.

                                                                                                                           The proposal

In 2022 the HIIA acquired 130 acres of land located in Champlain Township along County Road 17, just beyond the eastern limit of Hawkesbury’s municipal boundary. The HIIA estimates the size of the property could provide 40 lots for future industrial and commercial development. A consultant’s report to the HIIA estimates full occupancy of the site by new businesses would mean at least $5 million more in annual commercial and industrial tax revenue for Hawkesbury along with the potential increase in the amount of residential taxes through new home developments and also an increase in the town’s employment figures.

The problem is that the site would need water and sewer services. Both Tallon and fellow HIIA delegate Alain Ménard, president and co-founder of The Green Beaver Company, explained to Hawkesbury and Champlain Township councils that municipal services to the site are preferred to attract the kind of industrial and commercial development desired.

“There’s an acute shortage of industrial land in our community,” Tallon said. “We’re missing out on opportunities, and we know this. We have people at our (HIIA) door at least once a month, looking for property, and we have nothing in our inventory.”

The HIIA presentation noted that the Ottawa Business Journal published a recent article describing “the exponential growth” in Cornwall because that municipality has “shovel-ready” industrial property to offer developers.

Tallon and Ménard noted that last year a dozen companies expressed interest in Hawkesbury for their projects but instead went to Cornwall, or to other municipalities like Vars, Winchester, Morrisburg, and Lachute because they had industrial and commercial land available. All of those communities, Tallon and Ménard noted, are within an hour’s drive of Hawkesbury.

                                                                                                                         Opportunity knocks

“We have a wonderful opportunity here to move forward,” said Tallon, adding that Hawkesbury is close to many large markets that investors want, has a skilled bilingual workforce, and is a community with many lifestyle features that appeal to people who want good-paying jobs but don’t want to live in the city.

For its industrial park proposal, the HIIA needs two things from Hawkesbury and Champlain Township. First is an intermunicipal service agreement between the two municipalities for water and sewer services to the site. Second is an

annexation agreement so that Hawkesbury can include the site within its municipal boundary. Having either or both agreements in place would help the HIIA when it applies to the provincial government for economic development funding aid for its project.

The HIIA offered its help to assist the two municipalities in setting up those agreements.

                                                                                                                            Project support

Both Hawkesbury and Champlain Township councils expressed support for the HIIA’s proposed project. But both Mayors Robert Lefebvre and Normand Riopel that the two municipalities are already involved in mutual discussions related to the issues that the HIIA has raised and that it is “best not to involve a third party” in the process at this time.

During a later phone interview, Tallon noted the HIIA appreciates that the two municipalities are already discussing the issues that concern the group’s proposed project and the hope the matter is “resolved as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, he added, the HIIA will continue with its planning work on the project.

“We’re starting to develop our marketing plan,” he said, adding that includes determining what kinds of development a fully-service industrial park area could attract.