Well, a lot of behind the scenes work has been going on since our previous post about CONNECT Hamilton. Our last update from Ontario followed a January open house on our property in Stoney Creek, which was a key step in the public approvals process.
Public Notice
Patti Flaherty was in Hamilton at the end of March and snapped the photo below. It’s a Public Notice from the City of Hamilton of “complete applications for an official plan amendment and zoning by-law amendment and public meeting of the planning committee.” The sign is posted on our Stoney Creek property to let the public know what’s happening. We anticipate the public meeting will take place in the summer.
Building Design
As for the development itself, Patti and John Sherwood have a conference call every two weeks with Hamilton architecture firm DPAI. The concepts for the building design and an interior design rendering are below:
Visioning CONNECT Hamilton Employee Schedule
Before we hire a single employee in Hamilton, we want a clearly defined schedule ready to implement. Thank you to everyone who participated in focus groups we hosted in Lake Country in early April. We asked for input on a proposed Hamilton schedule that has employees working four days on, four days off and includes a Life Redesign Coach rotation every six months. We proposed that Hamilton employees would be scheduled to work 32 hours every eight days, leavning the remaining time open for self-scheduling options. To see the powerpoint presented to the focus groups click here.
The Lake Country focus groups were very well attended and overwhelmingly positive. We will take that feedback and other input we receive as we work to finalize the scheduling model for Hamilton.
Next Steps
We are scheduled to break ground in Ontario this summer, depending on approvals. We would start to recruit staff the following summer and are hoping to open the doors of CONNECT Hamilton in the fall of 2018.
Stay tuned for more updates from our Hamilton Journey.