In a west-end neighbourhood filled over the past decade with the sounds of a residential construction boom, a faint hum of its gritty industrial past can still be heard.

Inside a gated compound on Lansdowne Ave., in a four-storey building owned by General Electric-Hitachi, hulking machines have been rumbling for nearly five decades, churning thousands of tonnes of uranium powder every year into pellets to feed the province’s nuclear reactors.

Long after surrounding industrial sites (including former General Electric Canada land) were sold off to developers for townhouses and condominiums, the GE-Hitachi facility has held its ground on the corner of Dupont St. and Lansdowne Ave.

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And, until the arrival of an environmental activist from Peterborough a few weeks ago, the facility went mostly unnoticed by the families and young professionals that have moved in.

In the weeks since activist Zach Ruiter began knocking on doors to “warn” neighbours of the operation, the company’s public relations department bolted into action — forced not only to try to ease concerns over its long-standing nuclear processing operation (which it argues is safe and even award-winning), but also to justify its existence in an increasingly residential neighbourhood.

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On Wednesday, the company offered reporters a limited view inside the facility, leading a tour through a portion of it where uranium pellets are shaped and inspected before being trucked to another plant in Peterborough, where they’re assembled into fuel bundles.

Officials also planned to attend a community meeting Wednesday night in hopes of easing the “fear of the unknown” that, according to spokeswoman Kim Warburton, has recently gripped the surrounding community.

“We’re quiet and we’re safe,” she said, adding that “we don’t have any plans to move.”

But whether GE-Hitachi can resist the growing pressures of gentrification remains to be seen. Already, some residents and a local politician have mounted a campaign to force the facility out.

Councillor Cesar Palacio, whose ward includes the Lansdowne facility, recently submitted a request to the city’s planning department to change the GE-Hitachi site’s land-use designation from “heavy industrial” to “light employment” in the city’s official plan.

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While a designation change would not force the plant to move, it would prevent other heavy industry from occupying GE’s land if it decides to leave. For Palacio, that decision would be welcome.

“Given how this community has changed tremendously, it only makes sense that this company starts looking toward the future in terms of perhaps relocating its operation,” he said. “(Light employment) is more compatible with the rest of the local community.”