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Taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for paying to clean up portions of industrial lands on the Ottawa River once owned by the federal government and now slated for an ambitious mixed-use redevelopment, Centretown Coun. Catherine McKenney said Thursday.

The Somerset rep was responding to news Windmill Developments has filed the largest ever grant application to the city to help finance the cleanup costs of contaminated industrial lands where the company plans to build its flagship Zibi community.

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Windmill is asking for more than $60 million in brownfields rehabilitation grant and development charge credits to clean up the 6.5 hectares of land it owns at 3 and 4 Booth St., on Chaudière and Albert islands.

The total grants approved by the city since 2007 total $67.8 million.

According to McKenney, about 20 per cent of the site was previously owned or managed by the federal government.

“I don’t support City of Ottawa taxpayers picking up a tab to clean up land that was owned by the federal government. They either should have cleaned it up themselves before selling it or ensure that the purchaser of that land, the developer in this case, was made aware what land wasn’t in the private market,” McKenney said.