Oshawa’s waterfront is set to be transformed into a clean, green, mixed-use facility with the announcement that the federal government is handing the city $10.2 million and almost 50 acres of port land.

Calling it a “historic day” for citizens, Mayor John Gray said the deal, announced on Friday by Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda, concluded a 40-year battle to revitalize the waterfront and regain land transferred to the government in the ’60s.

“People will live here, play here, shop here and yes, people will sail here again,” he told a crowd of 200 gathered in the Jubilee Pavilion at the foot of Simcoe St.

The transferred land on the west side of the harbour includes the marina, which the city can now reopen after closing it eight years ago. Oshawa will be able to finalize its waterfront master plan, which includes residential development and new parkland.

The federal funds will allow industrial activities to be moved from the west to the east side of the harbour, and include $200,000 for landscaping to separate the area from parks and trails. The new funding is in addition to $9 million earmarked last year for an environmental cleanup of the harbour.

City staff and Transport Canada officials started negotiating a year ago to resolve a lawsuit and end decades of dispute over land ownership, governance and land use at the harbour. Details of the deal, reached in April, had been kept under wraps until Friday.

The agreement excludes any mention of a proposed ethanol plant on the waterfront, something residents had vehemently opposed.

Joining Gray at Friday’s presentation, Oshawa MP Colin Carrie and Gary Valcour, chair of the Oshawa Harbour Commission praised the deal, saying it represented a “renaissance in the life of the port.”

via Big changes coming to Oshawa waterfront – thestar.com.