Saugeen Shores is working to support growth and innovation in the community, while facing reduced provincial funding, as well as other economic challenges shared by many communities.
Mayor Luke Charbonneau says in a year-end interview that looks at highlights, challenges and priorities for the upcoming year, the start of construction on a decades in the making rec centre in Saugeen Shores is a highlight of 2023.
“That’s a pretty major project for our community, a new pool, new fitness centre, gymnasium, walking track,” says Charbonneau, adding, “To see it under construction and to know it’s going to be finished in about 18 months’ time from now is really exciting.”
“I think it’s going to go a long way to improving the quality of life for people in our community,” says Charbonneau.
He says for the first time this year, the Town did a ten-year business plan. “We looked at, particularly our infrastructure needs and then came up with a plan to make sure we can pay for the critical infrastructure we’re going to need to build to allow the community to grow and to thrive in the years to come.”
He adds, “I think we have a really solid plan now, that we can show to the public and say ‘look, we know what we need to build and we know how to pay for it.”
He also highlighted the FoodCycler program which subsidized a counter-top composting device with the aim of diverting organic waste from the town’s landfill. “That actually rolled out across Bruce County but it originated with the Saugeen Shores Environmental Stewardship Ad Hoc Advisory Committee. They made several recommendations a couple of years a go and one of them was to implement FoodCyclers.”
“I know lots of people are interested in waste diversion and environmental stewardship,” says Charbonneau.
Meanwhile, he says, “Nationwide, we’re in the middle of a housing crisis and that’s true in Saugeen Shores as well.”
He notes, the community is working to create more mixed density housing in order to address various lifestyles, whether that’s for people just entering the housing market or if they’re at the stage of downsizing after retirement, for example.
Charbonneau says he’s optimistic, especially after seeing the construction of a number of rental units in the last several months. “As we build more rental, we also know that we need to do things to help people who are earning less money to get into those rental units,” says Charbonneau.
The mayor notes, the Town created a municipal housing allowance which is a direct rental subsidy administered by the County for those who are earning minimum wage. “We started that last year, and set the number from Saugeen Shores– our contribution to it at $75,000 and in 2024, we’re doubling that to $150,000 and the plan in 2025 is to take it to $225,000 a year in direct rental subsidies to help people afford rent in those new rental units that we’re constructing,” says Charbonneau.
He says provincial support is an issue for the Town with regard to planning changes the Province has been making in Bill-23 and Bill-124, which Charbonneau says is, “Creating uncertainty for us on the planning front.”
He says the Town also just saw its Ontario Community Infrastructure Funding (OCIF) reduced.
Charbonneau says the province’s 2024 calculation sets the Town’s OCIF at $938,285 which is down from $1,748,727 in 2023.
He says, “The province has capped annual decreases in funding at 15 per cent, so our 2024 allocation is $1,486,418. But, if nothing changes, it appears that we will see a 46 per cent reduction in this infrastructure funding over the next few years.”
“That’s a real concern for us,” says Charbonneau, explaining, “Because as we look forward, we have a great opportunity coming to our region with potential new build nuclear at the Bruce site, but in order for a community like ours to play the role we need to in supporting that provincially significant project, in terms of housing the workers, providing them services, providing them housing, making sure that they have all they need to be here and build 48 megawatts of new generation at the Bruce site, we’re going to need help from the province to build the infrastructure related to that.”
He adds, “To see the funding for that infrastructure going down just as we’re seeing the demand on that infrastructure going up because of provincial priorities, is pretty concerning.”
Charbonneau says the Town was only made aware of the funding cut in December, near the end of budget discussions. He says staff are working on talking to those at the provincial level to ensure they understand the Town wants provincial support. He says those conversations are ongoing.
He says the economy overall is a challenge. “Hopefully we’ll see inflation come down overall and potentially interest rates come down in the coming year.”
Looking at 2024, Charbonneau says the Town’s priorities line up with its challenges, for example housing, noting “It’s a major challenge, so it has to be a priority for us to do things about.” He says Saugeen Shores is working on a new permit planning system with the goal of making it much easier for developers to go through the permit process, by laying out all of the Town planning requirements at the start of the permit application process. That way developers meet council and know what the Town wants at the beginning of the process rather than near the end of it.
“It’s going to be a bit of an overhaul of how we do planning in Saugeen Shores. I think it’s really innovative. We’re the only community looking at this kind of change to address housing in our community,” says Charbonneau.
He says the Town is applying to the federal housing accelerator fund to aid them in rolling the new plan out.
Other priorities include developing and maintaining infrastructure which will eventually include a new water and wastewater master plan, expanding the water treatment plant, and other critical and core infrastructure projects.
Work is underway on creating a new ‘Innovation Park’ in Port Elgin which is designed to be an energy innovation business park.
2024 is also 25 years since the Town of Saugeen Shores was created through amalgamation and they plan to celebrate that anniversary throughout the year.
“It’s going to be an exciting year in 2024. I’m looking forward to it,” says Charbonneau.