Some of the first ideas to come from a committee looking into ways to make life more affordable for Norfolk residents got a mixed response from county councillors.
Article content
The Mayor’s Affordability Roundtable, organized by Mayor Amy Martin, makes recommendations to councilors who decide whether to approve them. At a recent meeting, councilors considered seven resolutions from a roundtable meeting in March that had an “in-kind services the county can offer” theme. Three of the resolutions were defeated by Norfolk councillors.
The approved resolutions include:
Article content
Councilors defeated a roundtable recommendation directing staff to investigate permit fees being waived for property owners who want to have an accessory dwelling unit within a five-kilometer radius of Fanshawe College, and a program to track this initiative.
“Why penalize someone who lives six kilometers away?” asked Coun. Mike Columbus.
When questioned by Veri, Brandon Sloan, Norfolk’s general manager of community development, said there is no way to enforce a requirement that an accessory unit be occupied by a student.
“This is not the mayor’s wealth distribution roundtable,” said VanPaassen. “If you’re going to waive fees, somebody else has to pay for it. Cost recovery has to be made up by somebody else. This is well intentioned but maybe we’re stretching the terms of reference.”
Article content
Also defeated was a resolution directing the county’s recreation staff to look into the feasibility of re-establishing the Simcoe skate park.
The skatepark was dismantled and removed from the Norfolk County Fairgrounds in 2021. Norfolk paid an annual leasing fee to the Norfolk Fair Board for the use of the property. The county received limited feedback when it asked the public at that time for suggestions on an alternative location. Bill Cridland, Norfolk’s general manager of operations, said “the project needs more attention to get it going again.”
Cridland also told councilors the remnants of the skate park equipment, which have been stored outside a county building, “are in a lot worse shape than what we thought” and likely not worth reusing.
“I’m not happy to hear now it’s literally not usable,” said Huffman. “If it was just going to be scrapped, why was council led to believe there was going to be a report in terms of location? Why did we do a survey?”
Councilors were told an update on the skatepark will be included in an upcoming recreation facility strategy master plan.
Councilors also defeated a roundtable recommendation directing county staff to investigate the first-time homebuyers’ grant with an eye to lobbying other levels of government for changes so that more people would qualify.
Share this article in your social network