THUNDER BAY – Local residents have the chance to learn more about the city’s smart growth plan at two town hall meetings on Wednesday and Thursday.
Residents are invited to share their thoughts with city staff at from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., Wednesday at Mary J.L. Black Public Library and again at same times on Thursday at the Oliver Road Recreation Centre, or through a survey available on the city's get involved website.
The plan sets out a roadmap for Thunder Bay to grow its tax base, strengthen the local workforce, and attract new residents.
City manager and chair of the growth task force, John Collin, held a non-business meeting on June 16 to give council a sneak peek at the plan.
Collin said the community-led action plan is based on academic studies, focus groups, and stakeholder engagement and will push the city forward in growing the city’s tax base, workforce, and attract new people and businesses.
“No smart growth action plan will stand the test of time if it is not based on a proper assessment and strategy of where our growth can be achieved,” Collin said.
Therefore, each item in the plan should be concrete, actionable and "SMART", meaning specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
The draft plan categorizes its 87 action items under three pillars: readiness, attraction, and talent.
“In addition to the targeted efforts on building more homes, we will evaluate our infrastructure capacity for growth, making sure our roads, water, and utilities can support the growth we're targeting, with growth objectives built into capital plans. Develop a public inventory of shovel-ready lands, helping investors and developers quickly identify sites that are ready to go,” Vice-chair Kerri Marshall.
“Unlock and activate lands across both public and private holdings to enable new housing, commercial and industrial opportunities. Review city bylaws and standards to identify ways to continue to streamline approvals and modernize policies to better support growth."
“If we can achieve or just adjust our balance between residential, commercial, and industrial just a little bit, we would be in a far better position as we move forward. So, you will find within the entire list of action items quite a bit of emphasis on improving our commercial and industrial mix,” Collin told council.
For example, the action plan will look at redeveloping the city’s underutilized commercial properties and developing policies to encourage unused industrial lands for development.
The action plan highlights preparing Mission Island and McKellar Island for future industrial development.
“I stress just a couple of percentage points makes all the difference in the world, but achieving those couple of percentage points takes a lot of time and effort. So that is coming. We recognize that it needs to be an emphasis of the plan,” Collin said.
“Put another way, if we just focus on residential property tax-based growth, we will not achieve our targets. We must focus on commercial and industrial as well. And, it needs to be growth; it can't just be an increase to their property tax rates.”
Readying the city’s business landscape and industrial land for development is one of several strategies in the Community Economic Development Commission's economic strategy for growth said committee vice-chair and CEDC chair Jamie Taylor.
Taylor also said the natural resources sector will continue to be the city’s strength, but it will not be the only focus.
“You'll see the health-related industry listed here. This is not something that we've been focused on more recently, but could be in the future. We have a number of health-related assets in our community, which are the foundations for growing this industry in terms of new technologies and investment attraction efforts related to health equipment manufacturing and development,” Taylor said.
She said the tourism sector will play an important part in the city’s growth by attracting people to come to Thunder Bay.
Key initiatives in the action plan include revitalizing the downtown cores, enhancing Marina Park and promoting public use of the waterfront, and setting an action plan for Pool 6 land based on the CEDC’s best use study, which suggests the property has the potential to generate up to $15.4 million annually in tax revenue.
“Pool 6 was identified as a priority project because of the opportunity it creates around a number of different things, whether it's housing, commercial tourism, and business attraction,” Taylor said.
When talking about smart growth for the city, Marshall said Thunder Bay will “stand out as a place where people want to live, invest, and belong.” But to do so, the city will need to acquire new talent.
“We're talking about a Thunder Bay where skilled people choose to build their careers, where graduates find opportunity and where newcomers and local talent are supported to thrive. That's the vision behind the talent pillar: building the workforce needed to drive sustainable growth and prosperity,” Marshall said.
Action items under talent include relocation and onboarding package, helping new workers and their families, a local skilled workforce training program, creating training to employment opportunities in trades and other growth sectors, and advocating for expanded economic immigration pathways to attract newcomers.
“These will help build the diverse workforce that Thunder Bay needs for long-term success,” Marshall said.
Collin emphasizes that the plan is still “under development.” The draft presented to council is only the beginning. More items will be added to the plan before a final version of the plan is brought to council in October.
