THUNDER BAY — A town hall meeting at the Mary J.L. Black Library saw nearly 20 residents show up to weigh in or learn more about the city’s Smart Growth Action Plan.
“We had a great turnout tonight for the first of two town halls. This is really an opportunity for us to share the work that has been ongoing since the growth task force was struck back in January,” Kerri Marshall, commissioner of growth, told Newswatch in an interview.
The plan sets out a roadmap for Thunder Bay to grow its tax base, strengthen the local workforce, and attract new residents under three pillars of readiness, attraction, and talent.
A major point of getting the city ready for growth is a focus on making infill lots available for industrial, commercial, and residential development.
City resident Robin Rickards was outspoken about seeing the city enforcing its bylaws on derelict private properties.
Rickards said he sat on the municipal appeals tribunal board. He said he has overseen multiple cases of properties damaged by tenants or fires, and when the tribunal put an order in place for the landlord to fix the property, those properties “wouldn't be dealt with.”
One such case, Rickards points out, is a three-bedroom boarded-up bungalow located directly across the street from the library.
“What strategy are we going to have to go after delinquent landlords, because that's what it was when I sat on the appeals tribunal board, it was delinquent landlords,” Rickards said.
Matthew Pearson, senior advisor of growth, said Rickard's point sums up what the action plan is trying to do.
“The goal of a plan like this is to get Thunder Bay to a state where our properties are realizing their highest and best use. We are in-filling in areas that need it because we know the benefit. We're not about limiting opportunities and growth. So people, if they still want to build a single-family home out in the middle of nowhere. They have the right to do so. Some people want to live that way,” Pearson said.
Rickards also points out there are “highly efficient service lands in our downtown cores” that are underutilized in the same ways.
“Are we as a municipality going to get serious about collecting those together so that those sites can be developed into dense, mid-rise, streetcar style, residential/commercial neighbourhoods like they were before, that make economic sense and will drive down the cost of homeowners. Or are we gonna get trapped in building yet another batch of bungalows in the middle of nowhere eating up the limited arable land we have in this region,” Rickards said.
The growth plan includes several items dealing with city policies on underused lands for all property classes.
Marshall said the city "will be doing a growth readiness assessment very early on in this plan so that we can really understand what lands are available, what's their state of readiness, what servicing is available, and what would be needed in order to make those lands available for development.”
The city needs to step up and enforce its bylaws, bring owners into compliance with those bylaws, said Rickards, or tell them their property will go up for a tax sale.
The city is holding a second town hall meeting on Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Oliver Road Recreation Centre and conducting a survey, available on the city's get involved website.
