Niagara-on-the-Lake Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa doesn’t anticipate Premier Doug Ford will be offering him strong-mayor status any time soon, nor does he think it is the solution to creating better access to housing for people in the province.
During the Association of Municipalities Ontario conference last week, Ford announced that he’d hand these powers to 21 smaller-town mayors by Oct. 15 if they agreed to meet housing targets set by the province and outline a strategy to hit their goal.
Cities with strong mayor powers will also be eligible for extra cash from a new $1.2 billion “Building Faster Fund” if they’re on track to meet a specific number.
Through Niagara Region’s most recent official plan, Niagara-on-the-Lake has been tasked with creating 1,150 new units by 2051, with 25 per cent going in areas that are already built up and serviced, Zalepa explained in an interview with The Local.
“Niagara-on-the-Lake is not one of those communities that’s really needing to rev up its housing stock,” he said, adding that the new homes to be built could be placed in any of the five villages that make up the town.
The entire town sits within the Greenbelt, an area Ford recently said will be open for development, which has been faced with heavy criticism.
A lot of land in town is zoned agricultural and is considered specialty cropland, or is already built up, said Zalepa.
Ford first introduced strong mayor powers — only to Toronto and Ottawa — after the June 2022 election.
In June 2023, the provincial government gave the powers to nearly 30 other municipalities with projected populations of at least 100,000 by 2031, part of the province’s work to build 1.5 million homes by that time.
The latest expansion involves cities with a population of at least 50,000 by 2031.
Through its official plan adopted in 2022, Niagara Region is planning to accommodate a minimum population of 694,000 people and 272,000 jobs by 2051. This represents an increase of over 200,000 people and 85,000 jobs compared to 2021, reads the plan.
It also forecasts that
Niagara-on-the-Lake will have a population of 28,900 and 17,610 jobs by 2051.
The town’s current population is about 20,000.
Zalepa said it’s not red tape or local governments getting in the way of expanding the housing supply.
“I believe there’s more of an impact in the supply of housing than simply the municipalities holding back,” he said, explaining the economy is in the driver’s seat, such as the rising cost of materials due to inflation.
One factor that seems to get less attention than it should when the lack of housing in Ontario is discussed is how much less upper levels of government invest in infrastructure compared to decades ago, he explained.
After the Second World War and into the 1960s, Zalepa said upper governments invested in about 60 per cent of infrastructure projects in communities. Today, it’s about 10 per cent, he told The Local.
“There’s no modern-day equivalent of that,” said Zalepa.
“We have not invested in our infrastructure like we have in the past.”
The lord mayor said he believes the target set for the town by 2051 is one that “can be met reasonably,” but that it will also involve “dialogue with the community” on how to achieve it properly.
The new mayoral powers include the ability to set budgets, veto bylaws and pass bylaws with just one-third of their council’s support — only if these bylaws deal with provincial priorities such as getting more housing built. Mayors will also have the power to appoint senior civil servants.
In July 2023, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark sent a letter to the municipalities involved in the latest expansion asking them to set their own “locally appropriate” housing targets.
That was a big change from the bigger municipalities, which had targets imposed on them by the province.
With files from The Trillium (Village Media)
