Black hole

Things have improved at Shire Hall. While this corner tends to trade in the aspects of local government that need attention—habits and priorities that may be out of step with the residents and the economy— this focus can obscure the huge strides Shire Hall has made in 25 years.

It has learned and become proficient in the vast and intricate workings of a $75 million business. It has become more adept in managing the vagaries and unruliness of a billion dollars in assets. It is still learning to be mindful of the taxpayer who funds the enterprise. While there is much yet to be done, much has been accomplished.

Nowhere is this more evident than in County finances and reporting. About 14 years ago, folks including Susan Turnbull, James Hepburn and Amanda Carter ushered in rigorous reform to the way Shire Hall accounted for its operations and assets. After being thrust together in amalgamation in 1998, Shire Hall had little experience or expertise to draw upon from the townships to help guide an organization of the scale and complexity that the County had become overnight.

It muddled through the best it could. But for a decade, it meant that the County’s budgeting, accounting and reporting of these processes was a black hole—opaque, often contradictory and utterly incomprehensible. To residents, to Council and regulators.

I have noted the reforms of 2009 and 2010 before, yet they cannot be overstated. There remains, however, at least one aspect of County reporting that hasn’t improved at all. Indeed in recent years, it has been getting worse.

Building reports have always been rudimentary in Prince Edward County—particularly in contrast to our neighbours in Belleville and Quinte West. Building reports are meant to give residents a sense of the activity in new home building, commercial development, as well as renovations and such. Ideally, such reports should provide a regular and reliable barometer of the direction of the housing market, types and sizes of housing, of business development, job growth and such. It should also provide important feedback about the County’s fees and processes.

But building reports have always felt like an afterthought in Prince Edward County—a departmental requirement with little purpose or value. It seems no one thought they mattered.

I won’t belabour the history of this frail reporting— instead, let’s just zero in on the most recent report to illustrate the problem. The March building report consists of four pages. The first is a boilerplate summary of the second page—that is, the actual building permit activity report. This table compares building permits issued by month, the work value associated with these permits and the fees earned by the municipality. It also provides 2022 permit activity for comparison.

Here is what it tells us: So far, in 2023, the County has issued 181 permits for work valued at $43.9 million, generating fees of $679,000. This compares to 204 permits for $48.5 million of work and $276,000 in fees last year. Bottom line: Volumes are down, and fees are up. Way up.

Some obvious questions arise: How did this happen? Permits are down 12 per cent, but fees are up 146 per cent. Good work. I guess. But where did these fees come from? There is no explanation on these pages or anywhere else. There is no attempt to help the reader understand what is happening or why.

This raises the key question: Why bother reporting data at all when the numbers are contradictory, the drivers are opaque, and the context is missing?

Moving on to page three. In previous years this page presented segmented results delineating permits for basements, barns, renovations, seasonal dwellings, sewers, new homes and such. Lately, the list has been reduced to a single line: new homes.

The March report indicates permits were issued for six new homes in the County. But the summary on page one reports that 18 permits for new homes, including secondary suites, were issued. Confounding the problem, page 4 (a fairly recent addition to the monthly reports) lists 20 single-family dwelling permits and three secondary suites, plus another singlefamily dwelling with a secondary suite. Which is it? Did the department issue permit for six, 18 or 20 new homes in March? Who’s to say?

It may be that some of these permits cover multiunit dwellings—but that is just speculation. There is nothing in the report to explain the three different sums—no attempt to reconcile the conflicting data on these pages. As a reporting document, it is profoundly useless.

Our neighbours in Belleville and Quinte West do a much better job of reporting this data. Their data are clear, legible, and comprehensible. Shire Hall is encouraged to copy one of these formats. It need not be an overly burdensome task.

But to do so, Shire Hall must be persuaded it matters. That is where you, dear reader, come in. One of these years, new homebuilding may blossom in Prince Edward County. Shire Hall is investing a great deal in preparing for this day—a big new water tower, an equalization tank, a new pumping station, and new pipes under the Millennium Trail. This is just in Wellington.

Shire Hall is betting big that new homebuilding is coming. We need data and proper reporting to understand these trends and patterns. Residents and water users, in particular, are ultimately on the hook for the massive infrastructure investments being undertaken to support new homebuilding.

We need a way to monitor and measure how it is going.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca