Read the signs

Every indicator of the County housing market is flashing red. Few new homes are rising out of the ground— none at all in Picton, Bloomfield or Wellington. Shire Hall is on track for its worst year of new homebuilding since the aftermath of the global financial crisis nearly two decades ago.

Meanwhile, new listings are outstripping home sales three to one. Not so long ago, homes moved within days of listing. No more. Maybe never again.

So, why is it that some council members continue to push for massive spending to bring water services to homes that aren’t coming? Unlikely ever to be built? Why do your representatives at Shire Hall insist on spilling your precious tax dollars on such folly? Why plough forward, digging the County’s debt hole ever deeper? Do they not see how fragile the County’s finances have become?

The evidence is there. Abundant and plain. In front of their eyes every day. Yet, some will continue to tell you the stories they’ve been spinning for five years—transformational growth is about to overwhelm Prince Edward County. (Sigh)

Nothing in the County’s history, its track record, or its prospects suggests such change is remotely likely. They’ve been telling this story for so long that they’ve come to believe it themselves.

Rather than spending money in anticipation of a wave of new homebuilding, they might consider hunkering down and cutting costs to better endure the current market downturn. It could be a long winter.

Just six new home permits were issued in July—adding pitifully to the 39 permits for single detached homes issued for the first six months in 2026. New homebuilding is grinding at its slowest pace since 2013. The market has spoken. Will Council listen?

Meanwhile, home resales ticked up slightly in July, driven mostly by uber high-end home purchases. Unique properties. Unique circumstances. The average sale price in July was roughly $764,000 in the County, but the median home changed hands for $660,000. That 16 per cent spread is the luxury segment talking, not the reality for most buyers or sellers.

Meanwhile, there are simply too many homes flooding the local market. While 222 homes traded hands in Prince Edward County so far in 2026, 713 new listings came on the market. A new supply of homes is arriving much faster than the market can absorb them.

No developer, no lender and no investor is sinking money in a market against such headwinds. So why are a handful of council members willing—eager in some of their comments—to bet many millions of your dollars on constructing a massive new Regional Water Plant in Wellington? For what?

Here is the thing. Wellington doesn’t need a new water plant. It may be many decades before it does.

No new homes can be built in Wellington because Shire Hall sold its remaining available waterworks capacity to a developer who is content to sit on its land. As it has done for 20 years now.

Wellington does, however, need an expanded sewage treatment plant. Doing so would free up fresh capacity for the day the market winds change—or, at a minimum, to permit those folks with single lots in the village to release their trapped land for a new home or two.

The good news is that the Federal government has agreed to invest $20 million to do just that.

Why won’t Shire Hall focus exclusively on that task? Why doesn’t Council direct management to abandon its big plans—that are going nowhere—and instead, zero in on expanding this one sewage treatment plant? Explore the alternatives? Scour the contracting marketpace for the best cost? Oversee contractors as if they were building your home? Deliver an infrastructure project on time. And on budget. Wouldn’t that be something? The way municipalities are meant to work?

Since amalgamation, Shire Hall leadership has, to a greater or lesser degree, imagined they were overseeing some grand transformation of Prince Edward County. Some envisioned Markham-by-the-Lake or Mississauga-styled services with wide boulevards and strip malls. They all hit a wall. It was always a twisted fantasy.

The attraction of the place, for a great many, was its affordability and the diversity of the community that a lower cost of living offered. But in the rush to exurb-ify the place, Shire Hall managed only to crush affordability. All the while pushing out folks on the margins.

The sad irony is that after two decades and a sixfold increase in taxes, the County still doesn’t generate nearly enough tax revenue to stay ahead of its spending. It’s a bad sign.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca