Columnists
Field of Dreams
I’m sure you know the story: “Build it and they will come.” And in the film they did come, but they were ghosts. They were not real. It was a pretty cool concept for a film, what with an idiot who builds a baseball diamond in the middle of nowhere, and people actually come.
I think this is loosely based on the Noah’s Ark legend in which a crazy guy builds a big boat, anticipating a devastating a deluge of rain that would wipe everyone off the planet, to the jeers and derisiveness of everyone in the neighbourhood. Laugh was on them, because every animal on earth booked that cruise, two by two, and survived. They then reverted to their natural instincts by killing and eating each other, as animals are prone to do.
FACT IS NOT FICTION
“Build it and they will come” seems to be the new mantra of County Council: Get those housing developments built, because they will come. Like the movie, ‘They’ are ghosts, as far as we know. I’m sure they will come because, as sure as you build houses, people will arrive to fill them.
DEATHRATE
In the magazine business, we have a thing called the ‘deathrate’. This isn’t as brutal as it sounds, it’s just a term that describes subscribers who don’t renew. Not surprisingly, our ‘deathrate’ is low because our readers actually die, but are replaced by new subscribers, and we carry on.
We understand this, and mourn the loss of our long-term subscribers. But I don’t think Council gets this. They have all the evidence, but they are building a future of growth without calculating death rate.
We are all aware that people are leaving the County. Some of them long-time residents, some of them who’ve logged only 50 years in the County, so don’t get to wear the County badge, unless they have rescued children from a burning building, or bought a round for the house at the Barley Room Pub.
Why are they leaving? A number of reasons. Some are tired of the circus-like atmosphere of the tourist season. Some feel a loss of the community feeling that drew them here. And some just can’t resist an offer from some city expat who offers them way, way more than they paid for their property. It’s like The Godfather— an “offer you can’t refuse”.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING?
Sadly, I wrote about this in a column a decade ago. Only the numbers have changed. At the time, people were selling thier homes in Missisauga for a million dollars. They were buying houses in the County for $200K, and had money to burn to renovate, pay all future bills and live in comfort in their new country home. Today all those numbers have doubled, and sometimes tripled, but the effect is the same.
A friend from Bloomfield explained his departure to me. “Toronto money is to County money what County money is to Nova Scotia money.” He was describing that same inevitable path. [I understand that Maritime provinces are now encountering the same problem: Ontario money is inflating their houseing prices beyond what the locals can afford. This is a very serious problem for all of us— both here and there!]
QUICK GLANCE BACK AT COUNCIL
Most people don’t see that Growth Rate and Death Rate go hand in hand. This is a very important concept to understand, if we are going to grow our County properly.
Council sees growth. I get that. It means money to them. Property taxes, water bills, all kinds of services to tax, extra money in the economy—it’s a Field of Dreams! Growth equals dollars into County coffers.
What they don’t see is the Death Rate—people leaving versus the expected growth. Work the math. Giant magical influx of newcomers (I won’t even guess at what that fake number now is!) versus the exodus of people who have no choice but to leave.
This is not growth. It is simply replacing people who would love to live here, but can’t afford to, and can’t turn down the money the replacement people are offering. Basically 1,000 people in/1,000 people out. This is not growth.
Perhaps County’s Dream comes true, and they have 30,000 ghosts visiting their Field of Dreams. What does it buy them? What does it cost us? If all your money in equals all your money out, what’s the point?
DOES THE BUSINESS MODEL WORK?
I have expanded my business many times over the years. It requires an investment in new machinery, weighed against the new income to cover the investment. Part of this is learning what new markets are looking for, and part of it is just guesswork. This worked for me because, succeed or fail, I have ‘bounce’ —I don’t invest more than I’m prepared to lose.
Not the case in County business. Huge investments in a market that is known to be, shall we say, fickle. Better to say, unpredictable. We get monthly reports on housing sales up and down in County buy and builds. No surprise to anyone, these numbers go up and down.
Yet the powers that be seem to predict up and up and up, without factoring in the possibility that it may go down and down. Yes, people from the city want to move to the County, but I suspect we are pricing ourselves out of the market, and that shining light of ‘County Life’ can dim as quickly as it shined.
Haliburton was once the ‘go-to’ place for Torontonians. Then they tired of that. Toronto North lost its charm, what with opening and closing cottages at the beginning and end of seasons, and blackflies. So they moved to another place. Us. Where they could buy a cottage cheap and spend a few days here each year.
WRITING ON THE WALL
The Field of Dreams is a wild expectation of something that may happen. Or may not. Word on the Street says business is down right now. Number of tourists is down right now. This is a harbinger of what happened to Haliburton—Holy crap! Too many tourists; we can’t handle them. Locals are upset dealing with people who don’t understand how we work, and just use us and abuse us. And then that subsided (as it has done here) and business died, and they needed to start promoting again. But too late, that fickle tourism crowd had moved on. I believe this is where we are at.
We are selling our land for what? To people who can afford it. We’ll sell our waterfront at premium prices. This is not new. We’ve been selling every piece of us— our land, our waterfront, our culture, our way of life— to anyone willing to buy. Like carnival hucksters. No-one considers what will happen when the County becomes another place left behind, when another hot place takes our place.
Then perhaps our overly-discovered ‘Undiscovered Island Adventure’ will return to what we used to call ‘Home’.
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