Reform
Invest in planning and development at Shire Hall
We need more homes. All kinds. Big, small and tiny. We need apartments, condos, townhomes and detached homes. We need homes that folks can afford to buy—whether they wait tables, manage small businesses, or live out their retirement. We need all of them.
Why? Because the County’s population is shrinking. This is very bad news. The last two censuses (2016 and 2011) have counted 808 fewer residents among us in Prince Edward County.
It may not be immediately evident to everyone that this is a bad thing. After all, many of us live here because it is a quiet, unhurried place. Without the traffic and congestion of urbanity.
But there is an important distinction between growing slowly and a shrinking population. This is because federal and provincial governments fund growing communities, not those that are shedding population. Competition for infrastructure, healthcare and education dollars is fierce—it is a battle made infinitely harder when your community is shrinking. It is a threat to our remaining schools, arenas, hospitals and health care in general.
We know, for instance, that the 72 beds— and the attendant jobs—lost when Picton Manor closed in 2012, will never return to the County. When this facility was closed due to compliance issues, those beds were transferred to the Greater Toronto Area. Because it is growing. And the County is not.
This is just the start of the challenges. Fewer residents also means fewer taxpayers to pay for the rising cost of County government and its services. Fire services, roads, ambulance and police will all cost more next year—whether the County’s population rises or falls. Already costly waterworks bills rise even faster when the cost of the system is shared by fewer users.
There is also a dangerous risk that this trend begins to feed on itself. As costs rise, the County becomes less affordable. More folks are forced to leave. Costs riser further. Faster. The cycle risks picking up speed.
What can we do?
The good news is that folks want to live here. The County has done an exceptional job of marketing this place to folks around the world. It is a destination for great food, drink and memorable experiences. Other rural communities ache for such an advantage.
But while we have done a good job of creating demand to live here, we’ve done a poorer job of providing them a place to live. It is a classic example of demand outpacing supply. In the absence of new housing inventory, prospective buyers scoop up whatever comes available. Mostly this has meant a run on resale homes in the County, which in turn has driven up prices.
Modest homes that were affordable a few years ago, have doubled in price. And continue to rise. Whole communities in Prince Edward County have become out of reach as places to live for working families or those on a fixed income. We need to fix this, or it risks accelerating.
Last year was a good year. The County issued 178 new home building permits in 2017, a level of activity not seen since the middle of the last decade. From a low in 2013, when Shire Hall issued just 76 new home permits, the pace of new home construction has risen each of the past four years. This is good. A sign we are heading in the right direction. But it’s not enough. Not nearly.
According to the County’s own data, there are more than 1,700 residential units sitting in various stages of approval. We need to convert more into homes. Faster.
There are indications that subdivision developments, some dormant for nearly a decade, in Wellington and Picton are breathing new life. But homebuilders big and small continue to point to a logjam in the County’s planning and development processes.
Planners and engineers are overwhelmed.
The workload is untenable—due partly, it seems, to increased volume, partly to increasing regulatory hurdles. Neither of these pressures shows signs of letting up.
In order to break the logjam we must put more resources to the task—specifically this means more human resources. More planners, more engineering folks. The only way to process more files while upholding policy, principles and legal standards is to put more people on the job.
Some will recoil at the notion of adding overhead— but it need not be looked at this way. It is, rather, an investment in the viability of our community. An investment in the health of our school enrollment, our hospital, our healthcare services.
Besides, there are ways to add capacity without twisting the organization out of shape or bloating its ranks. Some of it can be outsourced. Some contracted out.
We need, also, to free up senior folks in these departments, to keep an eye on where the County is heading. To guard the vision. To ensure the values, the natural beauty and the heritage we treasure in this place are protected. This is more important now than ever. While we desperately need new homes, we also need a strong, vibrant and responsive team overseeing development— ensuring that we shape growth rather than letting growth shape us.
But make no mistake, a declining population is likely the gravest threat this community faces over the next decade. Unless and until it is reversed, it will corrode everything we love about the County.
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