Story by Lee Griffi:
The mayor of Cochrane would like upper levels of government to do more to get homes built in rural Ontario. Peter Politis says one tool he would like to see offered to rural Ontario is strong mayor powers.
Politis says he would accept strong mayor powers to level the playing field between rural and urban Ontario. “We are setting the table for what the province is trying to do. We are demonstrating that those opportunities are here, yet we can’t get the types of tools that they have created for the larger centres which would help us.”
The mayor also feels the rules around severing rural properties should be relaxed to create more building lots. “You can only sever a 150-acre property three times. We have many of these properties that have reached their severance limits that we could sever 100 times and create 100 lots.”
Politis adds it is a two-and-a-half-year process to even get a lot severed to build a new home. “Having strong mayor powers would allow us to move much quicker and flatline those types of challenges.”
He says the way he understands strong mayor powers is that council has the right to veto and he says that’s the way it should be. “The mayor has certain powers to be able to drive an agenda but right now there’s a barrier there. Strong mayor powers are specifically designed to eliminate the flatline process and create housing inventory,” he adds.
According to the province, “Strong mayor powers offer tools to help heads of council cut red tape and speed up the delivery of key shared municipal-provincial priorities such as housing, transit and infrastructure in their municipalities.”
Strong mayor powers and duties include:
- Choosing to appoint the municipality’s chief administrative officer
- Hiring certain municipal department heads, and establishing and re-organizing departments
- Creating committees of council, assigning their functions and appointing the chairs and vice-chairs of committees of council
- Proposing the municipal budget, which would be subject to council amendments and a separate head of council veto and council override process
- Vetoing certain by-laws if the head of council is of the opinion that all or part of the by-law could potentially interfere with a provincial priority
- Bringing forward matters for council consideration if the head of council is of the opinion that considering the matter could potentially advance a provincial priority
The town of Cochrane made headlines recently when it decided to offer property for as little as $10. The incentive program would also offer to waive property taxes on new homes for a certain period of time but details on the program are still being discussed.