City Council has approved the re-introduction of development charges, providing a more balanced approach where growth pays for growth, rather than the burden of growth-related infrastructure falling to the taxpayer.

After extensive public engagement with the community and stakeholders – including the development industry and the City’s Development Studies-Task Force – Council approved a development charges background study and by-law Monday night, paving the way for development charge by-law to come into effect January 1, 2022. Development charges are fees imposed on land development and redevelopment projects to help pay for the cost of infrastructure required to provide municipal services to new development, such as roads; transit; water and sewer infrastructure; fire services infrastructure; park amenities; and community centres.

St. Catharines is currently the only municipality in Niagara that does not collect lower-tier development charges. For 12 years, this put the City at a competitive advantage and encouraged growth and interest in the community. However, most growth-related infrastructure built in that time was primarily funded from the tax levy and/or water/wastewater rates.

While the revenue will depend on development levels, a consultant hired to conduct the study has indicated the City could potentially collect millions of dollars in development charges on an annual basis to support infrastructure costs related to development and redevelopment.

The charges – which will be applied to both residential and non-residential projects - will be city wide, allowing for more efficient use of funds and ensuring all growth that may benefit from the service has contributed towards it.

The City’s charges, once they come into effect, will be lower than many municipal comparators and opportunities will exist for exemptions and grant programs to support projects such as affordable housing, employment creation and development in the urban core.  

It’s official, the City’s outdoor ice rink project has moved from its pilot stage into a full-fledged program.

Applications are now open for volunteer groups seeking to operate an outdoor skating rink in their neighbourhood under the Community Outdoor Ice Rink Program. Now in its third year, the program operated as a pilot over the last two winters, with Council passing amendments Monday of this week to extend the program. The project allows community volunteer groups to build, operate and maintain outdoor ice rinks in City-owned parks.

Volunteer groups are permitted to apply to use any park they wish, provided it offers a reasonably flat surface, sufficient lighting, access for emergency vehicles and adequate parking where volunteer groups can build, operate and maintain outdoor ice rinks.

Last year three neighbourhood volunteer groups operated rinks at St. Patrick’s Park, Partridge Park, and the Port Dalhousie tennis court.

Volunteer groups do not have to be incorporated charities or not-for-profit groups to apply but must allow all community members free and equal access to the outdoor ice rinks. Volunteer groups are responsible for acquiring and storing equipment and materials required to build, operate and maintain the outdoor ice rink, including boards, tarps, shovels, scrapers and water.

In addition to the park space for the outdoor rink, the City will provide signage, and training sessions on how to build outdoor ice rinks and complete the reporting requirements. The City also offers grants up to $1,000 per rink to help cover costs.

The City will support up to six rink locations.

Applications are due by Oct. 1 at 4 p.m. Successful applicants will be notified by Oct. 15. The community outdoor ice rink season will run from Dec. 1 to March 28.

The City continues to look for feedback on how to reimagine and reinvent programs.

Specifically, the City is looking to the public to provide input, via an online survey, to help identify their preferences when it comes to recreation programming, but also to provide new ideas for novel recreation programs.

It is an opportunity for facility users to ensure their interests and passions are reflected in recreation programming; in addition to providing potential instructors the ability to pitch a possible course they could lead.

Members of the public can visit engageSTC.ca/RecIdeas and complete a short survey to provide their input.

The survey allows residents to select specific programming areas they are interested in seeing expanded, alongside the ability to provide open-ended ideas and feedback, including offering their services as a potential instructor.

Residents can also email their programming ideas to [email protected].

Local small businesses across St. Catharines looking to build their online presence can count on some help with Digital Main Street 3.0.

The City of St. Catharines is relaunching Digital Main Street for a third year, offering one-on-one support to small businesses in expanding their reach into an increasingly important digital marketplace.

The program, made possible by to a $83,862 grant from Digital Main Street’s Ontario Grants Program (OGP), will see the City’s Digital Service Squad extending its support across the whole community, in addition to providing the opportunity for receipt of a $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant.

The grants — administrated by the Ontario BIA Association with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade — support brick-and-mortar businesses in adopting new technologies to expand their online reach.

Grant applications are now open. Successful applicants will receive a $2,500 grant upon completion of a digital assessment and online training.

Digital Main Street will also re-launch its ShopHERE program, designed to create online stores for independent small businesses and artists at no cost. Included when registering with ShopHERE are free one-on-one supports with building and launching an online store, advertising credits for Facebook, a free .CA domain registration and much more.

To learn more about Digital Main Street and the Digital Transformation Grant, visit digitalmainstreet.ca.

It was great to be back at City Hall this week for the first hybrid council meeting of 2021. We have new and improved livestream technology that made it much easier to follow along. As always, Council’s meetings and reports are all available to the public through the City’s website so you can stay engaged. 

While this was a difficult week, I want to express my gratitude to all of the people who reached out with their support and positive comments after my home and car were vandalized. It was unfortunate to wake up to this damage but the messages from so many of you really helped. Thank you. This is what a compassionate city is about – helping each other out and lifting each other up. As I have said, I do not believe that this incident represents the amazing people of St. Catharines. We are a strong, inclusive, resilient community with people of many different views and backgrounds who take care of each other. Thank you again for your support.

There is also a lot of great things happening this weekend and for the rest of the month. The 70th annual Niagara Wine Festival is back starting this weekend and while the celebrations are not as grand as usual due to the pandemic, there are many ways to support local growers and wineries and enjoy the music and celebrations of the season. Many of our wineries, restaurants and tourism businesses have struggled through the pandemic – so if you’re able to support them through the Wine Festival season, that will go a long way to assisting local businesses in Niagara. The Downtown STC Open Streets will continue for the next two weekends with music, entertainment and activities taking place throughout the downtown. Culture Days is also coming up on Sept. 24, with four weeks of free, family-friendly cultural programming across the city. All of these events will follow COVID protocols to keep you safe as we start to come together again.

Finally, I want to say best of luck to all of the candidates who put their names forward to represent our great City in this Monday’s federal election. Please make sure you have your say and get out and vote on Monday.

Thanks and be well,

Walter

The City of St. Catharines is committed to joining the Race to Zero as part of its ongoing efforts to demonstrate climate leadership while preparing for and adapting to a changing future.

Councillors heard Monday night that the City has already achieved some of the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets they endorsed nearly four years ago. With assistance of Clean Air Partnership, staff developed a community-wide inventory and found the City has successfully achieved the 2020 interim target of 15 per cent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the inventory also demonstrated the City has already overachieved the 2030 target of a 37 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Given the success to-date and recent changes in the climate change landscape, the City will now be re-evaluating its targets and joining the Race to Zero Campaign. The global campaign rallies leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, and investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery. Joining the campaign means Council is committing to pledging to do the following:

City Council has asked for a parking strategy for the Moote Street and Rolls Avenue neighbourhood. City staff will be looking at the situation in the area and reporting back to the ward councillors on a strategy to tackle any issues in the neighbourhood.

City Councillors are calling on the province to immediately identify and implement solutions to nursing shortages in Ontario. Citing concerns regarding burnout from the pandemic, and the potential for nursing shortages to have an impact on in-class learning for students – especially medically fragile children who require one-on-one care - Council is asking the province to look at greater incentives to retain qualified nurses, and the allowance of trained caregivers to fill roles.

Council’s resolution will be shared with provincial leaders, including Premier Doug Ford and provincial health minister Christine Elliott, along with area MPPS, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and local area municipalities.