A New Year’s Message from the BMRA – Our Priorities for 2020

New Year’s is always a time of reflection and resetting, especially when we’re entering a new decade. In that spirit, the BMRA Board wanted to share with our members the priorities we have established for 2020, and what we are hoping to accomplish. 

1. Maintaining our Quality of Life

All of us living in the Town of Blue Mountains, whether life long residents or more recent arrivals, appreciate the wonderful quality of life we experience. Easy access to a beautiful natural environment, year round outdoor activities, cultural attractions and a relaxed pace of life – it’s hard to beat the TBM. 

The challenge we face is making our quality of life sustainable, given that the appeal of our community has created the greatest risk we face, namely rapid growth. We understand there are currently approved development proposals for at least 1200 housing units, which would bring in approximately 3,000 new TBM residents. Of course, the form of all new housing must fit into the model defined in our Official Plan, in terms of design, density and environmental responsibility. Our Council must be staunch guardians of our community standards.

 But we do not yet have all the necessary planning policies in place to control how much – and how fast – new development should occur. We need an approved Strategic Plan. And, as Mayor Soever stated at our November 21 public forum, the top planning priorities are completion of a Drainage Plan, and a Transportation Plan, without which a Strategic Plan cannot be developed. These are to be addressed in 2020  – our question is, in the absence of those plans to help guide community development, should a moratorium be placed on future development proposals until they are completed? 

2. Ensuring Financial Accountability 

The growth of TBM puts a strain on our finances, and heightens the importance of effective stewardship of the municipal budget. We require significant investment in infrastructure to meet our requirements, and over the past few years the Town has struggled to execute those projects – creating what we have termed an “implementation gap”. We can’t continue in that manner, especially given inflation in local building costs threatens to overwhelm the funds held in reserve to pay for that work. At the same time, the cost we bear for municipal water services has allowed for the creation of a substantial reserve, seemingly more than sufficient for future maintenance and repairs. Is it therefore appropriate to ask whether our water fees could be frozen at current levels, if not in fact reduced. The 2020 TBM budget will be available for review in the first quarter of 2020, and we will then gain a better understanding of whether Town Council and Staff are achieving efficiency in operations and productivity in output.

3. Achieving Tax Fairness with the County

The second financial issue is fairness, related to the proportion of our municipal taxes that are sent to the County. We won’t revisit all the factors we are dealing with, as previous communications have laid out our concerns. Suffice to say that the 26% share of Grey County tax levies borne by TBM, from 14% of total County population, will increase. This is evidenced by the fact that the County projects $1,847,857 in new 2019 assessment growth, of which TBM represents about $1,100,000, or 60%. 

We all recognize that Canada applies a progressive system of taxation – those better off pay higher taxes to support those with less – but our question is whether we receive fair value for the 40% of our tax dollars we send to the County. There is an opportunity for Grey County to more directly support our growth-necessitated investments. The County greatly benefits from our growth, as evidenced by the increase in new assessment dollars flowing to Grey, so they will also do better if we can maintain sustainable growth. That could take the form of assistance with attainable housing projects, cost sharing for our municipal drainage plan, or other types of support. The first step in achieving a more fair and balanced financial relationship is to complete a “Sources and Uses” study, which will more clearly define the dollars we contribute to the County and what we receive in return. The BMRA plans to be directly  involved with the work required to enhance our County financial relationship throughout 2020.

In closing, we hope that 2020 proves to be a very positive year for the TBM and its residents. We thank our members for their support, and look forward to an interesting and pivotal year for our community.

Jim Torrance,

BMRA President