Sarnia’s Mayor is wanting again on the highlights and challenges in 2024, as we usher within the new 12 months.
Mike Bradley mentioned he is pleased with the variety of housing begins and approvals Sarnia council endorsed.
“There’s in all probability been about 1,200 to 1,500 new items of flats and homes of all totally different ranges which were authorized within the final six months and that is on prime of two,300 approvals that we now have given over time for builders to maneuver ahead,” mentioned Bradley.
He actually hopes to see all of them advance.
“As a result of it might assist us,” Bradley mentioned. “Our rental charges listed here are approach too excessive in comparison with the remainder of southwestern Ontario. So, the extra items we now have on the market, the extra we are able to hopefully assist deflate that market in order that we now have affordable rents for individuals as we enter 2025-2026.”
Bradley mentioned town may even be acknowledged once more for its work.
“We’re main the way in which in southwestern Ontario on housing unit begins,” he mentioned. “We have been engaged on this for years. Placing the infrastructure in place as we glance to develop to the east. We’re doing quite a lot of infilling — as you possibly can be aware on the previous Sarnia Normal Hospital website, the place there are actually 118 new items approaching stream. We simply had a current improvement on Pamela Courtroom, and if we are able to try this within the subsequent 12 months or two we may even do extra to deliver extra housing selections for the general public and Sarnia.”
In March 2024, town acquired $400,000 from the province’s Constructing Sooner Fund for exceeding its 2023 housing goal with a complete of 254 new items.
Bradley mentioned housing and affordability are key points that have to proceed to be addressed in 2025.
“Inflation has dramatically decreased, rates of interest have been reducing and proceed to lower,” he mentioned. “So, going into subsequent 12 months, there’s some hopeful indicators there. However, we additionally have to — as Canadians and as Sarnians — to get our optimism again,” Bradley mentioned. “To recollect what made us Canadians is that sense that we’re all on this collectively and we’ll get out of those main challenges collectively.”
Bradley mentioned options to the homelessness subject will proceed to be sought within the new 12 months.
“Each Canadian neighborhood, small and huge, is coping with this subject and we have had our points,” Bradley mentioned. “Whether or not it is Rainbow Park and a few of the auxiliary points from that. However, the fact is there’s lower than 30 individuals in Rainbow Park now due to the technique adopted by metropolis council earlier this 12 months” he mentioned.
The province launched a invoice in early December that can give municipalities, if handed, extra instruments to clear homeless encampments and discourage drug use in public.
Extra funding would even be allotted to the Canada-Ontario Housing Profit to unencumber house in emergency shelters.
Bradley can also be pushing for border safety enhancements, together with the reestablishment of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police [RCMP] detachment in Sarnia.
He introduced the decision previous to the federal authorities revealing its $1.3 billion Canada Border Plan, which guarantees a variety of measures to strengthen surveillance and disrupt the circulate of fentanyl.
“The fentanyl subject is a large subject nonetheless on this neighborhood and throughout this nation and that is why I welcome these new border efforts to deliver extra management to the importation of that drug, or the export,” Bradley mentioned. “It’s a black plague on each Canadian neighborhood. The injury that fentanyl and different medicine are doing to our cities.”
Bradley anticipates some excellent news tales in 2025.
“I am wanting ahead to seeing the brand new 24-beds approaching stream to take care of the drug points. Which has been an extended struggle for this neighborhood, going again 20 years and varied governments,” he mentioned. “I am wanting ahead to seeing a few of the renewal of the neighborhood as we’re getting quite a lot of curiosity in improvement and shifting ahead, within the valley and from outdoors the valley. That is what we want. That mixture of funding.”
Total, Bradley is hopeful concerning the future.
“It’s difficult proper now. There isn’t any query. I believe the most important factor we have to do is have an perspective adjustment and take a look at the strengths we now have as a neighborhood and a rustic. Let’s construct on these strengths as an alternative of tearing every thing down. There’s an outdated Texas expression which I’ve at all times liked, ‘Any donkey can kick down a barn, it takes a carpenter to construct one.’ That is the point of view I am taking into 2025. We will proceed to reshape town and transfer it ahead.”
