Siscoe delivers optimistic state of the city address

By Year 2, there’s a record of accomplishment, but things have happened, events have transpired and decisions have been made which thrusts one into reality.

“We’ve had to make really hard choices over the last year,” Siscoe said Tuesday during his state of the city speech at Club Roma. “I would never pretend they were easy. They were tough decisions. A few of them kept me up thinking over the ramifications.

“I will also say they aren’t any different from the choices that just about every city our size or larger has had to make, whether it’s budgetary, dealing with the homeless and encampments, or trying to decide how best to deliver services.

“Regardless of how hard those decisions are, I still believe, as I did last year, that the vision is the right one. There are so many reasons to be optimistic.”

Siscoe laid out reasons for his optimism during the speech, touching on the city’s achievements, opportunities and challenges to come. About 370 people attended the annual event hosted by Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, which included a fireside chat with its chief executive officer, Mishka Balsom.

Siscoe talked about the impact of the business community, saying there’s a lot of room for optimism for the big employers.

GM, for instance, announced last year electric vehicle drive units will be built at the Glendale Avenue plant while Ontario Shipyard, formerly Heddle Marine, announced it’s investing $107 million at Port Weller Dry Docks for vessel life extension projects.

Siscoe said it’s also important not to lose sight of the more than 4,000 small businesses that employ residents, and their successes also give him confidence, including some of the places he visited including Arrowhead Coffee Co., Fat Rabbit restaurant and butcher shop, and Anger and Artistry salon.

But while the business community has been a major focus for the city, Siscoe said what’s dominated conversations and provincial legislation continues to be  housing, making it easier to get approved and built.

“Here, too, even though there are challenges, there’s optimism to be found as well,” he said, adding he’s spent a lot of time with provincial and federal counterparts on the issue.

“We’ve been as honest as we can be when it comes to housing. There are aspects we can control and there are aspects that we cannot,” he said.

“My overriding message at city hall has echoed what our staff has always preached, let’s focus on the things we can impact and be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.”

One of the first initiatives of the term of council was to unanimously endorse a housing pledge and strategy to support construction of 11,000 units for the province.

Siscoe said the city can’t control interest rates that have increased the cost of borrowing for homebuyers and developers, impacting affordability and financing and the rate of builds.

But while the city continues to push for rate cuts needed to start getting shovels in the ground, he said it’s been taking steps to ensure it’s ready to start working with developers and the private sector as rates start to fall.

That’s included modernizing the building department and implementing the city’s housing action plan that recently received $25.7 million in federal funding.

Siscoe said the biggest part of the plan is the municipal development corporation approved in principle by council.

“The MDC is our opportunity to work with the private sector and non-profit partners to develop housing and mixed use, transit oriented development on surplus and underutilized lands,” he said.

“In my discussions with the development community, I know there are a number of building partners ready to start working with this entity as soon as possible.”

Hand in hand with the need for housing is tackling the homelessness epidemic that’s ongoing in the community and across North America.

“While we’ve looked at what best practices exist across municipalities, we’ve also had to recognize that some municipality is going to have to create the best practice and that might have to be us,” Siscoe said.

“Homelessness prevention is a regional mandate supported by funding from the province of Ontario. But as I have long said, residents don’t care who’s dealing with the issue, we care that the issue is being dealt with.”

He said the city has been at the table working hard with Niagara Region to find solutions. Its first step this year was to partner on the sale and redevelopment of surplus city land on Geneva Street for an affordable housing project. And on Monday, the Region opened a temporary homeless shelter on a city parking lot on Riordon Street.

Siscoe said they are short-term solutions for problems that require long-term thinking. He said he’ll continue to advocate for more shelter spaces and at the same time keep pushing the provincial and federal governments to come to the table with funding for mental health programs and rehabilitation for addiction.

Siscoe said a person who is addicted to opioids wouldn’t be able to find an available rehabilitation bed in this community, even if they wanted one. 

“Even if someone makes the difficult decision to get off the drugs they are addicted to, they’ll wait three months or more before they can get started,” he said.

“That’s not good enough. And upper levels of government need to understand they need to do more.”