City to collect, recycle used clothes
City councillors voted Monday night to start a program to collect and recycle used clothes and other textiles such as linens, pillows and shoes – even if they’re soiled, torn or in poor condition.
The idea is to develop a municipal system of collection bins to replace the bins currently used for chairities such as Diabetes Canada.
Here, citizens could donate all their textiles – no matter the condition.
Reusibles would be sold or given to charity, and the rest could be sold to firms that recycle textiles for use as industrial wipes, rags, new yarn, furniture stuffing or carpet backing.
The city isn’t proposing to manage the bins or pick up the materials; the plan is to seek a private company or a charity to do the work.
Meanwhile councillors don’t want this to impinge on local charities; they’ve asked staff to design a request for proposals that will allow the city to sell soiled and torn textiles to recycling companies while charities get the reusibles.
The new system is expected to divert plenty of textiles from the landfill. A city staff report states that the local landfill is receiving more clothing than ever in the era of fast fashion where clothes are made cheaply in developing countries.
Also discussed at City Hall on Monday:
Jackson Park skiing:
Councillors voted to allow the Peterborough Nordic Club to start grooming the trail in Jackson Park for cross-country skiing this winter. The club had asked last year, but the city couldn’t enter into a legal agreement with the club because they were not yet incorporated. Now they have achieved incorporation, and plan to groom the trail at their own expense. The plan is to allow it for a year and see how it works.
All-way stop for Bethune St. and Hunter St. W.:
Councillors voted to put an all-way stop at the intersection of Bethune St. and Hunter St. W. A city staff report says there have been 18 collisions there in the last three years, mostly due to drivers failing to yield the right-of-way to vehicles travelling along Hunter St. W. (who do not have a stop).
The all-way stop is expected to be installed by the end of October.
Downtown development charges:
Councillors voted on a plan to have a consulting firm study the idea of dropping development charges for new apartment buildings on the fringes of downtown – not just in the downtown core.
The idea would be to nix development charges in the entire schedule J of the city: that’s an inverted triangle roughly outlined by McDonnel St. to the north, Park St. to the west and the Otonabee River to the east.
Schedule J also includes George St. to Landowne St. W., and the East City business area along Hunter St. E.
Councillors plan to hire the Barrie firm Hemson to study the idea of exempting development charges in that whole area.
Planning director Jeffery Humble told councillors on Monday the idea is to allow developers the chance to build less expensively just outside the downtown core.
Developers interested in building apartments downtown have been deterred when citizens object to the demolition or conversion of heritage buildings to create new apartments, Humble said; this plan would offer developers another opportunity, just outside downtown.
A city staff report gives a concrete example: it says Ashburnham Realty is planning a five-storey commercial/apartment complex on Hunter St. E., on vacant land across from Ashburnham Alehouse.
The plan calls for 32 apartments on the upper three floors, and commercial space on the ground floor and second floor.
Development charges would be $401,000 for the apartments, the report states, and a further $198,000 for the commercial space.
That’s enough to make the development too expensive to build, the report states; meanwhile, the city struggles to meet the intensificaiton targets set by the province.
Councillors also voted to have Hemson assess the effect of removing the develment charges for industrial land within the city.
The staff report states that gaining industrial land in the city can’t happen without cleaning up contaminated lands such as the doon-to-be -vacant GE lands, for example.
Councillors want to know the potential effects of exempting the development charges so companies can have an easier time affording the clean-up of contaminated lands.
Evergreen:
Councillors heard a presentation from Jo Flatt, a representative of the Hamilton consulting firm Evergreen, which is doing a provincially funded study of the potential for turning Peterborough into a hotbed for the development of green technology.
The firm recently did 30 interviews with local politicians, green business entrepreneurs and academics – and also held a public workshop in April - in an effort to come up with recommendations on how to develop and promote a “green economy” in the city.
The firm recommends striking a new committee to advise the city on how to use green technology businesses as a prime source of economic development. It also recommends a branding and communications plan specifically to promote the green economy in Peterborough. Evinrude Centre upgrade: Councillors approved a plan to order a new refrigeration condenser for the Evinrude Centre. The cost is expected to be $160,000. The current condenser is 20 years old and has broken down twice, this year. A city staff report says it could fail at any time, meaning the two ice pads would melt.
A new condenser would be expected to take eight weeks to arrive, in the event of a failure; plus, the two ice pads would melt and would take a further week to rebuild.
Instead, councillors plan to order a new condenser now for delivery in December. Installing it would not mean the loss of the ice pads, and it would take 48 hours to make the switch to the new condenser.
Peterborough Utilities Group:
John Stephenson, the CEO of Peterborough Utilities Group, told councillors the sale of Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) is not expected to happen until sometime in 2018.
Council agreed to sell PDI, the electricity distribution system, to Hydro One in December; the sale needs approval from the Ontario Energy Board, which could take awhile.