Merritton candidates talk ward, city issues
Merritton ward candidates emphasized need for development at the old St. Catharines hospital site while touching on a range of other issues during a debate Wednesday night.
More than a hundred people gathered at Merritton Community Centre to hear Kim Clifford, incumbent David Haywood, Marta Liddiard, Lori Littleton, Greg Miller and Lesley Seaborne tackle large and small issues.
Traffic on Glendale Avenue, improvements to Mountain Locks Park and access to the Moffatt Street neighbourhood were just some of the topics addressed during the debate hosted by Merritton Matters.
Asked what the biggest challenges are facing the ward, Clifford said Queenston Street is the biggest concern. Before demolishing the former hospital on the street, she said the city needs to take steps to avoid the massive rodent displacement that happened when the GM plant was demolished on Ontario Street affecting businesses and residents.
“Before we level that property we should do massive extermination to eliminate all these rodents before they infiltrate our homes.”
Seaborne agreed the top concern in the ward is the former general hospital site, just as it was a hot topic back when she was running in 2014.
“Living in that area, I’m as equally frustrated as everyone else.”
Seaborne said she’s been in contact with city staff and councillors, businesses and residents to see what’s happening and what’s been put in place to get the problem resolved. Looking to the future, she wants to find ways to use bylaws, contracts and policies to avoid something like that happening again in the city.
Littleton said development in general is the major issue for Merritton, including infilling and the hospital site. She said the city is land locked and running out of room and has to be careful with what is left.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re not shoehorning in a bunch of projects and make sure that it respects our established neighbourhoods,” she said.
She added when there are new spaces that are to be developed projects should look at affordable housing, transportation habits and making walkable, livable cities.
Beyond Merritton, candidates were asked what the biggest issue
is facing St. Catharines.
Haywood said the state of the city’s parks, particularly basketball and tennis courts, is a concern that prompted him to ask city staff for a report on their status. What it found was that one-third of all parks are in such bad condition they are health and safety risks to people who use them.
Haywood said he’d be continuing his role on the city budget committee and looking for support from the whole council to implement a five-year action plan that he asked staff to develop to tackle the issue.
“That way we can address city parks in the next five years instead of kicking it down the road to the next generation.”
Miller said the biggest issue for the city is affordable housing and how to address it.
He said the city is limited in revenue generating tools and people can’t afford property tax hikes. Council needs to be innovative in finding ways to open up new revenue streams that are going to allow the city to do things like build social housing units and improve parks. He said the city could look at ideas like a hotel tax, which Kingston has, or a vacant home tax.
“I think that challenge can be addressed with some innovative revenue streams coming in so we don’t have to raise property taxes on seniors, people on fixed income and our small businesses.”
Liddiard said the biggest challenge in the city is with developments.
“Port Dalhousie, GM plant, Queenston Street old hospital site — that’s the foundation of everything that we do in the city. How are we going to attract any kind of smart growth if we can’t finish a single project?”
She said although they are not city-led projects, the city does have some responsibility to ensure developers are doing what they promise to do in a timely fashion. She said council also needs to look at city hall and see what roadblocks are being set up.