Niagara-on-the-Lake struggles to recruit, retain firefighters
High home prices have changed demographic to an older, ‘pre-retirement generation’
The high cost to purchase a home in Niagara-on-the-Lake has completely altered the town’s demographic, according to real estate experts.
“Niagara-on-the-Lake at one point used to have families,” says Doug Widdicombe, a sales representative for Sotheby’s who’s lived in the area for 37 years.
We’re seeing a much older crowd in town now, he says.
“It’s definitely a different place than what it was 15 years ago.”
At least one vital service is experiencing unexpected consequences.
The local fire department counts on volunteers for emergencies, but fire Chief Rob Grimwood says recruitment and retention have become increasingly challenging.
“People come here to retire,” he says. “That’s typically not consistent with the type of people who would join a fire department.”
Grimwood says volunteers usually join between the ages of 19 and 25, when they still live with their parents.
Volunteers go through training and put in good service, but when they start looking for a home they end up moving to St. Catharines or Niagara Falls, he says.
“We’ve lost several firefighters that way.”
The local fire department has five stations and a current roster of 107 firefighters, slightly below the 110 approved by town council.
Three stations have a number of firefighters who live outside of the area and must commute into the station before they can get to an emergency.
Grimwood says this is impacting response times to some degree, “especially in Old Town.”
They overcome the unpredictable staffing by calling other stations to request assistance, he says.
“I am concerned. We’re not in panic mode, it’s just something at this point where we’re going to have to work a lot harder at recruitment and retention.”
Stefan Regier, a sales representative for Royal LePage, has lived in Niagara-on-the-Lake for all of his 43 years and has worked in real estate for 10 years.
Regier says housing prices have increased year after year, which has brought in “the preretirement generation.”
In places such as St. Davids or Virgil, previously “a safe haven for affordable homes,” he says single-family starter homes are no longer priced as such.
“The Henry Street area homestead was a great place to raise a
family,” he says.
Now he has a home on his Virgil roster currently listed at $659,000.
“It’s definitely an older population, for sure,” he says.
Despite how high housing costs have climbed, Regier says the average sales price is actually down 6.3 per cent in Niagara-onthe-Lake.