Council has to restore business confidence: mayor
Sendzik says he’s heard frustration over recent CIP decision
Mayor Walter Sendzik says council has some work to do to ensure businesses have confidence in the city, after a controversial decision about tax incentives earlier this week.
Council narrowly voted not to reopen the debate on whether to give a tax rebate to a Port Dalhousie condo project at the former Lincoln Fabrics building that met criteria under the community improvement plan.
The decision was widely criticized by the business community.
“I understand the frustration, and the amount of people that I’ve bumped into since the council decision has truly shown it’s top of mind for a lot of people,” Sendzik said Thursday during his online video chat #AskSendzik, at The Standard.
“It’s business people. It’s people who want our community to be successful. It’s people who have retired to our community, it’s not just one group of people that are saying they are concerned about this, but it is a large enough group that we are taking it serious.
“We understand we’ve got some work to do.”
The tax incentive, based on future property taxes that would be generated by the development, would have given the project the equivalent of an 80 per cent property tax rebate over a 10-year period worth about $3.36 million.
Council voted Oct. 7 against a staff recommendation to award the CIP, but the issue was brought back for reconsideration on Monday.
It required a two-thirds vote of council to reopen the issue but was one councillor short, with five voting against reopening and eight in favour.
Of 11 CIP applications recommended by staff since 2016, it was the only one council turned down.
Sendzik said businesses’ confidence in the city is broken and council has to figure out how to build it back up.
“We have to show moving forward that when you go to do business with the City of St. Catharines, and there’s a criteria and you meet that criteria, we’re going to make a fair and balanced decision,” he said.
The city is revisiting the CIP program and Sendzik said they need to keep incentives available for brownfield developments and heritage preservation.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about CIP,” he said.
“Every community that has been successful, every community that’s attracting investment across southern Ontario from Windsor all the way to Peterborough and Kingston on the other side of Toronto, still have community investment programs.
“We can’t take them off the table and we don’t want to be known as a community that picks winners and losers, and essentially that’s what we’re looked at right now and we’ve got to turn the channel on that.”
During Thursday’s chat, Sendzik also spoke about his visit to the Netherlands with the Lincoln and Welland Regiment to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the country, and the latest goings on with the former General Motors property on Ontario Street.
Sendzik also answered readers’ questions about the homeless, traffic problems, curbs in Merritton and community gardens.
The whole video chat can be seen on The Standard’s website at www.stcatharinesstandard.ca. Karena.Walter@niagaradailies.com 905-225-1628 | @karena_standard