Discounts for development offered

Nine builds is not a lot, mayor says of residential development figures

After not much success in attracting new housing to its southern urban centre in 2016, the Town of Essex will try another year of deep development discounts to try and lure new residential development to Harrow.

Council slashed residential development charges in half for Ward 4 (Harrow) in June 2015 as an incentive for builders, but Mayor Ron McDermott said council was surprised at the relatively low uptake by the development community.

“We were hoping for more — nine builds is not a lot,” he said.

On Monday night, with the 50-per-cent discount set to expire Dec. 28, council decided to extend it through 2017.

“Council feels the rest of Essex is doing OK and Harrow isn’t,” McDermott told the Star.

It didn’t help Harrow that its high school, a community hub, was closed down in the summer. McDermott said cutting Ward 4’s residential development charges in half (from $9,199 per single and semi-detached home lots) was aimed in part at getting the public school board to reverse that decision.

“We told them that was to show, ‘Hey, we’re trying, we’re doing something like this to create growth,’ ” said McDermott.

Ward 4 Coun. Sherry Bondy agrees the lack of builder interest over the past year was disappointing, but she’s hopeful things will improve in 2017.

Essex recently hired a full-time economic development officer whom Bondy said is reaching out to the builders in three planned Harrow subdivisions.

She said those same developers are “focused elsewhere,” but that she and others know of people looking for new homes in Harrow.

“A lot of older people want to stay here but they want to downsize,” Bondy said. She said Harrow is “very walkable” with a small-town feel yet with “everything you need.”

She said Essex has been willing to “think outside the box” to lure development. Next month, for example, council will look at “mini-grants” that could pay the full cost of small facade and other cosmetic improvements for small businesses in the Harrow core.

Another example Bondy cites in the town’s Harrow efforts is Sellick Equipment Ltd., which recently began construction on a new $15-million forklift assembly plant in Harrow, where the company began almost a half-century ago. Bondy said the developer built a new access road for which the municipality will pay the $350,000 cost.

One councillor this week wanted to chop development charges by 100 per cent across the municipality, similar to what Leamington did in August 2014 in response to Heinz pulling out of town.

In its first of three years, Leamington’s development charges freeze cost a $1.2-million draw on the municipality’s reserves.

“That money has to be replaced. How? Taxpayers, taxpayers,” said McDermott. He said Harrow’s development charge reduction has cost the town’s taxpayers more than $30,000 so far.