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CVC treats Orangeville poorly, says deputy mayor

December 5, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Orangeville’s share of support for the Credit Valley Conservation Authority will increase next year.

Quentin Hanchard, the CVC’s CAO, proposed a 2025 budget during town council’s Dec. 2 meeting that included a 4.3 per cent rise in Orangeville’s apportionment to the authority.

Each municipality or region within the umbrella of the authority annually kicks in a portion of funding. It’s their largest source of revenue. Orangeville’s portion for 2024 was $326,851.

The CVC asked that the town’s contribution next year be $340,895 for an increase of $14,044.

The overall increase for the CVC is about four per cent.

“We are proud to offer a budget that leverages the watershed space perspective,” Hanchard said. “From all the participating municipalities we have allows us to operate our programs in a very cost-effective way.”

CVC regulates as much as 27,950 hectares of land and operates a network of 59 real-time environmental monitoring stations to protect people from natural hazards such as flooding.

Allowances are included in next year’s spending plan to continue that activity.

Some of those expenditures include a comprehensive update to the CVC’s regulation mapping and to its watershed planning and regulation policies.

The budget includes technical support to municipal staff in flood-prone areas and hazardous lands.

“We’re also looking at again providing those tools for the public so that they can see the same things that we do and they have access to more information,” Hanchard said.

To that end, the CVC has a public floodplain map viewer in next year’s spending plan. It will display the extent of flooding during storms.

The CVC is also looking at upgrades to the Island Lake Conservation Area.

“That is one of the things pointed out to us a number of years ago by the province,” he said. “That we really needed to upgrade our system given the number of visitors that we see.”

He said Island Lake is one of the authority’s busiest locations.

Councillor Joe Andrews asked for a timeline perspective about the CVC’s long-term funding opportunities to bring master plan initiatives to fruition.

Hanchard said the authority is currently pursuing funding to facilitate the bigger vision.

“There was a funding call from both the provincial and federal government,” Hanchard said. “The scope of work that was Island Lake for next year happens to fit within that envelope of the things they are more generally funding.”

Deputy Mayor Todd Taylor asked to see what the CVC budget has done for Orangeville compared to other municipalities over time.

“This is my sixth year (on council) and I feel like, in my unscientific and very poor memory, that we would be unjustly treated in terms of percentage increase for your organization,” Taylor said. “That’s my perception.

“It’d be great if I was wrong, but my perception is I’m not. It’s probably an unfair question but it’d be great if we had the facts and knew.”

“We’d be very happy to provide any information we can,” Hanchard said. “We truly believe that the value you’re getting goes well beyond the levy dollars. What we’re actually leveraging for you, we think, is multiple times the value of what you’re actually paying into the system.”

There was mention of a projected 7.7 per cent levy increase for 2026.

“I appreciate your explanation for that 7.7,” Taylor said. “Selfishly, that’s a terrible time. That’s a terrible time for you to be doing that. I wish that you wouldn’t do that. That’s a terrible year for you to do that.”

The CVC’s projections show possible three per cent increases in each of 2027 and 2028. Taylor said the increases would be above inflation at three per cent.

“We all sit here, we have our own budgets that we have to do (and) we’re very cognizant of that relationship,” Taylor said. “It’d be great if you were cognizant of that relationship too and kind of consider a different number for all three of those years.”

“I fully expect that the numbers we will actually come forward within the years to come will be different than those,” Hanchard said.

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