Six of seven local mayors believe Waterloo region needs to evolve to tackle the deepening housing crisis, and the only way it can be done effectively is to have the province delegate planning authority to the cities and townships.
That, they say, will align with provisions in Bill 23 and directly support the province in its goal of building 1.5 million homes while reducing red tape that has stalled a number of local housing developments.
The mayors, including Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett, who appeared virtually from her vacation home, presented their "unified vision" for regional reform to coincide with today's meeting of the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Culture.
The committee is undertaking a policy study on regional government, overseen by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
They're tasked with deciding whether residents in six of the province's regional municipalities would be better served by amalgamating, reforming or leaving the current structure status quo.
All six of the Waterloo region mayors are eager to see reforms to the current system and believe regional planning policy is the major holdup to development.
Planning is already covered by the municipalities, said North Dumfries Mayor Sue Foxton.
"Then we hand it up to the region and we wait for a reply. And we wait for a reply. And we wait for a reply. They basically go over what we've already done."
Wellesley Mayor Joe Nowak said his township's goal to provide complete communities by developing land for employment is hamstrung by the planning approval process at the region.
"We are delayed by the region not getting back to us," Liggett said, offering an example of four projects that have been approved by the City of Cambridge but remain stalled at the region.
"One of them we've been waiting since August...and that puts us behind. Legislatively we have a deadline in which to do that and if we don't hit that deadline we have to give back part of the application fees," she said.
"Developers think it's us that's doing it, but it's not us. We're ready to go."
Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic said the cities and townships are ready to assume the development approval process and enhance customer service to the development industry.
"The mandate of Waterloo region should be scoped to fewer core services and intervention into local issues needs to be minimized," said Wimot Mayor Natasha Salonen in outlining the group's proposed amendments.
They include transfer of water and wastewater infrastructure from the region to the cities and townships.
The mayors group also wants to explore the potential transfer of regional responsibility in roads, transportation, and traffic control, culture, recreation, heritage, bylaw enforcement and economic development as a way to reduce duplication and enhance service delivery.
Transfer of those responsibilities would be matched with funds from the region, Salonen said.
Vrbanovic said that while Bill 23 focuses on planning reforms to get more housing built, the idea behind eliminating duplication in other areas was done in the context of wanting to build complete communities.
The mayors didn't have concrete answers about how the reforms might impact staffing levels at the region, potentially reduce the number of councillors, or result in savings for taxpayers.
"We want to look for efficiencies where we believe they can be found and make sense," Vrbanovic said.
All six mayors said they have the support of their respective councils on the proposed reforms, although Liggett said Coun. Nicholas Ermeta is still eager to see Cambridge become a single tier municipality.
"Together we believe we are ready and can assume these services with the associated budgets...and can deliver them faster and better for our residents by eliminating duplication," Salonen said.
Vrbanovic said the region's mayors began discussing regional reform early last summer after learning the province was preparing to send a facilitator to two-tier municipalities across the province to consider possible reform or dissolution.
The proposed dissolution of the Region of Peel by 2025 was the catalyst for the review announced last May by former housing minister Steve Clark.
Since then, Clark resigned and current minister of housing and municipal affairs Paul Calandra backtracked on his predecessor's plan to split apart Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon due to projected costs.
Many felt that decision and the move to delegate the review to a standing committee diminishes hope that anything will be done in the two-tier municipalities under review.
The group of MPPs on the standing committee were in Kitchener today to review the effectiveness of regional government and hear from 22 delegations on ways to improve municipal government structure.
Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe was not part of today's "mayors working together" group presentation although she had been part of mayors' discussions early on.
A group of six regional councillors maintain they want to see Waterloo region amalgamated into a single city.
That idea had support from a number of delegates, including Ginny Dybenko, the former dean of the Laurier School of Business and Economics and founding executive director of the University of Waterloo's digital campus in Stratford.
She said Waterloo region is not only "over-governed and under-served" but forces municipalities to compete with one another for large investments.
She called the region's system "absurd in its redundancies."
Regional Chair Karen Redman appeared before the standing committee to defend the current structure and express her belief that building more homes faster can only be done with regional oversight.
She commended the province's goal of accelerated housing development, saying it's a goal the region shares.
But smart planning is what supports new housing along with transit, roads, policing, paramedics, waste management and drinking water, she said.
"It is regional delivery of these essential services that ensures long term affordability and safety," Redman said. "When I look at examples of stalled local housing, it requires greater leadership from the region, not a diminished role."
Regional planning has been fundamental in how the community has grown to 650,000 residents and offered light rail transit and the creation of Major Transit Station Areas as critical to securing housing at a rate and density that is meeting the province's housing goals.
She said the region has been working toward a region-wide approach to water and wastewater that would eliminate red tape, cost less and create more certainty for new housing developments.
A singular oversight of roads would similarly streamline future growth "and the creation of a true regional transportation network that would allow for accelerated housing development," she added.
