Barrie city council has committed $18.6 million in 2021 to advance infrastructure servicing on employment land in the south end in an effort to attract business and create new jobs.
Final approval was given Monday night.
This private land is 94 acres in size and located north of Harvie Road and west of Highway 400. The infrastructure required includes construction of a five-lane Bryne Drive, including storm sewer, sidewalks, streetlights, water mains and sanitary sewers.
Approximately 65 to 70 per cent of the funding would come from development charges, fees charged to recover growth-related capital expenditures from new developers.
Mayor Jeff Lehman has said the remainder could come from $9 million in new gas-tax dollars the city is receiving from the federal government, money which has to be spent this year.
The motion council passed advances the infrastructure servicing by four years to start in 2021, calling for funding of $7.9 million this year, $513,000 next year, $2 million in 2023, $4.1 million in 2024 and $4.1 million the following year.
But it also says the funding course should be changed from the tax capital reserve and development charge reserves to debentures, which is how the city borrows money.
Council has endorsed employment land north of Salem Road as well, east and west of Veterans Drive. The estimated local servicing cost is $5 million, but these are local servicing costs and will be paid by the developer. Development can proceed with existing water and sanitary infrastructure, although traffic signal improvements are needed on the western leg of the existing Commerce Park and Veterans Drive intersection.
The estimated 2021 infrastructure cost is $150,000 and would be funded equally from the tax capital reserve, the water capital reserve and the wastewater capital reserve.
Council also endorsed employment land north of Big Bay Point Road. Water and sanitary mains are in place, there is no immediate additional capital infrastructure investment needed, according to city staff, so development can go ahead in the area as soon as local servicing work is complete.
These two scenarios amount to about 197.6 acres and employment land south of Harvie Road and west of the 400 is in the capital budget for 2022-2024, another 64 acres.
Staff are also to report back to Barrie councillors with proposed framework, criteria and options for utilizing the city’s reinvestment reserves to a develop an additional program to the Community Improvement Plan (CIP), for as much as $2 million, to provide incentives for strategic economic development on employment lands that includes grants and other financial incentives permitted under the CIP framework, to advance local servicing costs to be incurred within the next five years for lands identified in the Barrie employment land strategy.
Council also received and approved in principle that strategy, which includes scenarios with the greatest potential for accelerating the availability of serviced, shovel-ready larger parcels of employment land to the marketplace.
Stephannie Schlichter, the city’s director of economic and creative development, says the strategy focuses on large, vacant employment tracts of land, 39 acres plus, in a contiguous format (touching along boundaries) in key employment areas. The city is looking at servicing elements that could have land shovel-ready in three to five years, she said.
Last September, council directed staff to explore fiscal tools and strategies to increase the city’s competitiveness in attracting business and investment to employment land in Barrie and to report back with an analysis, recommendations and associated fiscal implications.
To meet the Barrie’s employment targets of 150,000 jobs by 2051, or nearly one job for every two residents, and a wider growth management vision, it is important the city ensures there is available employment land ranging in size for a variety of commercial and industrial uses.
