Barrie councillors won’t waive development charges for the first community treatment centre for women in Simcoe County.
They decided Monday night not to grant operator Cornerstone to Recovery more than $158,000 to replace city development charges (DCs) already paid on the women’s residential addiction recovery facility at 236 Dunlop St. W., an 1,800-square-foot building that is being expanded by 3,500 sq. ft. The facility, which will be called The Garden, will house as many as 12 women at a time, providing them with their own bedroom and washroom.
“It’s a service, a health service that we need, but… we have a policy,” said Coun. Robert Thomson. “I believe if you don’t like the policy, then we need to change the policy.
“I don’t think this council can afford to do this to every single application that comes forward for a non-profit," he added.
DCs are designed to recover the capital costs associated with residential and non-residential (commercial, industrial, institutional) growth within a municipality from developers so that existing residents don’t have to foot the bill.
“In my heart, I want to open the flood gates and give them the money. But that’s just not responsible in terms of this council,” said Coun. Clare Riepma. “We also have an obligation to the rest of the city that we need to watch taxpayers' dollars very carefully and in this case I think we need to apply the policies even-handedly.”
“These organizations know they have to pay some sort of DCs, especially when you’re talking about an addition onto an existing building,” said Coun. Gary Harvey.
Cornerstone, which has a targeted opening in late August, is an addiction recovery support agency. Its mission is to support people affected by addiction to achieve emotional, physical and spiritual wellness.
Barrie city council has endorsed the Cornerstone facility and given it an interest-free, $400,000 loan to renovate a building for the centre’s operations. The city also entered into a sole-source, two-year agreement, with an option to renew for an additional two years, with Cornerstone to place clothing bins at city facilities, or at mutually agreed-upon locations on public land, for the sole purpose of funding its residential addiction recovery services.
“Having development charges for a recovery centre that is operated basically from funding that comes from textile diversion bins and not yet funded through the province… it’s going to put a strain on the delivery of the services in the first place,” said Coun. Natalie Harris.
“I think it’s a worthy project,” said Deputy Mayor Barry Ward. “I think if it’s a housing crisis, an opioid crisis, I think there are certain projects we should get behind and help them in any way we can and this is one of the projects. There is a cost, but there is a cost to the opioid crisis as well.”
Coun. Jim Harris said Cornerstone has other options.
“If you are in the business of providing addiction services, you should be well aware that there’s money provincially for services,” he said. “So I would really encourage the Cornerstone folks to seek their Ministry of Health representative and see about where they fit in the funding priority.
“I think we’ve done really well by Cornerstone. Barrie city council has done a great deal," the Ward 8 councillor added.
But Coun. Natalie Harris said this sends a message.
“We want to encourage more agencies like this to come to the city,” she said. “The cost is exponential if we don’t encourage these services to come to our city. This is skimming the surface of what we need to treat the opioid crisis.”
However, Thomson said councillors need to put their emotions aside.
“This is a health emergency. We haven’t seen a dollar from the province for this,” he said. “If we don’t start using our head, we’re going to have nothing left to do with our heart. We have to lobby the levels of government which have the mandate for health. We need to look at where we spend our money.
“This organization (Cornerstone) was attracted by a $400,000, 20-year, interest-free loan and we facilitated that,” Thomson added. “They don’t need the DCs to be here.”
The motion to provide Cornerstone with a grant to cover its $158,263 development charges was defeated by a 6-4 vote, with Mayor Jeff Lehman not voting.
City council will consider final approval of this action at its March 28 meeting.
Cornerstone for Recovery is a not-for-profit organization that has been offering a program which focuses on community based treatment since 2004. Residents — men only until now — are provided with a 90-day stay that includes family counselling and re-employment training.
The program is heavily subsidized to allow access to those who need it and residents have free lifetime community aftercare available to them.
Officials say there is a critical shortage of treatment centres for women in Ontario, as only a third of the available beds in this province are designated for women.
