It’s only fair that Cornerstone to Recovery not pay development charges (DCs) on its community treatment centre for women, says the group’s executive director.
Blaine Hobson, who is also Cornerstone’s co-founder, will make that argument to city council Monday night — after a majority of councillors decided March 21 that the women’s residential addiction recovery facility should pay DCs like every other developer.
“Cornerstone has requested the return of the development fees as a pure fairness issue, as our agreement never contemplated the city generating revenue from us supplying free services to the city,” Hobson told BarrieToday on Friday.
Councillors defeated a March 21 motion to grant Cornerstone to Recovery more than $158,000 to replace city development charges already paid on the women’s facility at 236 Dunlop St. W. Its 1,800-square-foot building is being expanded by 3,500 sq. ft. and will house as many as 12 women at a time, providing them with their own bedroom and washroom.
Site work has already started and it’s targeted to open in late August.
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.
Hobson said when Cornerstone was asked to come to Barrie, it was based on a simple symbiotic agreement: the city would get a comprehensive addiction services program for its residents for free.
Cornerstone would also operate a textiles recycling program for the city, which would save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in tipping fees and the landfill, Hobson said, and reduce Barrie’s carbon footprint. The textiles revenue would pay Cornerstone’s operating costs.
“By any measure, a win-win arrangement,” Hobson said. “In order to help with capital costs, the (city) forwarded a loan, which Cornerstone has already begun repaying, so that in the long run this would cost the city absolutely nothing.
“Nowhere in that agreement, however, was there a concept of the city profiting from Cornerstone’s effort (through development charges)," he added.
Development charges 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.
Hobson said when Cornerstone committed to coming to Barrie, it was not to just build a women’s treatment facility. It was also a commitment to build an entire Cornerstone community, he said, which includes a men’s treatment facility and a community centre.
“The loss of the ($158,000) will substantially delay the opening of the next phase, the community centre,” he said.
Hobson said when Cornerstone’s original Barrie property plans fell through, it had to either build something new or do an addition to an existing building, which is the case at 236 Dunlop St. W.
But that left Cornerstone subject to DCs, which were not in the budget, he said — noting that the city did apply a reduction because Cornerstone is a not-for-profit organization. This reduced its DCs from about $300,000, counting education DCs, to about $200,000. The city share is $158,263.
“The city has also been a wonderful partner and has honoured in both letter and spirit every part of our agreement — we are not complaining,” Hobson said.
He said other grants are possible, however Cornerstone already planned to access all of them to fund the capital requirements and operating startup costs of the community centre and a men’s facility.
“The reality is, as a small charity, we are constantly searching for contributions to fund our growth so losing the ($158,000) is very impactful,” Hobson said.
The motion to provide Cornerstone with a grant to cover its $158,263 in city 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 Monday night’s meeting.
Cornerstone is an addiction recovery support agency and its mission is to support those impacted by addiction to achieve emotional, physical and spiritual wellness.
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.
