By Matt Graveline
City Hall Bureau
The new city budget promises improvements to Centretown roads but bad news comes in higher user fees for certain city services, something community centres say they are concerned about.
The 2007 budget commits $318 million for maintaining roads and public works and Centretown will get some of this money, says Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes.
The first roadwork project that has been approved for Centretown is the detail and design work on how to redevelop Bank Street, from Laurier to the Queensway.
“There is four million in the budget for Bank Street,” says Holmes.
The budget allotted $3.7 million for the continuation of the Preston Street design work. Holmes is optimistic this will allow plans for construction to proceed.
The reason for the work on Preston Street between Wellington and Spruce Street is to take care of sewage concerns of local businesses, she says.
“They are going to be lowering the sewers because businesses are having trouble with sewer back ups,” Holmes says.
With $3 million, the city has also slated to fix the water and sewage system on Gladstone Avenue, from Booth Street to the railway.
But better roads are not the only infrastructure improvements Centretown can expect out of the new budget says Holmes.
A new traffic light system at George and Preston streets is also expected sometime this year, as well as some money for the redevelopment some Centretown parks.
But Centretown community organizations are still concerned about user fee increases.
Garbage collection increased by 5.5 per cent, a majority of the park and recreation user fees went up, and the water cost increased by 15 per cent.
“Whenever you increase user fees you impact the community negatively,” says Jack McCarty, executive director of the Somerset West Community Health Centre.
Centretown is an area of the city with a large population of students and new immigrant families, McCarty said. With the higher user fees, the city will see these lower income residents backing off from community services such as arenas and pool facilities.
As for the health centre, he said he’s happy to see the city has approved the two per cent funding increase he requested for health centres in budget consultations. But, he says, he is apprehensive of what the increased fees mean.
Although McCarty is getting a two-per-cent increase, user fees for services his centre requires, such as garbage collection and sewage, may also rise.
“The devil is in the details,” he says. “We are in a holding pattern to maintain the services already offered.”
But McCarty’s major concern is the budget plan for 2008.
“It’s going to be a brutal budget next year,” he says. “The majority of citizens in the inner city voted for the other candidates. They didn’t want a tax freeze.”
Marguarite Keeley, executive director of the Centretown Community Health Centre is facing similar circumstances.
“Two per cent will help us but we are still waiting to see the amount they are going to give us,” she says.
She says the higher user fees for garbage collection and water will likely increase the rent they pay.
“As certain costs go up we will have to fight it out with the Ministry of Health.”
But, that is exactly what Holmes says was part of the reason for the increase in user fees, a lack of provincial and federal funding.
“We co-fund several programs with them,” she says.
With the lack of new provincial money from scrapping the light rail project, Holmes says, the city is waiting to see what the provincial and federal government will provide in terms of funding.
“Now that Toronto has got their billion-dollar transit funding we are waiting to see what the other cities are getting.”