The Town of Ajax claims to be a lean institution that has managed to create a surplus in the difficult times.
That surplus has not only been used to cushion operating shortfalls, but benefits have even been passed on to taxpayers, according to Town Mayor Shaun Collier.
With almost every acre of land “in play”, Ajax is on the cusp of a big boom, Collier told Durham Post in a wide-ranging interview.
He admitted there are some infrastructure bottlenecks, but those are being worked upon.
Below are the excerpts from the interview.
DP: What has been achieved in the current term of the council?
SC: I ran in 2018 on a platform of economic development and cutting red tape; my campaign slogan was ‘Cut the red tape and roll out the red carpet’. And that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve revamped the planning department. I’ve worked very hard at building relationships with the development community, and nearly every acre of land in Ajax now is in play.
We have, I think, 24 million square feet of commercial applications in at the town right now. That equates to tens of millions of dollars in development charges and property taxes per year once these buildings are built.
Somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs will have been created in one term of council.
We were recognized in 2019 by the Economic Development Council of Ontario with an award which is normally given to staff. We were the first council to ever win it. At the same time, we’ve had to deal with covid. I think we dealt very well with it and kept everybody safe. We were one of the first municipalities to introduce a number of different things like vaccine policy for our staff.
We also run very lean and were one of the municipalities that was not in a deficit. We actually ended up with a significant surplus which we were able to pass on to the taxpayers later.
We have achieved nearly 100 per cent of 2018 goals that I ran on, even in a covid environment. I really think that Ajax is very solidly on the map in Ontario. People know who we are and what we do.
DP: What is Ajax going to look like in 2030?
SC: We have had some staff turnover, and nearly all of our department heads, just like our council in 2018, are much younger, open-minded, fresh new faces with fresh new ideas. Ajax is young town; our average age, according to the census, is 37. Our average age of council in the past was about 65. Now council and staff are much more aligned with our demographics.
I really see this town right on the cusp of a big boom. We’re going to have our downtown revitalized. We’re going to have a large pedestrian-friendly live-work environment that I think is going to be extremely vibrant with lots of cafes, lots of restaurants, lots of nightlife, and lots of energy.
Though a smaller community, we have much higher density. To put that into perspective: Pickering is five or six times our size. In the early 2000s, Ajax was about 70,000 population, and Pickering was about 80,000. They became the City of Pickering with 99,000 population, and we’re 126,000. Even though we’ve had significant growth and many achievements, we still maintained the Town of Ajax feel. I’ve lived here since 1969. I grew up here. My parents moved here when I was one-year old, and they still live in the first house they bought in 1969 for $27,000. So, I have a real vested interest in this town. That’s why I’m doing the job I’m doing. That’s why I got involved in politics. I’m pretty proud of where we are.
DP: Will we see high-rises in the downtown revitalization project?
SC: Downtown will be high density, but not all. It’ll be mid-rise with some high-rise because of the steam plant. That steam plant stack is still active and because of the proximity to that, the buildings kind of have to go shorter. The maximum height we can get in our downtown is 25 storeys, but the closer we get, it kind of has to be maybe eight or 10 storeys.
It will be mixed-use high density residential. Our planning department has applications for about 6,000 units in the downtown that we cannot approve right now because we don’t have the sewer capacity.
We’ve identified that the solution for our sewer capacity issues is the extension through Hunt Street to Westney Road and the 401. Unfortunately, it’s about a $30 million project which we don’t have the funding for.
I’ve had staff put together a number of proposals. One, we can do nothing. Two, we can work with the developer to buy the land and work with them to get the road allowance. The region has recognized this as a priority project and has the funding for the sewer allocated, but the cost to acquire the road and the cost to realign the CP spur line, is very expensive. Another option is we buy it ourselves; we do the work and then we sell off the excess lands and recoup our costs through development charges and taxes.
We’re working on these right now, and as soon as we unlock that, we can go ahead with all these applications.
DP: Why did Ajax initiate waterfront parking fee for visitors?
SC: It’s one of the best things we ever did. I say mimicking is one of the best forms of flattery, you know, with Pickering copying our program. We actually received an award for that program. It’s been great. When covid happened, having 7 kilometres of a public waterfront, we were a big draw for the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
We had people coming here from all across the province. We had parking issues, we had garbage issues. We had maintenance issues because the area is getting a lot more use than it ever had, which is fine – it’s a public place. I want people to enjoy it.
But those additional costs by people coming to use it should not be borne on the backs of my taxpayers. So, we initiated the permit parking system to, one, regulate the parking so they’re not everywhere. Residents in that area really didn’t like that, so now we have parking in designated areas.
And it creates a significant amount of non-tax revenue. That is one of the items I ran on in the last election – finding different ways to generate non-tax revenue so I don’t have to go back to the taxpayer.
We take those fees to pay for the extra garbage pickup, the extra maintenance, all the extra enforcement, all the extra security, all the things that we have to pay for to run that facility, and we don’t have to go back to the taxpayer for the money.
DP: Why is Ajax in favour of the vacant home tax?
SC: It was a [council] motion to ask the question [to the Regional Municipality of Durham]. So, I said fine, I’ll support it. Do I think we’re actually going to do it? I don’t think so.
Years ago, we had a real vacant land problem in the region. Employment lands, especially in Ajax, sat for decades. Nobody did anything. They [owners] were just waiting for the properties to appreciate, meanwhile paying zero taxes.
About six years ago, the Region of Durham (myself included as I am on the Regional Council), made the decision to remove the vacant land exception and vacant building exemption. That helped get things moving.
For the vacant homes tax, first of all, I don’t know if we can do it. But the real problem is how do you identify and how do you monitor whether it’s vacant or not?
DP: What do you think of Durham’s plan to urbanize more than 9,000 acres of farmland?
SC: Durham lost big time. The region presented five growth scenarios. The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), representing GTA land developers, lobbied for a modified scenario (Scenario 2A), which overstates the land need.
We spent 10 hours listening to our staff. We had 17 delegations and three advisory committees [Durham Region Roundtable on Climate Change, the Durham Environmental Advisory Committee, and the Durham Agricultural Advisory Committee), who all said no to Scenario 2A.
I supported staff’s recommendations of Scenario 4 as it allowed a modest amount of urban settlement area expansion to meet the growth needs of the region for both residential and employment. It met all of our targets and it protected Ajax from the opening up of lands in northeast Pickering and the protection of the headwaters.
Environmental defence spoke, 17 different groups spoke, two in support and 15 opposed, three environmental groups opposed, nearly 100 pieces of correspondence opposed, staff opposed, and ten out of 27 regional councillors opposed. But it was just a big waste of time. They rubber stamped at 16 to 11 after 10 hours of debate. Regional Council endorsed a developer-recommended growth scenario to urbanize more than 9,000 acres of farmland.
I commend the councillors who sought better than the status quo and advocated for sustainable land use and livable communities.
Overstates Land Needs
At the May 25 Regional Council meeting, professional planning staff questioned the methodology of the BILD Scenario. It does not take into account previously approved Employment Area conversions and Major Transit Station Areas, leading staff to caution that it overstates the land need and detracts from the region’s sustainability policies and obligations.
Even more, they questioned whether the province would approve it due to its noncompliance with provincial policy. Despite this commentary and the work of staff through the last three years, their advice was ignored.
DP: How does the May 25 decision impact on Ajax?
SC: This short-sighted decision makes the urbanization of the Carruthers Creek headwaters not only possible, but likely. Leapfrogging the Greenbelt to develop a community of 60,000 people in northeast Pickering greatly increases the risk of downstream flooding in Ajax. To date, developers have proposed only the minimum measures to mitigate the negative impacts.
Ajax Council is fighting for the inclusion of the headwaters in the Greenbelt. This position is supported by the Durham Environmental Advisory Committee, and community and environmental groups.
Ahead of the June 2 provincial vote, a Nanos Research poll for the Globe and Mail found the vast majority of Ontario residents are uncomfortable with paving over farms and greens spaces to build new homes.
Climate change is here, and we must protect this ecologically sensitive system. Urbanization will only exacerbate the problem.
DP: There has been federal and provincial funding to Durham municipalities to offset the loss in revenue due to covid, so why do taxes keep rising?
SC: Yes, we received some funding from the province. I think we received $991,000 from the province for covid funding but that can’t be used in operations or anything else. It can only be used for PPE, for putting up plexiglass, for covid-related things. So, we actually still have some of that money because we can only use it for certain things. But that doesn’t help us in our day-to-day operations at the town.
The provincial covid funding doesn’t affect our tax rate at all because there are very fixed things we can use it for.
DP: But the funding was under the Safe Restart Programme to help offset operating deficits…
SC: Let’s say we estimate our recreation program, swimming lessons, soccer fields, and hockey and ice pad rentals, are going to be $1 million a year in revenue. But we have to close all our ice pads and soccer fields and pools because of covid. So, we’re going to lose. Instead of making $1 million, we’re going to only have $300,000. Yes, we could use that money to offset that $700,000 that is correct. But we can’t take that money to offset our regular operating costs; we can only use it to replace lost revenue.
Now, at the same time, they also closed the casinos where we used to receive $9 million a year. We expected when Durham Live opened, revenue was going to drop down to about $4 million. So, that’s $4 million we lost in revenue. The province deemed that that $4 million wasn’t covered. I don’t know how they could say it’s not covid-related because the casino was closed because of covid. But regardless, we lost that $4 million. We had to make up that hole in our capital.
So, there’s different ins and outs of the funding, but when it comes to us and our budget, we pass on savings to residents.
Taxes and Inflation
We’re living with high inflation right now. We didn’t increase taxes say, by 5 per cent. We only increased taxes 2 per cent because we took some of our surplus and used it to reduce some things. During covid we had some staffing vacancies we didn’t fill or didn’t need to fill. We took all of our recreation staff and redeployed them to operations, so we had our rec staff cutting grass, picking up litter, cleaning garbage so we did not have to hire contractors. We’re still paying the same people but we’re saving money, and that’s how we’re able to have these surpluses.
We used that surplus to fund our operations so we didn’t fall in a deficit as far as our roads’ maintenance and our capital projects were concerned. We needed to do a real balancing act.
I know people instantly want to see a reduction in their taxes. The reality is: there will never be a reduction in taxes. It costs what it costs. I’m not wasting money. We’re a very lean operation and I look very closely at everything. It’s just absolutely what it costs to run the town today. We are subject to the same increases. I go to the pump to fill up my truck. It costs just as much to fill up a town truck.
DP: Ajax is a melting pot, what is needed to maintain social harmony?
SC: Recently, at a school flag raising on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, some of the students tried to disrupt the event. It’s unacceptable and I put out a statement to that effect.
There’s still a lot of intolerance in our municipality. We need to work on it and we, as a municipality or council, have worked very hard to keep talking about these issues. I want to continue to be at the forefront of that. But we have a long way to go.