The successful bid to host the proposed hospital in Durham could be Whitby Mayor Don Mitchell’s key legacy to the town and to the region.
Mayor Mitchell, who is retiring after this term, spoke about the future of the town, the projected growth, and a host of other issues, in a wide-ranging interview with Durham Post.
Following are excerpts from the interview.
DP: Is Whitby’s successful bid to host the new hospital the crowing achievement of your many years of service to the town?
DM: Site of the future hospital is good news for Whitby. But it is also good news for Durham Region because it is an optimal location. It will serve the entire region.
DP: Pickering and Oshawa are still asking for site selection reviews. Why?
DM: I’m not surprised it’s being done pre-election. I would hope that they get beyond it soon, because again, selecting the site doesn’t deliver the hospital. We need to get together, we need to get the site finalized, we need to demonstrate that we can fund-raise, and this will be a regional fund-raising project to get it into the provincial queue.
If everybody was standing up applauding now, you’re probably still looking at 10 years before you see a building, and that would be the fastest. So the longer other communities try to delay or slow down the process, the longer Durham residents will wait for this new hospital. You’re competing with a whole lot of other communities and regions for the same funding, so we need to get on the same page and need to get on it soon.
Quite frankly, Oshawa didn’t even meet the stage one criteria, like they weren’t even in the contest from the start, so I’m really not sure why they’re frustrated. They clearly chose to make an application that did not meet the basic geographic criteria.
DP: Is the new hospital like the train to Bowmanville project? Do you think it’ll happen?
DM: The GO train going to Bowmanville? I hope it does, but again that’s regionally impactful, less impactful to Whitby. Whitby’s the second busiest GO station along the line now, but yeah, it’s going to really help Bowmanville or Clarington – and they need help, because I drove east last weekend and there were queues off the 401, and they were backed almost into the live lanes. There are two intersections in Clarington, they need relief of some kind there.
And, of course, when it [the train] goes through the south part of Oshawa, there’ll be a huge economic transformation for that neighborhood which needs it. So, it would be great for the region, but ultimately the province has to find a way to fund it just as they have to find a way to fund the hospital.
DP: How much do you think the hospital project will cost?
DM: Locally, we have to raise about 7 per cent which is still a huge amount.
DP: How would you describe your term as mayor?
DM: I’ve been there for eight years [as mayor]. So, for the first term we set a series of goals and framed them on the wall. We’ve really advanced on those goals. The key ones for me, what I wanted to see change over when I became mayor, was just a strong focus on quality of life overall. Whitby is already a very nice town to live in. We don’t want it to grow very quickly, we don’t control that, other senior governments control that, but we know it’s coming so we want to maintain the good quality of life, sense of local pride, sense of local ownership.
I personally strongly believe that downtowns are essential – like you can’t have a great town unless you have a great downtown. So, there’s a lot of focus in the goals on downtowns, and we have major advances in both downtown Whitby and downtown Brooklin. Specifically in Whitby, the main part of the goals is to build transformative project, and that’s under construction – the Station No. 3 condos project on that old firehouse site which was the one large piece of property that the town controlled. We got a BIA (Business Improvement Association) put in place in downtown Whitby. It’s hard to get BIAs in place, but we did, and they’re doing great work.
We got Downtown Whitby Action Plan, we have pedestrian signals at Colborne Street, we had Open Streets events, and just a lot of focus on supporting pedestrianization and giving the downtowns added vibrancy and safety. We put incentives in place as downtowns need incentives for it is more challenging to redevelop sites.
We’re getting lots more people with means living immediately around downtown Whitby – and downtown Brooklin that will come as well. So, that’s advanced well.
And the other part is managing vehicles, which are ubiquitous. They have a lot of negative impacts on quality of life, they create a lot of frustrations. So we really focused on safe streets, in calming, trying to slow traffic down, and really focused on active transportation and cycling. Our network has expanded dramatically and our budget allocation has matched it. The more you get people out walking or out biking or using other non-automotive modes, not only do you free the roads up for vehicles but you also let people see each other face to face and feel connected.
DP: Wouldn’t it result in over-crowding if you want more people to live in and around downtown areas?
DM: That’s a challenge. But the other is parking…let’s put it this way – if it’s easy to park in your downtown you don’t have a very good downtown. Any good downtown has a parking problem because a lot of people want to go there. But people find other ways to get to downtown if it’s worth getting to. That’s what we want… If you do find a place to park you’re going to pay a chunk of change to do that. That’s what drives the transit and the other supportive things.
DP: But wasn’t there free parking during the winter?
DM: Because of covid. The parking (fee) is back now. You don’t want free parking in downtown.
DP: Will Whitby follow Ajax and Pickering in paid visitor parking in waterfront areas?
DM: I think that’s a terrible idea with respect to Ajax and Pickering. Because then we start doing the same thing. You’re just adding cost to everyone. I just simply don’t agree with that. But it’s their decision. We may react the same, I don’t know. I just think it’s an unfortunate way to go. Maybe they’ll reconsider after the election.
DP: How does Whitby manage it tax rates?
DM: Rates are not a driver of taxes. What we do is, we budget for dollars – how many dollars do we need to operate the town, and then we look at our assessment base, which is provided by Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC). Then the tax rate is just counting the number you put in that will take that assessment base and give you that dollars. So, it’s not like you set a tax rate, and if your assessment grows, you generate more money – you don’t.
Maybe our tax rates are a little higher than say Oshawa because our assessments are higher. And, if you look at the same house, the local taxes that are collected by Whitby would be about $1,900, and in Oshawa they’re about $2,800. So, Oshawa residents pay in dollars a lot more local taxes, but because their houses are assessed lower, they pay lower regional taxes.
DP: Are the assessments following current market trends?
DM: No, the assessment is never aligned. But that kind of doesn’t matter because you know whatever it is, as long as the assessment at a point in time was balanced, then that’s fine. You know the average house in Whitby now is assessed by MPAC at still some $503,000. Well, you can’t buy a townhouse for $500,000.
Up until 2006, transit was local. So, there was Whitby Transit and there was Oshawa Transit. So, that was on the Whitby tax bill and the Oshawa tax bill. The region took over transit, so in Whitby we just took that off our local tax bill because we weren’t running transit. But Oshawa didn’t. They left it on their tax bill. Politically, it was genius.
So, for that one move – even though every year since then they say their tax increases only 1 per cent or 1.5 per cent and so on. It sounds really low, but in dollars it’s always a lot more.
Year after year, you look good. Everybody saying look Oshawa’s increase is only 1 per cent, yours is 2.5 per cent. I’m saying but you’re paying a $1,000 more in taxes in Oshawa. Well, it doesn’t matter, their percentage is lower.
DP: Are you happy with the removal of Highway 412 toll?
DM: Driving on 412 was very frustrating, not that I’m not personally opposed to tolls. But I am opposed to singling out Durham Region and Whitby just for tolls. So, I think that the premier of the province made the right decision in removing those tolls given that they’re not applied elsewhere. And the announcements they’ve made about 413 and the Bradford Bypass all of which would not be tolled – that was kind of salt in the wound.
DP: How is the downtown improvement project going?
DM: It’s an ongoing thing. Every year our BIA reports; we have Whitby Steering Committee and it reports with an action plan. Our Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) is very good at rethinking how you do things. So, for example, when our Commissioner Works retired about a year ago, instead of hiring another, he now has the Fire Chief as the head of operations and still Fire Chief and he has the capacity to do both those. We also recently created a new position called the Director Strategic Initiatives. Now he’s [CAO] created what he calls a Creative Communities Division which handles downtowns and tourism and events.
We have Community Improvement Projects (CIP) incentives. It’s a significant amount. What was budgeted has been spent. It was mainly aimed at getting people there to support the downtown. And that’s just for downtown Whitby because it has special challenges. For downtown Brooklin, we’re getting the same result but without any incentives because it’s just a different situation up there.
DP: Whitby has been doing surveys on what residents want. What to the residents want?
DM: We do them every couple of years. I think it was well over 80 per cent, I think it was 84 per cent, are happy with the quality of life and proud to say they live in Whitby and believe that they’re getting good value for their tax dollars. That’s sort of the core thing that comes out of the community survey.
DP What is happening with the Harbour Front?
DM: We did a particular survey related to our lakefront harbour, because we have, what I believe is the best harbour on Lake Ontario.
We did a survey because we had been looking at a convention centre and restaurants and other things on the lake. But we don’t have that much green space on the lake compared to Oshawa which has Lakeview, and Ajax has really a big waterfront space. We surveyed the residents and yeah again 75 per cent or more said just keep the lakefront green and passive so that’s what we’re doing now. But we’re going to have that big development called Dockside at Brock Street South.
That’s going to be a huge development, and the waterfront trail is going to circle around the outside of that. So, there you’re going to have your restaurants, your pubs, your active water uses, all those sorts of amenities associated with a vibrant sort of port community. We can still keep the lakefront very green.
DP: How has the building activity been in Whitby?
DM: In 2021, Whitby issued over $1 billion in building permits, which is the first of any Durham municipality ever. We’d be going full out, and now we’ve approved multiple plans. Residential is, of course, high, but employment land values in Whitby have probably at least doubled, probably tripled, I would say over the last three or four years. Huge demand for a plot of land. A lot is going on in Whitby, and quite frankly, across Durham Region.
DP: Will Durham outpace the rest of the province in terms of growth post-covid?
DM: I think so. Again, we do still have land, and elative to the west side of the city [Toronto] and the city itself, it seems pretty expensive to me. We have major developers in and around the GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) – probably some of the biggest developers in all of North America are here. The fellow who is building the Station 3 condos said that right now the GTHA has about 270 cranes in operation, which he said is by far the busiest in all North America. For example, in the Greater Los Angeles Area right now, he says it’s maybe 60. There’s a lot going on everywhere.
DP: Do you think the complexion of Whitby is going to change from that of a town?
DM: I hope not too tower dominated [like Toronto]. We’ve certainly tried to direct, through our planning that, with the exception of Dockside which is very unique project because of the history of that parcel of land, we keep the height up by Victoria Street. So, when you get down to the lake, you don’t have height anymore because it’s getting a bit much for my taste. In the city, the towers are blocking the whole waterfront as far as I can see for everybody.
It’s going to be height for sure – it’s provincially mandated, but we’ve been approving a lot of high density over the last decade, some 27 per cent of our units approved have been for high density, but only 7 per cent of permits issued, which just means the market is not there as far as the development industry is concerned.
DP: What are your future plans?
DM: I’m not running again in the fall. It’s time [to retire]. I’ve been on the council 28 years, eight years as mayor, it’s a big job. I’d like a chance to have a little more control over my time. Will see how I feel about it when it finally happens.
DP: Any recommendations about your successor?
DM: No, not going there.