Council has agreed to cover a third of the cost to renovate the James Whalen Building.
The majority of council voted at Monday night’s meeting in favour of spending $1 million to renovate the 100-year-old building. The project is expected to cost $3 million. The city’s contribution will come from the TbayTel Dividend Reserve Fund with the rest being covered by the province and federal government.
The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation conditionally approved the application for a non-repayable contribution back in December while officials with FedNor have yet to confirm.
At-Large Coun. Rebecca Johnson voted against the recommendation.
She voiced concerns that the last time the city provided funding things didn’t go so well. She asked for a guarantee that the building will do better since the money was coming out of the taxpayer’s pocket.
She said the price to retrofit the exterior has increased from an estimated $10 million to $12 million and now council is learning about how much the inside will cost.
“Where does this stop,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t mind having a memo come back from administration seeing how much money we’ve put into one building in this community. I think it is excessive.”
The city’s manager of Development Services Mark Smith said they’re capitalizing on the additional funding provided by the other levels of government.
Smith said the renovations to the building have to happen.
“This could accommodate in the order of 240 new jobs,” Smith told council. “This is about economic development. The $3 million worth of work is work that needs to be done in any event. The type of work is not the kind of work a tenant would have to do.”
Smith added that with the renovations the city would be able to rent the building at a higher rate.
Northwood Coun. Mark Bentz, who didn’t vote, argued the city shouldn’t be in the real estate business.
In other business, council discussed the city’s tax policy for this year.
The report outlined two options for council with the first option keeping the status quo with no change to tax ratios. The second option was for revenue neutral tax ratios.
Both councillors Andrew Foulds and Trevor Giertuga gave their support for the second option.
Foulds argued that the city has been shifting taxes from non-residential to residential. He said the second option would decrease the residential tax from 3.5 per cent to 3 per cent.
“If we went with option two we would be able to push back a little bit and shift off of the backs of residential property owners,” he said. “I’m in favour of that move. We have an opportunity tonight to give them a bit of a break.”
On the flip side, industrial properties would see an average tax increase of 6.8 per cent.
The city has until the end of the year to decide what option it will take.
