Barrie councillors set sights on budget deliberations
Barrie city councillors are preparing for budget deliberations in the coming weeks after meeting on Wed. Jan 25, 2023 (Jonathan Guignard/CTV News Barrie)
Barrie city councillors addressed concerns over the impact a downtown development could have on city-owned property.
At Wednesday's meeting, councillors approved on consent a staff report recommending the formation of a 'Limiting Distance Agreement' between the city and Debut Waterfront Residences, which is behind a new residential development in the city's core.
At issue is the fact that the development, which will see two 32-storey towers bring 495 units to Dunlop Street West, is inching too close to the property that the current transit terminal sits on. The city is looking to make the transit terminal a year-round market in the coming years.
"Being able to just allow a bit of space between what our eventual buildable footprint could be there one day, which we have no plans for at this point, and the building itself is one of the helps that they were looking for," Mayor Alex Nuttall told CTV News.
Wednesday's council meeting was lighter than usual. City councillors are preparing to shift their focus towards the 2023 budget, with service partners such as the Barrie Police Service, the County of Simcoe, the Barrie Public Library and the local conservation authority set to make presentations for their financial demands next week.
The mayor says this new council term hasn't had much time to analyze the budget, given the number of holidays that have taken over the start of the term.
"Staff have done an incredible here at city hall to try to ensure that the budget aligns with the strategic priorities," Nuttall says. "So we're just going to work through it piece by piece; it's not going to be perfect, but for the amount of time that our council has had to actually take a look at it, I think when we work as a team, we'll end up with a fairly good product at the end of it."
Budget deliberations are set to begin on Wed. Feb. 8, 2023.
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