The Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury will review its entire business grant program after some councillors suggested shutting down the section covering downtown.
In a presentation to council during 2019 budget talks last week, Michael Disano, the town’s manager of economic development, outlined highlights of the Community Improvement Plan (CIP), including three current large-scale projects downtown, one of which could cost $2.5 million.
But some councillors wondered whether the program should move away from the downtown into other areas.
“Is it time to move on from the downtown core? It’s done a very good job in the downtown core,” said Coun. Peter Ferragine. “The industrial park still grabs me. If the incentive is there and that’s the difference between whether they come to the municipality or not, that’s a huge conversation to have.”
He said the CIP program is accepting applications for work inside buildings, which does not have as much overall impact.
“I feel it’s run its course in that area,” he said.
The CIP program helped bring two new seniors residences to BWG, 16 new businesses, and 936 new jobs, according to Disano.
Currently, it has three large-scale downtown applications in the works worth up to $250,000, $720,000, and $2.5 million, respectively, as well as seven small-scale applications, and seven industrial applications, he said.
“We’re talking serious money,” he said.
The town’s department of economic development plans to hold a workshop about the program, but Coun. Raj Sandhu said the town may not want to wait until then if it wants to shut down certain sections of the CIP grant.
“If all of us around here are satisfied that our downtown got all the businesses we were hoping to get there, then I’m in it, (but) if we’re looking to stop this program then we should do it sooner so we don’t encourage others to apply,” he said. “If I’m a businessman, I would be pissed if I put in my application and found out later that you, mid-stream, closed this.”
The discussion, however, took Deputy Mayor James Leduc by surprise, and he called for a review of the entire CIP program before deciding to shutter its downtown section.
“If that’s everybody’s focus that (we) can’t give any more money to the downtown because Starbucks and other businesses are taking it and we’re doing internal building renovations… I 100 per cent agree with that. I want to revisit how we deliver that CIP,” he said.
“There is opportunities for that downtown to restructure itself, to regrow itself, and if we want to cut the knees out from under that right now you might as well shut the whole department down. Every other area around this county is ramping up on this stuff. For us to ramp down is, in my mind, a major mistake.”
