Newmarket denied strong mayor powers after mayor rejected signing housing pledge he calls unachievable

Yorkregion.com
June 19, 2023

Newmarket was the only municipality on the province’s list of 29 communities with a provincially mandated housing target that has now been denied strong mayor powers by Queen’s Park.

Not that it matters, since Newmarket Mayor John Taylor doesn’t want strong mayor powers anyway, saying he prefers to lead through consensus.

On June 15, the province announced it was giving strong mayor powers to 26 municipalities, in addition to Toronto and Ottawa, which were awarded them previously.

So, strong mayor powers are going to 28 of the 29 municipalities on the province’s list of communities with mandated housing targets.

Taylor was the only mayor on the list who didn’t sign a housing pledge with the province, which ordered the town to build 12,000 new homes by 2031.

Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark agreed Newmarket wasn’t getting strong mayor powers because it didn’t sign the pledge.

"It's pretty simple, we extended strong mayor powers to every community that enacted a housing pledge," he said, adding Chatham-Kent and Thunder Bay, which weren’t initially asked to sign the pledge, will be considered for strong mayor powers if they now sign a pledge.

Taylor routinely talks about the need for more housing and for housing that accommodates different income levels and other needs of residents.

But he has also said the town can’t sign the housing pledge for 12,000 homes to be built in only eight years because it doesn’t have the sewage capacity to accommodate that growth.

The province dragged its feet for years deciding where sewage from the area would go, ultimately deciding last fall to kill York Region’s plans to send wastewater from Newmarket, Aurora and East Gwillimbury to a state-of-the-art treatment plant discharging into Lake Simcoe.

Instead, the province said the three communities’ wastewater will go to a sewage treatment plant in Durham Region on Lake Ontario.

Newmarket has sewage capacity to build less than half the mandated 12,000 homes, Taylor said.

“We literally do not have sewage capacity to build anything close to 12,000 homes. I agree we need more housing in Ontario and Newmarket has always done its part and I support building housing options for everyone and we’ll continue to do everything we can possible to provide housing for our community,” he said.

“Having said that, not being on the list of those being given strong mayor powers is perfectly fine with me. I would not use strong mayor powers. I believe a strong mayor is someone who can work with and gain the support of the majority of their community and the majority of their council to have a shared vision for any challenge or any issue, including housing, in order to move forward.”

Denying strong mayor powers to Newmarket comes after the province said in early May that it was appointing an auditor to look into the municipality’s finances as part of a push by Queen’s Park to build 1.5-million homes in Ontario as part of Bill 23, also known as the More Homes Built Faster Act.

Taylor said at the time he was surprised by the announcement.