Historic home protected from demolition … plus more local news

You’re reading the September 24, 2024 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

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Good morning, and welcome to the Peterborough Currents newsletter, where we share our latest stories and catch you up on local news.

Peterborough’s Chief of Police Stuart Betts made his case for another big budget increase last week at a town hall meeting — and many of the citizens present responded with frustration.

Also this week:

• A stately home on Monaghan Road has been protected from demolition, thwarting a developer’s plans to tear it down
• Councillors voted a final time to extend the Wolfe Street modular housing initiative
• Parkhill Road reopens to through traffic

But before we get to the news, I want to say THANK YOU to the 60 community members who signed up as supporters of Peterborough Currents during our campaign last week. You helped us reach our goal, and then you helped us shoot right past it! (My apologies to those who received multiple “thank you” emails … that was a technical error that we’ve fixed.)

Because of your support, the future of Peterborough Currents feels a little less precarious. Now, we’ll get back to work producing the best journalism we can and striving to live up to the faith you’ve put in us.

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Police budget sparks anger at public meeting

Peterborough’s Chief of Police Stuart Betts was the target of complaints and criticisms at a public meeting on Thursday where he shared that the force will ask taxpayers for another big budget increase in 2025.

The force needs at least $2.7 million more next year to maintain its status quo operations, according to Betts. That would equate to a 7.7 percent police budget increase, but Betts signalled the police might ask for even more.

Betts presented data that showed Peterborough’s police service receives less funding, per capita, than other comparable cities in Ontario. And he said that the Peterborough Police Service is in a “catch-up” phase after “more than a decade of some fairly austere years of budgeting here in the city with regard to police.”

Community members appeared to grow weary of Betts’ prepared remarks before he finished speaking. “No one cares about your presentation!” one audience member asserted as citizens started interrupting to express frustrations with the local police force. 

The opinions shared at the meeting weren’t all homogenous. Some citizens said tax dollars should be invested in social services as a crime prevention measure instead of being spent on policing. Others said the police should crackdown more heavily on people who use drugs in public, drive recklessly, and commit thefts. But despite those differences, citizens expressed a common sense of frustration at being asked for another big budget increase.

Last year’s police budget increase was 15.3 percent and added over $100 to the 2024 municipal tax bill for the median-assessed property. Peterborough’s Police Services Board has yet to formally make its 2025 budget request to city council. After it does, councillors will consider the request during municipal budget talks in November.

I attended last week’s public meeting and wrote a more detailed story about what happened, which we published yesterday on the Currents website.

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Parkhill reopens after 15 months of construction

The final “closed” signs were removed from Parkhill Road as it reopened to through traffic between Reid and George streets on Friday. The project, which started in June 2023, cost $7.25 million and involved “replacing storm sewers, sanitary sewers, and a watermain as well as substantial grading and road reconstruction,” according to the city.

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“We’re stuck”: Council approves modular housing timeline extension

City council voted for a second and final time last night to extend the timeline of the Wolfe Street modular housing initiative, which provides sleeping cabins and support services to dozens of people experiencing homelessness. The location on Wolfe Street was originally intended to be temporary, with an expiration date of November 2025 at the latest. Now, the plan is to keep the modular homes at the Wolfe Street site beyond that date, as long as the provincial government continues to fund the operating expenses of the program.

Coun. Lesley Parnell voted in favour of the timeline extension, but said she struggled with the decision because of the impact the modular housing community has had on the surrounding neighbourhood. “I am very sorry to the people around Wolfe Street and Dalhousie,” she said.

While staff have identified alternative sites for the modular homes, none of them are very good, Parnell said. And the city lacks more permanent housing options for the people living in the sleeping cabins to move to. “We’re stuck,” Parnell said. “We really are stuck.”

Meanwhile, Coun. Alex Bierk said the modular homes have brought stability to the neighbourhood, pointing out that police calls to the area have dropped dramatically since the modular housing was installed to replace a large tent encampment. 

“There’s incredible stories of people becoming stabilized at that site,” Bierk said. “We’d like to see that they continue to be stable there while we look into addressing the rest of the community’s needs, including finding transitional housing, permanent housing, for the people that are currently at Wolfe Street.”

The timeline extension passed by a vote of 7-4, with councillors Beamer, Haacke, Lachica, and Vassiliadis voting against it.

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Heritage designation for 1400 Monaghan

Also last night, councillors voted to confer heritage designation on 1400 Monaghan Road, a stately home at the corner of Monaghan and Homewood. The building, which dates to 1931, will be protected from demolition as a result.

The heritage designation, which passed by a margin of 6-5, went against the will of the owner of the property. John Cooper told councillors that the interior of the house is badly damaged and he wants to tear it down so his company can build apartments on the property.

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