Our turn to grow
Benns' Belief
Roderick Benns is the publisher of The Advocate. An award-winning author and journalist who grew up in Lindsay, he has written several books including Basic Income: How a Canadian Movement Could Change the World.
When I was a child growing up in Lindsay, the smallest number I recall seeing on our town’s population sign on Highway 36 was 12,000. And I’m just a 35-year-old — can you imagine what low population numbers older people may remember? (Okay, one of the sentences above just isn’t true…the population sign actually read 12,500.)
Now, Lindsay hovers around the 21,000 mark and Kawartha Lakes as a whole is about 76,000.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, it’s clearly evident this city is growing. In Lindsay, where I live, massive subdivisions now ring the town, with much of their growth sustained by a steady stream of people from the Greater Toronto Area. Some are buying here and commuting south, but many are staying, thanks to hybrid working options and entrepreneurial paths they are exploring. It’s obvious there is more diversity, not only in Lindsay, but in our larger villages like Fenelon Falls and Bobcaygeon, too.
In the way the province defines things, we are in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, and we are expected to grow — a lot.
This Ontario planning document (which compels our city to make official plans and bylaws around those targets) is something contributing editor Trevor Hutchinson analyzed in a feature article for the Advocate in 2019. It calls for a 32 per cent increase in our population in just 22 years, with more growth predicted after that. More than 11,000 new residents in Lindsay by 2031; over 1,700 new residents for Bobcaygeon; over 1,300 for Fenelon, almost 800 for Omemee; and 360 for Woodville.
It’s not like we have a choice. We’re too close to the GTA to attempt to stall the growth, even if we wanted to do so.
An obvious upside for us is a larger tax base with the ability to then fund more amenities which most of us want. Better or new parks. Improved libraries. Fixed roads. More culture.
So many new people will certainly change the make-up of our city and we will most certainly have growing pains. We cannot be Pollyanna in the belief that all growth will be good; it will only be as good as the planning and care we take as a municipality. It is imperative that we set ourselves up for success in several ways, including preserving the character of our downtowns, increasing our healthcare capacity and creating more housing density with vertical dwellings where we have been only used to seeing residential homes.
The Advocate recently published Kawartha Lakes Relocation Guide in the month of April, with some of the distribution for this magazine in the GTA’s Durham Region. We’re doing our part to entice people to move here, providing a snapshot and manual for what Kawartha Lakes offers.
I’m looking forward to responsible, well-managed growth that will see our city thrive.
So much of what I read is about luxury housing suggesting that monied people from outside the area are buying here (possibly a second home). We need affordable housing for the people currently living and working here. The new amenities that will come with the luxury housing will require workers who will need housing. I note the advertising for these $2 million dollar homes mentions the nearness of the Victoria Rail Trail. Hopefully purchasers are aware of their surroundings and do not try to change them. Caveat emptor. ATV’s are allowed on the rail trail.
City people won’t like it. We got a drug problem that spans the whole city (not just parts you can avoid), we got a stupid road infrastructure. And speaking of infrastructure, there is no true “shopping”. No restaurants. There’s no childcare (but lots of senior care, so guess who will come here).
For anything meaningful, you have to go to Peterborough.
There are no services in Lindsay such as shopping, transportation to other cities ie Peterborough, Oshawa or Toronto. It is all well to attract more people (greed for tax dollars) but with few to none services to offer. Our council needs to assess this before salivating about taxpayer dollars which are higher than Scarborough for a lot less amenities! Downtown Lindsay is a walking Person’s disaster with loose and broken bricks and sidewalks underfoot after major dollar renovations. Bragging and development should be curtailed until the fixes are even planned and budgeted before going forward gung-ho.