Mayor outlines community and council challenges

Belleville’s population, and that of the entire Quinte region, has been growing quickly and Mayor Neil Ellis
says the city needs more shovel-ready industrial land.

Currently, an environmental assessment is being done on approximately 400 acres of land east of the current industrial park but Ellis says it won’t likely have hydro or water/sewer services until threeyears from now.  The land has already been sold.

But more serviced land will be needed.

“Council is going to have to look toward the future and decide where we want to move the industrial park … north, east, west … we can’t go south or we’ll be in the county.”

Ellis was speaking to the Belleville Chamber of Commerce’s annual Mayor’s Breakfast at The Grand Banquet Hall Wednesday.

In other remarks, Ellis said the biggest differences from when he was mayor eight years ago, compared to now, is the city’s rapid population growth, the housing crisis, and challenges in health care.

“We’re working on all of those issues but there are no fast solutions.  We recently held a summit on homelessness which brought together city officials, experts, and stakeholders, who in the end, set a goal of reducing homelessness by 25% by the spring of 2027.  And we’ve got to support Hastings County and the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus with its “7 in 7″ plan which aims to create 7,000 affordable housing units in seven years in Eastern Ontario.”

As far as healthcare is concerned, Ellis highlighted the success of the city’s physician recruitment program which has brought over 40 doctors, most family physicians, to the city since 2012.

Now council has appointed former Director of Economic Development and Initiatives Karen Poste to work on recruitment full-time as physicians are still very much in need.

And MPP Todd Smith recently announced money for two new Nurse Practitioners, a Registered Nurse, a Social Worker and an administration person for the Belleville Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic.

Ellis also spoke of the tough slogging council and staff  did to arrive at both capital and operating budgets.  “We did well to bring in a tax increase of just over 3% when you consider inflation was running at over 6%.  We didn’t want to cut important services and we didn’t.”