The Fall 2023 Community Gatherings were held from October 2023-November 2023. MLA David Coon hosted a community gathering with Councillor Ruth Breen on October 12 at the Unitarian Church on York. They each started with a report from the Legislature and then the City before opening the floor to questions and comments. The notes from the meeting are below.
David Report: Legislature: New session beginning on Tuesday, October 17. Anticipate elections before the end of the month. Greens will introduce a bill to protect public health from contaminants. Government agenda will revamp the Long Term Care Legislation, Adult Protection, and a new Accessibility Act. David was on the Accessibility Committee which led to this Act. It was an example of a good process: called expert witnesses, got feedback from the disability community.
Healthcare: New Healthlink System to replace the old waitlist for a family doctor. Those in the new system can access a healthcare provider while waiting to get a family doctor. Only way to get on it is by getting a phone call. Dept of Health says it’s been through everyone on the old list. If anyone hasn’t been called, let David know.
Hospital: New surgical units at the hospital will be opening soon. Will help reduce the surgical backlog. New Labour and Delivery Unit opening. ER problem: local administration has no authority to fix the problem. Authority is centralized with Horizon Health. Need to return authority to local hospitals.
Ruth Breen Report: Moving forward on big ideas slowly. Progress being made on affordable housing, but losing more affordable housing than gaining. Currently implementing the strategic plan, have a new housing person in place. Part of the plan to increase affordable housing is changing zoning to open up space for more duplexes, granny suites, buildings that can be affordable. Need 1,500 new builds/year, currently it is at 1,000. Need to work with not-for-profit partners to create non-market housing. Have applied for funds from the federal government. Working on the Racism Task Force, working for inclusion and accessibility, to make everyone feel safe and that they belong.
Transit: Sunday transit is up for debate at budget time.
New Website is up. Engage Fredericton, check it out, seeking input on a new Recreation Master Plan.
Oct. 21, Fire Dept. Open House at Two Nations Crossing
Age Friendly Expo at Leo Hayes High School this weekend.
Multicultural Gala on Saturday at MCAF
Open Floor Q&A
Resident:
1. True Walk-In Clinics: why don’t we have these? You don’t need an appointment, just walk in. Exist in other provinces. Can see someone in 20 minutes.
2. There are new developments that are approved but don’t see any build happening. Next to NB Liquor on York. Should there be a time limit or deadline? A deposit? Also new developments should fit in with the existing environment, design should be better.
3. Dead Trees: Resident is a city tree commissioner. 15 years ago the dead elm sanitation program was eliminated. Fredericton is the forestry capital of Canada this year, but there are lots of dead elms, and soon there will be lots of dead Ash.
David: Minto has a great walk-in clinic, it is the model for what community clinics should be. The CEO of Horizon wanted to put in 6-7 of these kinds of clinics, but her budget proposal was turned down by the government. So that’s why these clinics don’t exist. But why not add this to the existing clinics? Apparently existing clinics are supposed to be accepting walk-ins, but they’re not. Problem is the government needs to make the investment to make these happen.
Ruth: Currently there is no avenue to force developments to happen. If the city is selling land they could include a time limit, but otherwise there is no option.
Dead trees: Ruth will follow up with Councillor Margo Shepard. The city is working on Elm and Ash disease vaccines. If someone sees a dead tree on city property, call Service Fredericton, 506-460-2020. Also, looking for volunteers to be on the Preservation Review Board. People interested in heritage.
Resident: Mandate for NB Power does not include funding new ways of making energy. Why is it investing in SMR? Nowhere has SMR come through. Still in the research phase.
Cannabis is being sold privately now, but these stores are supposed to have a seal. There is a new store near Canadian Tire, Big Budz, that doesn’t seem to have the official seal to sell Cannabis.
David: Will look into this.
Glass Recycling: Was supposed to be in place this year.
Clean Air: Fires from wood fire stoves in neighbourhoods is a problem.
David: Re. SMR, the question is what energy future do we want? CEDAR at STU is a new program with experts on energy. NB Power’s Integrated Resource Plan does not include costs for SMR. A journalist investigated and found that the cost would be double the cost for other options. Worth seeing the Climate Change hearings which are online on the Legislative Assembly website. Energy Strategy will have consultations. Most money for SMR is coming from the federal government. NB Power put out a request for proposal for wind and solar storage. Got lots of bids.
Glass Recycling will be part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Recycling plan.
Ruth: There is a bylaw for outdoor fire pits. Fire Dept. has to inspect it and provide a permit. No bylaw exists on woodfire smoke though.
David: The only regulation for this is CSA certification for wood stoves. But the cleanness of a wood stove depends on how the wood is burned, if wood stoves are dampened that can create more smoke. Need better governing of emissions from wood stoves.
Resident:
– FREX and Greenbelt plan? Where is the info?
– Animal control: what to do about dog poop not being picked up?
– Smoking in apartment parking lots: still a common space.
– Rent assistance and affordable housing. Living on fixed income, looking for solutions.
Ruth: NBEX Development Plan is on the Fredericton Website. There are three options. It is moving forward, it includes housing and 20% of “affordable” housing.
Dog poop problem: need more signage, more garbage cans?
David: Rent control is needed, had put forward two bills to bring in rent control, but it was voted down. Definition of “affordable housing” in the province is that rent is 30% of your income.
Resident: Lives on Kings College Rd. In the last storm lots of water came down, flooded their backyard. City needs to identify risk areas that need attention so that mitigation can happen systemically, not just piecemeal, which could just move the flooding to a neighbour’s yard. Need a database for flood mitigation efforts.
David: Province has a risk assessment process at the provincial level.
Ruth: The city has flood resilience work, there is a map on the Fredericton website that shows the flood risk for each property or area in Fredericton. Flooding is getting worse because of climate change, we will get more water problems.
Resident: Water flooding. Corner of Squires and Mitchell. Backyard floods, had 6 inches of water above their back door, seeped into their living room. There is a dip at the Regent & Montgomery intersection that fills with water when it rains and a gully leads the water to his backyard.
David: Regent is provincial, he’ll look into getting something done.
Ruth: This was one of the worst issues in Hurricane Lee.
Resident reached out to the city, two people came that day and then later.
Ruth: In the immediate moment reach out to Service Fredericton at 506-460-2020, and then reach out to let Ruth know so she can follow up.
Someone on Palmer St. also faced flooding issues and put in a French drain which cost $9,000, not cheap.
David: A bigger piece of the work is to look at water flow. Need expertise on that. DTI doesn’t have it.
Ruth: We have assistance for energy and heat pumps, maybe we should also have some for water mitigation? But we need systemic solutions. The whole water system is overtaxed.
Need a water issue community gathering.
Resident: Civitech could make an app for the city for users to identify water issue spots, so data can get collected.
Resident: Need to self-organise, would be happy to work on a committee on this.
Question: Can Ruth explain more on the affordable housing strategic plan? What was meant by zoning changes?
Ruth: Zoning will change to allow for more housing to be built. Inclusion zoning is part of this too. More conversation and engagement will happen, the public will be given an opportunity for input. But we need to find more space for people to live, especially if we want to build more but avoid urban sprawl.