City green lights new downtown parking allocation despite vocal opposition

Downtown parking proved to be the most controversial topic brought up during Monday's Sault Ste. Marie city council meeting.

By a narrow 5-4 vote, councillors authorized a parking lot lease agreement between the city, the District of Sault Ste. Marie Housing Corporation (SSMHC) and Mamaweswen, the North Shore Tribal Council, setting aside 90 parking passes in the March/Spring Street lot (16) lot and Brock/Albert Street (74) lot for the latter two organizations.

SSMHC recently moved into a new building at 548 Albert Street East, while North Shore is planning to occupy the old social services building at 540 Albert, which forced city council to make this parking lot shuffle.

North Shore is planning to staff the building at 540 Albert with 50 employees, including at least two physicians and several nurse practitioners, with the aim of providing primary care, mental health and addictions services in the Sault's downtown core.

While better access to these services was seen as a positive step by all who spoke during Monday's meeting, several members of the community accused the city of not properly consulting with businesses in the area before bringing this matter before council for a vote.

This crowd of critics included former Sault mayor Joseph Fratesi, who served in this role between 1986 and 1996.

"In all my time in the municipal administration, I've rarely seen a matter get through the process to council's table so quickly," Fratesi said at city hall.

"The report from city staff and the action they recommend begs the question about transparency."

Fratesi claimed on Monday that he collected signatures from 40 local businesses and over 200 patrons of those businesses who were surprised about a supposed lack of community consultation on this project.

"There has been no collaboration. There has been no consultation," said Fratesi, whose family members run Head to Toe Salon and Spa on Brock Street.

"And while everyone is happy that that building may be re-used and is happy with it being a social services (group) ... you can't consider doing this without parking being provided and you can't take parking away from existing businesses in that area."

Rev. John Wilson of Westminster Presbyterian Church echoed Fratesi's concerns on Monday, telling council that notice of this parking change was not sent to his organization directly.

"It was sent to the address of a deceased member who had not been active for over 40 years," Wilson said. "So we do not feel like we were consulted."

Wilson also expressed concerns about how the allocation of 90 parking passes to SSMHC and North Shore will impact events taking place at Westminster, which is located just south of these buildings on Brock Street.

"It puts us in a precarious situation as a church not being able to conduct funerals with any guarantee that there'll be a place for people to park," Wilson said.

Ward 4 Coun. Marchy Bruni was sympathetic to the complaints brought forward by Fratesi, Wilson and Sault Chamber of Commerce interim CEO Don Mitchell, who all spoke before council on Monday evening.

Because of this, Bruni supported a motion to defer a vote on this issue to the July 15 city council meeting, which would afford city officials more time to reach out to affected members of the community.

"We need to have the consultation to make sure they understand (the situation) before council should vote on it," Bruni said. "Because many business owners did not receive notification on this."

However, this motion was defeated by a 4-5 vote, with councillors Sonny Spina, Angela Caputo, Lisa Vezeau-Allen, Ron Zagordo and Corey Gardi being opposed.

These same battle lines were drawn, except in reverse, for the eventual vote to pass the parking bylaw.

Ward 2 Coun. Luke Dufour did not take part in either vote due to a conflict of interest.

Coun. Gardi justified his votes by stating that nothing "underhanded" or "untoward" took place in bringing this issue before council, and that a delay in this process runs the risk of pushing North Shore away to set up its operations elsewhere.

"If we defer things, we're going to jeopardize the opportunity to have this health service for our most vulnerable people downtown, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike," Gardi said.

"I don't know why we would defer. We know the decision we need to make."

Several councillors attempted to assuage the community's fears over this reallotment of downtown parking through questioning members of the city administration.

Through this question-and-answer period, city officials revealed that the authorization of 90 parking passes does not mean that these spots are completely off limits to the public, with many of them being accessible on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Data from a report conducted by CIMA+ also concluded that these downtown parking lots are currently being underutilized, with the Brock/Albert lot only touting an average occupancy rate of 39 per cent during peak business hours.

Additionally, all overflow traffic that can't find a space due to the new parking alignment can be sent to the nearby Bell Avenue parking lot, located on the opposite side of Queen Street.

"It might not be as convenient ... but at the end of the day, walking an extra two or three minutes downtown, that's the normal course of just doing business," Peter Tonazzo, director of planning, said on Monday.

"So I think we have to recognize that our downtown is growing, we're trying to bring more people downtown and a byproduct of that, from time to time, is that you have some parking challenges."

Coun. Caputo reiterated this point during her turn on the mic, stating that, as a business owner, the prospect of a busier downtown core should be an attribute and not a drawback.

"If someone told me that (North Shore) was moving in next door to me, I would be ecstatic," said Caputo, who owns The Breakfast Pig restaurant.

"Whether they would be coming to frequent my business every single day, once a month, having 50 folks downtown who are professionally employed and bring their patients downtown, I think it's really great."

Meanwhile, Coun. Spina justified his vote for the parking change by stating the presence of North Shore downtown presents a "very unique opportunity" for the community that can't be passed up.

Not only does this new North Shore location advance the city's commitment to Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation, Spina says, but it also takes some pressure off a struggling healthcare crisis that must now support 10,000 patients who were recently derostered from the Group Health Centre over a lack of primary care physicians.

"We all sat here a very short time ago and said we would do anything and uncover any stone and any rock we could to find those healthcare positions for our community," Spina said.

"It's being presented to us tonight at the cost of some parking spots in our downtown core that will not ... remove the ability for businesses downtown to obtain parking."

However, Spina did admit that communication between the city and downtown stakeholders was far from ideal when it comes to this matter and vowed to "be better" moving forward.

Mayor Matthew Shoemaker did not preside over these discussions on Monday due to a conflict of interest. Spina fulfilled his duties as acting mayor during this part of the meeting.

kdarbyson@postmedia.com

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Kyle Darbyson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Sault Star