County fighting for infrastructure money

Local Journalism Initiative
·4 min read

Elgin County Warden Ed Ketchabaw said county council is bracing for the social and economic impacts of a Volkswagen-PowerCo plant in St. Thomas and remains hopeful that the Province will be as generous with the region as a whole, as it has been with Central Elgin.

“We’re still working with the Province,” Bayham Mayor and county Warden Ketchabaw said after the April 19 media conference announcing a CE-St. Thomas compensation package. “We’re going to always work with the Province to ensure that this thing (VW project) comes to its fullest potential.”

A Provincial facilitator award to CE addressed the city’s March 13, 2023 annexation of land to develop St. Thomas’ 1,500-acre Yarmouth Yards Industrial Park to accommodate the VW gigafactory.

The deal includes a $10 million up-front payment to CE, an additional $5 million payment over five years, plus up to $70 million in future rights to 7,700 cubic metres a day in wastewater treatment capacity.

“We’re going to collaborate with our regional partners as well,” he added. “It’s a huge investment that’s going on in the region and it will have a large impact outside the City of St. Thomas.”

Early in the CE-St. Thomas negotiations, county council appealed to the Province, asking for a seat at the bargaining table. Although it was denied, county council argued the proposed VW gigafactory’s creation of some 3,000 direct and 30,000 indirect jobs in the region required a coordinated approach to manage the strain on municipal services beyond Central Elgin.

For example, so far in the process, forecasts predict heavy traffic on Highbury Avenue, between St. Thomas and Hwy. 401. However, besides St. Thomas’ plan to expand the route within its city limits, there is no indication who will finance the stretch of Highbury that runs through the county.

“I wouldn’t call them parallel discussions (with the county), but as we continue to grow, Elgin County has got to be at the table, so I’m going to continue to do my job, to make sure they are consulted with, worked with, communicated with in terms of their particular needs,” said Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Rob Flack, associate minister of housing. “The infrastructure that the county is responsible for needs to be considered too. This is a good, big first step, but there’s more to come.”

Asked whether Highbury funding is a priority, MPP Flack said: “Sure this is, and one of the things I’m doing is (Ontario Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria) is coming to Elgin County and London in early May … and we’ll go for a drive, because it’s not just Highbury. There are lots of county roads that need to be considered, not all at once, but down the road to help facilitate this.”

MPP Flack said the CE benefits realized in the compensation package should be viewed more broadly, as county assets.

“Central Elgin surrounds St. Thomas … north, south and east … and the new growth is going to take place,” he said. “So, (CE) had to be compensated for the lands they lost, which is done, but just as important … is that they’re going to double their wastewater capacity to accommodate both industrial growth, which they’re going to have now, which they couldn’t before, but also for residential, and ultimately that’s good for the county. You had to get this part done first before we can get to some of the other important infrastructure projects.”

MPP Flack seems excited by the prospect of new homes being built on the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital lands.

“We have to look at (the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital lands),” MPP Flack continued, “and I’m going to throw things out like, a potential hospital site down the road as we grow. I’m going to throw out, we have to consider schooling, education. If people are going to move here, where are they going to send their kids to school, but I think most importantly the land has to be repurposed to housing.

“All those details are forthcoming. They’re not fixed yet, but I’m in that negotiation too.”

Joe Konecny, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Aylmer Express

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