At the first of Peterborough City Council’s all-day meetings on the City’s 2026 Draft Budget, councillors voted against putting a $75 million ceiling on the funding for the municipality’s largest capital project for the 2026 budget year: extensive renovations to the 500 Water Street police station and the construction of a new station at 1421 Lansdowne Street.

The new station, slated to be built at the former site of Calvary Church, came under fire during November 17th’s general committee budget deliberations for a number of reasons, including what many councillors believed to be the short-sightedness of the Lansdowne site purchase. $23 million of its total $91.9 million cost are currently allotted to the project for 2026, with the rest spread out over the next three years in the Draft Budget.

In January 2024, City Council elected to go ahead with the purchase of the site for $15 million, when the latest estimations were that a second police station would cost $68 million. These estimations came from a 2021 planning project, which former councillor Ann Farquharson called an “artificial dream building” in a delegation at the time.

These estimates were slightly lowered to $66.5 million until Peterborough Police Services (PPS) increased their request to $91.9 million earlier this year, purportedly to ensure compliance with the Province’s Community Safety and Policing Act, though councillors took significant issue with this framing.

On November 17th, Ashburnham Ward Councillor and 2026 mayoral candidate Keith Riel voiced that very concern to his colleagues.

“Last week, we were told it was a bullet point of 10 mandatory things to do. But when you went to the Community and Policing Act [sic], it said that you could do that over a period of years. Everything didn't have to be done once,” Riel said. 

“So when I went out to the budget meeting that was held at 1400 Lansdowne Street [sic], and I’m in the building, and I’m told by the police chief that ‘You’re sitting in the new Police Board boardroom.’ Where is that mandated in the Policing Act that we have to provide a new boardroom?” He asked.

This was in the context of council’s consideration of a report on the police station expansion budget, to which Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk moved a deferral amendment seeking to cap costs for the project at $75 million.

Explaining his deferral, Bierk complained of further opacity in the development of this project.

“We have a project that ties up civic administration into a police rebuild,” Bierk said. “Earlier this year, I brought a motion seeking…a clear separation between the actual police facility costs and the future civic administration. I also tried to ask for an affordable alternative cap so that Council could evaluate more than one financial pathway, instead of being presented with a single number, which is that $91 million number. So at the time of those requests, staff advised that it would be appropriate to revisit those questions once the class “C” estimate was completed and this class “C” estimate is before us in [this report].”

“The report still, though, only presents the $91.9 million scenario and continues to blend in future civic administration costs and does not provide to us any alternatives for lower cost.”

Bierk’s deferral called for the report on the police station expansion to be returned to City staff, only to return under council’s consideration once three conditions were met.

The new report needed “a revised project plan that includes an alternative scenario capped at a total budget of no more than $75 million;” a breakdown of the budget dedicated only to the costs of the 500 Water renovations and construction on the portion of the 1421 Lansdowne lot to be used for the new police station, excluding civic administration or future development-related costs; and written confirmation that it would contain no recommendation regarding relocating City Hall or any civic administration functions to 1421 Lansdowne.

As his wardmate Joy Lachica pointed out in her statement of support for the deferral, over $5 million were dedicated to “future civic administrative use” of the Lansdowne site inside the police station budget.

“I am strongly in support of thinking through this,” she told her colleagues.

“This is a huge decision, and of course, we need to address the needs that have been reflected in terms of our regular police budget, but in terms of the renovation, we need to have options…and we need to bring it in and look at something leaner, because an extra 25 million…is not something that our taxpayers can afford.”

Director of Facilities and Property Management Gillian Barnes spoke to councillor Baldwin about the possible costs of deferring the project.

“We are constantly looking at the budget, looking at ways to save…and as we move through the project, we will adjust that contingency so we may bring cost savings,” she said.

“We certainly are underway in respect of applying for our building permits, applying for site plan approvals, and working towards getting the work underway so we can get this work completed in a timely manner so that we are not subject to further escalation costs.”

Barnes also noted that the budget line apportioned to future administrative use was only a portion of the cost for purchasing and maintaining the Lansdowne site, not a statement of its future purpose.

“When we look at the police budget, what we're really considering is the $81 million—not 91—the cost of the property is apportioned to the future civic use, not the current use,” she explained.

Otonabee Ward Councillor Lesley Parnell spoke later, re-litigating the legal necessity of this expansion.

“It’s not like we can just say, ‘Oh, we can save $4 million by removing a lot of those initiatives.’ We have to do the insulation, the windows, the roof anyway, and it's the right thing to do to our overall goals…we have to do these renovations to meet provincial legislation standards that have been mandated to the Police Services. And I don't think we can mess with that one at all,” said Parnell.

Bierk restated his intent behind the deferral, responding to his colleagues’ concerns.

“The biggest thing that I'd like to speak to is the idea that we're forced to fund this because the police's needs are things that are mandated to us,” he began.

“This has been a very hard question to get a clear answer about. We are told that everything within the police portion of that project is a mandated requirement,” said Bierk. “We have $130 million a year deficit to maintain our infrastructure…I'm sure if we looked at how we're supposed to maintain those things, there is a mandate attached to the City of Peterborough, much like to the police…I would argue that there are certain times when we're not able to meet those mandated requirements because we can't afford to do it.”

After this, Councillor Baldwin took the opportunity to ask Director Barnes if she believed the project was feasible for $75 million.

“In my opinion, that would be a no,” she replied. “We've done the work to set the budget, and at $75 million we would not be able to do the work that is slated.”

Following this, Bierk’s deferral went to a vote, with each subsection separated.

The first part of the deferral, to cap the project at $75 million, was defeated 5-6. In support were councillors Bierk, Lachica, Crowley, Beamer and Riel.

The second, to break down construction costs only for the renovations to the existing station and the portion of 1421 Lansdowne to be used for a new station, was also defeated 5-6. This time, those in support were Bierk, Lachica, Crowley, Haacke and Riel.

Councillors then voted on the subsection requesting a written statement that the report on the new police station budget would not include any measures towards moving City Hall or other civic administration services to the new Lansdowne site. This was also lost, this time 4-7 with only Bierk, Lachica, Haacke and Riel’s support.

The report itself was then unanimously approved for information.