After over four hours of discussions over the redevelopment of 90 Hunter Street into a 17-storey mixed-use apartment building, Peterborough City Council approved at their September 3rd meeting the construction of a new police station at the former Calvary Church on 1421 Lansdowne Street, as well as the renovation of the existing 500 Water Street station.

Council also approved a motion allowing the use of the city-owned site at 182 Townsend Street for the development of a multi-use sports and events centre (MUSEC) and recommending that city staff begin a Request for Qualifications and Proposals process to assess the financial feasibility of the project before seeking out development proposals from private contractors.

While the MUSEC motion had been recommended at a general committee meeting the night prior, the police station redevelopment was instead recommended for deferral at that meeting.

Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk’s amendment sought for the new police station renovations budget to only return to council after staff reassessed the condition of existing police facilities, sought more clarity on which components of the new budget were mandated by the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019 and other policing legislation, and receive more details of the $25.4M increase in costs for the project since the purchase of the Lansdowne site last January.

At the time, councillors expressed worry over the purchase of the site—which came with its own hefty price tag of $15M—given that they had no estimate of the whole project’s price. These concerns were shared by former councillor Ann Farquharson, who stressed that council “should not be supporting this by-law without knowing the facts.”

Farquharson returned to city hall on September 3rd to urge councillors against approving the project.

“I really didn’t want to be here saying I told you so,” she began, “but I came to council and said ‘Don't spend 15 million on a site that’s not going to protect downtown jobs, that’s too big, that’s too expensive, and we don’t know what the cost will be,’ but it was purchased, and I got headlines from…last year, where it said ‘Renovation costs for two Peterborough police stations picked 40 million.’” 

“That was a year ago, $40 million, so here we are a year later, and it's $92 million,” Farquharson said.

“You are bankrupting this city, bankrupting the citizens—the taxpayers of this city. Don’t even think about an arena,” she told councillors.

Farquharson also spoke about a 2021 police station facility location assessmentsStudy by Shoalts and Zaback Architects Ltd. (SZA), the contractors hired for the police station expansion project, which was never made available to the public.

“Initially, in 2021 the city hired Shoalts and Zaback to do a police station location assessment, and they had the importance of having it downtown or in the central area,” she said.

“They wanted to ensure, and I'm reading now from the Scoring Matrix, that there was a proximity to residents, that there was proximity to the courthouses, which are both downtown, the geographic center of the city…and general accessibility, especially to those who are in need and those who might need the police most.”

“The report, in fact, was prepared at a cost of $142,000…the taxpayers of Peterborough paid for that report,” Farquharson went on.

“Quite frankly, the city buried the report. It still to this day has not been released publicly.”

“I had to file an appeal to get the report,” Farquharson said. “Shoalts and Zaback…analyzed about 20 sites in the City of Peterborough, including the Calvary Church. Now the Calvary Church scored 16th out of 20.”

According to Farquharson, the report only recommended the top 10 sites as possible locations for a second police station.

“It’s easy to say in one of the reports, ‘Well, none of the sites were appropriate,’” she went on. “That never happened. They never followed up on it”

“The taxpayers and the council directed that this project be downtown or be central. There were 10 sites that were recommended for further study, but that didn't happen, because somehow…it went from A to Z,” said Farquharson.

“If City Hall won’t release it, I will,” she says of the location assessment report.

Four hours went by before council could begin debating the expansion project, mostly taken up by lengthy delegations and debates over the 90 Hunter Street redevelopment. As soon as Mayor Jeff Leal announced that the agenda had arrived at this item, Councillor Bierk moved to put the question, meaning to end all debates and immediately vote on the motion.

While his motion to put the question was defeated, the public was still not privy to any council discussions on the matter, as Ashburnham Ward Councillor Gary Baldwin immediately moved to send discussions to a closed session.

Baldwin’s motion carried, and councillors filed out of council chambers for what would be an approximately 75 minute-long closed session discussion.

About thirty minutes into the closed session, however, Town Ward Councillors Joy Lachica and Alex Bierk and Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel returned to council chambers. Riel told those still in council chambers that he left because the discussions happening were “in violation of closed session” and should have been happening in council chambers.

Councillors Bierk and Lachica later confirmed that they left the closed session for the same reason.

Upon the rest of council’s return, Bierk introduced the motion as-amended at the previous night’s general committee.

“There is no part of the motion that is questioning anything that is required by the Community Safety and Policing Act or the Ontario building code,” said Bierk. “There's nothing in the motion that looks to stop the project or to defund the police.”

Bierk explained he sought to defer any approval of the renovations budget until council received clarification about it.

“It is just a simple set of information that I believe is important to me as a councillor, when we're being asked to make a decision on something where the budget has risen by $25 million,” he said.

“This is one of the largest capital asks in our city's history,” Bierk added. “Before we commit taxpayers to this budget increase, I believe that we need more clarity. We need to know which project elements are required by law and if there are any discretionary elements to the project.”

As Bierk finished introducing his amended motion, Otonabee Ward Councillor Lesley Parnell moved to put the question. 

Bierk and City Clerk John Kennedy went back and forth for a few minutes, as Bierk argued that the motion to put the question on this item had already been put and defeated, before Leal simply asked if there were any other councillors wishing to speak to the motion.

Upon seeing none, he moved council to a vote, where the amended motion to defer the approval of the police station expansion budget was defeated.

Council then returned to the original motion to approve the expansion budget, and Parnell once again moved to put the question. This motion carried, taking council straight to a vote which saw them approve the $91.9M police station expansion 7-4. Against the expansion budget were Councillors Lachica, Bierk, Beamer and Riel.

Next on the agenda was a vote on the motion to put out a request for qualifications (RFQ) on the possible development of a Multi-Use Sports and Event Centre at 182 Townsend Street.

Nearly five hours earlier, council received a delegation on the matter from resident Rob Hailman.

“The previous delegation [from Farquharson] stole a bit of my thunder, because I'm going to tell you to not even think about building an arena, because you can't afford it,” Hailman began.

“I recognize that the main meat of the decision before you is just to proceed with the RFQ process…not out any funding to that construction. But I worry the language of the motion in the future will be seen as a binding decision,” he explained.

Citing from the motion’s report, Hailman told council “​​the language that council ‘Approve the use of the property at 182 Townsend Street as the preferred location [of] a future Multi-Use Sport and Events Center’…is concerning language.”

“We’ve seen many times over the decades that language like this is interpreted as binding,” said Hailman.

“This would blow right past the city's debt policy...this would be in lieu of just about every single capital project we would like to see in the future,” he said.

“Ultimately,” Hailman argued, “this is just a comical misuse of money, to spend $165 million on this, as is outlined, and as we'll be proceeding down the road of going if this motion is adopted today.”

Hailman’s delegation would be the only discussion of the MUSEC assessment, as Councillor Parnell’s motion to put the question carried before any debates could begin.

With that, the main motion went to a vote, which saw city council push forth a request for quotations towards building the Townsend MUSEC 7-4. Opposed were councillors Lachica, Bierk, Parnell and Riel.