A draft of the City of Thunder Bay’s Smart Growth Action Plan was presented to city council and the general public on Monday.
The plan, which is meant to stimulate Thunder Bay’s growth, has been a work in progress for six months with a team of local industry leaders.
Matthew Pearson, the City’s senior advisor for growth, explained that the plan focuses on three components: increasing the tax base, the population, and employment opportunities.
To address these, a series of actions are built into the plan in three pillars: readiness, traction and talent.
“The readiness category makes sure that we’re prepared for growth,” Pearson said.
“Are our lands ready? Are our utilities, housing and power ready? Those sorts of things need to be on order.
“Traction makes sure that Thunder Bay is as compelling as we can be, for companies, individuals or newcomers to choose Thunder Bay as the community they want to live (and work) in, or see themselves raising a family and are developing professionally.”
Pearson added that some of the actions in the traction pillar are making sure there is a cohesive vision for the waterfront, including the Pool Six cruise line area. Also, the demolition of Victoriaville Mall should leave in its place a new area where the public and the private sector can be.
“We want to make sure when that Victoriaville comes down, it’s not just left as is, and that area gets brought back to life,” Pearson said.
“We want to focus on both north and south cores, completing the revitalization work that’s going on there, and we have been reviewing the downtown parking strategy. We want to make sure we’re attracting targeted investment, depending on industries, and where the Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) expects our new industry to come in, or if we’re building on existing industry. And then we have things in there, like beautification strategies and a welcoming community action plan.”
The third pillar is talent.
Pearson said when the Community Economic Development Commission works with corporations and other industries that are looking to locate in Thunder Bay, they want to make sure that there are skilled-ready people in the workforce ready to fill those job postings.
The Community Economic Development Commission also makes sure that post-secondary educational institutions are training the professionals needed for these new enterprises.
“These actions have come from the community, from the different focus groups, the task force and very few of them have come from City administration,” Pearson said.
An economist on the task force said economic growth helps everybody, even if it helps them indirectly.
There are clear calls like the encampment response plan, which is part of the action plan, Pearson said.
He said this is where the community should see itself.
“When I say the community, I don’t just mean the working population,” Pearson said. “I mean everybody, and these people that are having these social issues are part of our community. So a lot of what we want to do is, if there are organizations that work with this, are we set up to make sure that they have the resources to do the work that they need to do.”
Pearson added that they are making sure people currently working in and growing the economy in their own way, are also seeing benefits from this plan.
