The proposed community hub in Chatham-Kent is taking another step toward construction.
CK council met on Monday where they approved having final designs for the project completed. Councillors Rhonda Jubenville, Morena McDonald, Alysson Storey, Trevor Thompson, and John Wright voted against, while Carmen McGregor was not in attendance and Jamie McGrail did not vote.
Council also gave the green light to pay Architecturra Inc. over $2.1 million and to set aside $106,000 for a project manager who would oversee the construction. The money to pay for that would come from the building lifecycle reserve which means there will be no increase to any future budgets.
The decision to move forward took around four hours to complete as over 20 people asked to speak. Most of those speaking at Monday night's meeting were against the project, though there were a couple in support.
The biggest issue raised was the cost of the project, which is currently sitting at $53 million. The designers selected for the project, Architecturra Inc., spoke at the meeting stating they have no plans to go over this amount, while the municipality said there would be no tax increase to cover these costs as they’ve been saving the necessary funds for several years.
One of those who spoke was Mike Boyle who shared his belief that the municipality should just renovate the current civic centre, museum, and library instead of moving them all into one space.
“We choose to rebuild our house, not scrap it and build it over,” he said.
Council members heard Monday night that the estimated cost to keep each building in its current location and renovate each of them would be between $38 million and $45 million. That number was also expected to increase annually if there were any construction delays.
Several of the speakers live in rural communities across the municipality. They shared concerns that the hub would only benefit Chatham and encourage people to use it instead of rural centres and libraries. Municipal officials responded to the claim by stating there have been no talks about closing these spaces and encouraging people not to use them.
Those in favour talked about the benefits the project would have on the downtown.
Paul Bourdeau, the chair of the Chatham-Kent Municipal Museums Advisory Committee, spoke about how keeping the museum at its current location would have negative impacts as it desperately needs to be updated.
“It will limit the ability of the museum to keep its collection,” he noted.
Councillor Ryan Doyle, who sits on the Chatham-Kent Public Library Board, took some time to speak about the benefits of a new library.
“This is a chance to have a larger, modern library,” added Doyle.
The councillors who were not in favour talked about the same concerns mentioned by members of the public who spoke at the meeting.
Storey explained in her opinion that it is not clear who’s benefiting from this hub.
"Whose needs are we really meeting… a developer or taxpayers. I don’t think taxpayers asked for this," she said.
She also shared concerns about the lack of information around the $53 million cost, though Councillor Lauren Anderson mentioned that’s because council never asked for a detailed cost analysis.
To help alleviate these specific concerns, Councillor Anthony Ceccacci brought forward two motions that would require the project to have a fixed cost and that the municipality’s administration look into the costs of renovating the civic centre, library, and museum at the same standards of the hub.
Meanwhile, a separate motion from Jubenville to hold a referendum on whether the project should move forward was not discussed due to council’s 11 p.m. curfew.
It will be discussed at council’s next meeting on November 4, 2024.
A second motion from Jubenville to reverse a previous decision of council to move forward with the project was thrown out since she would have needed to have voted in favour during the first vote to bring it back for discussion.