WATERLOO — Waterloo is growing faster, taller, and more unevenly than Kitchener and Cambridge. It has taken the lead in highrise living and in population density even as its aging suburbs lose residents.
It is the first city in the region to have more seniors than kids. Yet it is also the youngest city, with half its population younger than 36.
It has the highest household incomes among regional cities, but it is home to the region’s poorest households in its campus neighbourhoods.
On Oct. 24, the city of 121,400 will elect a new mayor to help manage its uneven growth and its extremes. Four candidates who have not held elected office are vying for the seat left open by the departure of Mayor Dave Jaworsky, who is retiring after two terms.
The winner will head the eight-member city council, and help direct regional government that provides most municipal services including police, ambulances, garbage, transit and welfare.
Here’s what mayoral candidates say about housing and highrises, cycling, transit and 30 km/h speed limits, and rising city spending.
Meet the mayoral candidates
Rob Evans, 44, is a tech executive who bills himself as an innovator.
Dorothy McCabe, 53, works in the municipal sector and wants residents to help determine the city’s next big idea.
Kypp Saunders, 49, is a restaurateur and the only candidate who rents his home.
Shannon Weber, 44, teaches business part-time at Conestoga College and wants a more livable community.
Housing and highrises
Waterloo leads in highrise living
Share of residents living in buildings with 5 or more storeys
16%
In Waterloo
11%
In Kitchener
4%
In Cambridge
Source: Statistics Canada, 2021 census
Waterloo has the highest housing values in the region. Half of dwellings are worth more than $750,000. This is $70,000 higher than Kitchener and $100,000 higher than Cambridge, according to the 2021 national census.
Evans says his top priority is to house people who are living rough in tents, without taking legal action to evict them from an encampment as regional government is attempting.
“It’s a complicated issue to solve,” he said. “But from a triage standpoint, when they have a safe, trusted roof over their head, then they are living in less fear every day.”
He wants to improve student housing and is pitching a housing plan with three components around safety, ending discrimination and improving affordability.
McCabe has heard from people looking for solutions to house the unsheltered. She’s heard from seniors with oversized homes who can’t find a suitable place to downsize, and from young families who can’t afford to rent or buy homes.
Her vision includes building compact neighbourhoods where services are within 15 minutes by walking, cycling, or transit. She aims to pursue housing projects of middling size (not detached homes and not highrises) that are often missing from redevelopment plans.
“There’s pockets of land where we can do that infill development and do it really creatively, and I think really add to the vibrancy of streets,” McCabe said.
Saunders says building higher will help solve the housing crisis. He proposes to cut red tape that delays development, improve staff training to advance projects, and remove some land-use restrictions.
“If we cut that red tape, then we can also eliminate some of the zoning restrictions, allow (developers) to build higher, and if they can build higher, then they’re also going to be incentivized to build cheaper,” he said.
He understands that some neighbours oppose highrises but “if there are people who can’t afford a place to live, then they’re the people we have to work on helping first.”
Weber says city hall needs to update land-use rules to speed development of more diverse housing. She wants to tap into community expertise with a task force on housing.
“Housing can’t be built overnight. But we know that we have the talent here, the knowledge here. We just we need to activate it and use the municipal tools at our disposal,” she said.
She also wants more focus on making new homes greener to fight climate change. “We need to create more urgency and allow the expertise in our community to guide us,” she said.
Cycling, transit and 30 km/h speed limits
Waterloo has a reputation for persuading people to drive less. It’s instructive to consider what happened between 2006 and 2016, the most recent years for which useful data is available.
Over that decade, local governments started spending more on transit and cycling lanes while calling on people to drive less to help save a warming planet. People responded by cycling and riding transit more often while walking the same, for trips that started or ended in Waterloo.
However, drivers stayed firmly at the wheel as Waterloo added cars faster than people during that decade.
Driving accounted for 70 per cent of all trips made in 2016 that started or ended in Waterloo. This is almost unchanged from 2006, according to a scientific government survey into how people get around.
While cycling more than doubled by 2016, it remained a marginal choice at just over two per cent of all trips that started or ended in Waterloo.
Weber is hearing that people want multi-use trails more than they want bike lanes painted on roads. She wants the cycling network advanced and connected better to transit.
“I don’t think it’s a lost cause,” she said. “I just think we need to keep thinking about what’s practical in planning and what form is actually going to be a more safe and viable option to get people using that form of transportation.”
Saunders wants transit made free for passengers. And he wants transit service extended past midnight to help students and others get home after a night out.
“I think that’s going to eliminate a lot of the traffic issues and again promote safety in the uptown area,” he said.
McCabe has two cars at home but cycles and rides transit at times to shop and attend meetings and events. She wants more cycling infrastructure and wants to fix gaps in the network that leave cyclists puzzled about why lanes disappear.
“A city that’s not investing in things like active transportation and bike lanes is a city that’s not taking climate change seriously,” she said. “This is something that really requires a generational behaviour change.”
Evans proposes to review city assets to figure out the best way to connect trails, cycling lanes and roads without threatening green space. His family still needs a car, but he says “we can’t just put more cars on the road.”
He wants to press for better, faster trains to connect cities, arguing that intercity GO trains are far too slow.
Waterloo council voted 5-3 in June to reduce speed limits on all residential streets to 30 km/h as a safety measure. All mayoral candidates want to review this speed limit before it is implemented.
The lower limit would apply to 60 per cent of paved lanes in Waterloo, but not to busier roads that would have higher speed limits.
“This is probably, other than housing, the biggest issue that I’m hearing folks are concerned about,” Weber said. “I don’t support the universal reduction of speed limits to 30.”
Evans said implementing a 30 km/h limit across the city “is devoid of common sense. Nobody will drive 30 city-wide in neighbourhoods where this applies. It’s an ineffective program.”
“I think there’s a compromise that can be made. Thirty km/h does seem a little excessive to me,” Saunders said. “I want to take a look at it.”
“We’re going to have to look at it again,” McCabe said. “It doesn’t sound like the public’s on board.”
Accelerated city spending
For eight years under Jaworsky’s leadership, city council ramped up spending and taxation to achieve its goals and tackle a backlog of repairs.
City taxes increased by an average of almost 3.3 per cent per year between 2015 and 2022. That’s almost a percentage point higher than average inflation each year. It exceeds by almost one percentage point the average annual tax increase between 2007 and 2014.
These increases include stormwater fees but not water and sewer bills that are also rising. They represent city taxes which account for roughly one-third of Waterloo property taxes.
Candidates would not commit to raising or easing city taxes.
“There’s a reason why we have taxes and that we spend money on infrastructure,” Saunders said. “We just need to make sure we’re spending the money in the right way.”
Evans said he’s interested in “smart budgets” and wants to review city assets to assess the effectiveness of city spending.
Weber is hearing from people who are concerned about whether they can afford higher taxes. She wants the city to better explore other financing sources and “be really, really cautious” in balancing spending needs and affordability.
“Climate change is real, and it’s coming toward us really fast, and I think we need to continue to invest in ourselves,” McCabe said.
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Four people vying to lead Waterloo council at a time of fast but uneven growth - Waterloo Region Record
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