Throughout January and February, the lord mayor hosted visits throughout each of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s villages in hopes of connecting with residents about the town’s key goals for the year.
Rounded up with a final open house in Queenston last Thursday night, Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa made presentations on heritage designations, NOTL’s trade relationship with the United States, infrastructure, the town’s strategic plan and budget updates.
A guide to understanding many of the points Zalepa has made throughout his open house visits can be found in the town’s official plan, he said.
Zalepa took guests through a timeline for the town’s plan and outlined where residents could offer feedback.
“This is a really key thing, as residents you want to give input into where things should be and how things should look and where services should be — the official plan drives almost all of that,” he said.
Open houses will continue take place for residents to chat with planners on upcoming development proposals, Zalepa said.
“This is really important work,” he said.
When people bring in an application for development, they are guided by the existing planning documents, Zalepa said.
“If the document that advises them is not meeting the community’s needs, you get angst, you get stress,” he said.
Zalepa urged residents to come out to future open houses and read draft versions of the official plan, which will be made available on the town website.
Heritage designations have also taken up a big part of what council’s directives are, Zalepa said during his recent presentation.
“The province has been driving a review of heritage properties,” he said.
New guidelines make it so that if you do not review your heritage properties by a set deadline, they will be removed from the town’s heritage list.
“That’s a risk for a town like ours, we have quite a few properties — almost 400 on the total list,” Zalepa said.
Zalepa also responded to pre-written questions about the heritage process, which he said is done through a bylaw.
“Council has identified there are a significant amount of properties that we want to review over the next few years,” he said.
A resident asked Zalepa about the possibility of homeowners not knowing their properties are in line for designation.
In late January, The Lake Report spoke with Frank and Donna Lynn Fraser in Queenston, who are fighting the heritage designation of their home at 4 Walnut St., which they say was carried out without their knowledge.
Zalepa said it is not council’s intention to assign designation without homeowner approval.
“Council is not in the process of forcing designation upon anybody,” he said, noting that owners will be contacted before their homes being reviewed.
“What we don’t want is to jeopardize properties falling off the list, because that’s not in the community’s best interest,” Zalepa said.
Zalepa outlined how NOTL plans to navigate incoming tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
NOTL council is working with the Border Mayor’s Alliance, a group of 60 mayors across Canada with borders on the United States, Zalepa said.
“We’re working together to start the plan for what impacts could be to our businesses,” he said.
Eighty businesses and 1,700 jobs are tied to NOTL businesses selling goods to the United States, Zalepa said.
“We’re partnering with some really good people to develop proper strategies to prepare for things like that.”
