As many of you are likely aware, during last Thursday’s regional council meeting, the majority of attending members (regional councillor Andrea Kaiser notable by her absence) voted in favour of giving Marotta’s Two Sisters Resorts a gift in excess of $900,000 by waiving the development fees on the second level of Parliament Oak’s underground garage.

To roll the clock back, in July of this year, our local town council and lord mayor (with the exception of Couns. O’Conner and Niven, who voted against, and Coun. Burroughs, who abstained) voted to take the unprecedented step to petition the region to waive these fees.

Unprecedented, you ask?

Well, based on my research — and I am open to correction — this is the first time Niagara-on-the-Lake’s council has ever formally requested that the region waive development charges to the benefit of a developer.

Yes, as Coun. Mavridis pointed out during the July meeting, the current council had previously asked the region to consider a “delay” on a project’s development charges, but, there is a huge difference to waiving the same.

So, based on council’s endorsement, the formal request was duly written and sent to the region.

As is normal practice, the region’s staff received this request and fully considered it within the specific context and the general overarching financial and precedent-setting ramifications.

Based on their professional evaluation, regional staff recommended against waiving these fees.

Amongst other issues, they identified specific concerns associated with the establishment of a precedent outside the legislative framework, exposing the region and taxpayers to potential challenges from other developers, with the inevitable result of significantly reducing the revenue base that underwrites the region’s requirement to provide infrastructure improvements.

Regional staff’s recommendation posed some very real concerns.

Namely, if one gives away a million dollars here and there — because now developers across Niagara can cite this precedent for similar relief — where does the money come from to make up those losses in order to fulfil the region’s legislated responsibilities?

Oddly, our lord mayor — known for bludgeoning NOTL town council to respect, accept and endorse the “professional expertise” of staff — actively worked to influence regional council members to ignore and dismiss the recommendations of the “professionals.”

Apparently, if a recommendation doesn’t happen to fall within “build, baby, build” and “be damned the consequences” parameters, it is OK to disregard the professional acumen of the region’s planning staff.

Moreover, Zalepa’s arguments included the suggestion that recent changes in provincial legislation would allow the region to waive the charge without recouping the amount from taxpayers.

If the money doesn’t come from the regional budget for Niagara … well, it could, theoretically, be pushed upward into the provincial budget.

Although why the province might assume the cost of a “gift” given by a regional council, together with assuming the liability for all such future “gifts” — and you can bet your life that this decision, “outside legislative framework,” will be cited and serve as a precedent across the province — is highly questionable to say the least.

With the region currently bandying about a 10 per cent increase for the 2026 budget and our aging infrastructure slowly falling apart after years of accumulated neglect, surely the members of regional council cannot seriously believe that their direction to staff of finding a way to fund this and future “gifts” without dinging taxpayers is even remotely in the realm of reality.

But wait: perhaps Lord Mayor Zalepa and his like-minded cronies on regional council happen to know where the fabled money tree grows … Since we are exploring fantasies, we might as well indulge ourselves for a moment in the phantasmagorical dimensions our elected officials apparently live in.

Fact … there are only two choices: cut planned spending included in the budget (likely including once again deferring expenditures on infrastructure maintenance/replacement) or raise taxes.  

Even on the remote chance the province did agree to pick up the tab for municipal “gifts,” the money to do so will come from you and me, folks, in the form of taxes to pay for our generational deficit financing.

Inevitably, each and every taxpayer in this province will underwrite this decision into the foreseeable future… All to provide a gift to a billionaire developer.

On a closing note, down at the corner of Simcoe Park, a curious phenomenon can be observed.

Tourists glance at the giant tacky NOTL sign, shake their heads and take photos.

Not of the sign, not of themselves with the sign behind them, but of themselves facing the sign with the Prince of Wales as their backdrop.

Apparently, our visitors have more taste and discretion than those in town responsible for erecting this travesty.

Brian Marshall is a NOTL realtor, author and expert consultant on architectural design, restoration and heritage.