Is it time for the Northeast Avalon to become a Regional Municipality like Halifax?

[SignalHillHiker]

Is it time for the Northeast Avalon to become a Regional Municipality like Halifax?

The a-word (amalgamation) is still very much a dirty word on the Northeast Avalon, which - as you can see - is home to fully half of our province's 10 largest municipalities (St. John's, Mount Pearl, Conception Bay South, Paradise, and Torbay):



In my opinion, the fact the City of St. John's and its suburbs are separate communities is having an extremely negative impact.

Each suburban city and town is rushing to cash in on our construction/population boom by erecting as many cookie cutter subdivisions of single-family, detached homes as they possibly can.

We are, as far as regional and urban planning goes, clearly in a race to the bottom.

Do you share this view?

If so, what do you feel would be an appropriate solution?

I'm especially curious if you believe we should follow Halifax's lead.

For the most part, I think we should. While a Regional Municipality is not perfect, it clearly leads to more regional cooperation and better regional planning than we have been able thus far to achieve here.

However, I think calling it the HRM instead of the City of Halifax was an unnecessary compromise meant to appease the unreasonable. I would still want ours to be called the City of St. John's, comprised of Wards.

What do you think?

[PoscStudent]

No.

[jeddy1989]

I don't think this will happen unless the provincial government forces it and most of the votes come from this region so I don't know if they will ..

even if some sort of NEA higher council or committee is formed to tackle specific issues such as overall development patterns, transportation, garbage collection, water services etc.

I think something along those lines with representatives from each municipality is more likely (even if it's more expensive)

Even if we could amalgamate some of the other municipalities ... just to reduce the number of municipalities

[SignalHillHiker]

That suggestion has come up several times in other discussions here and I like it as well, at least as an interim step. Say... amalgamating Mount Pearl and Paradise to start.

Maybe CBS and Portugal Cove-St. Phillip's?

Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove and Torbay?

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

That suggestion has come up several times in other discussions here and I like it as well, at least as an interim step. Say... amalgamating Mount Pearl and Paradise to start.

Maybe CBS and Portugal Cove-St. Phillip's?

Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove and Torbay?

it would still be a tough sell

each municipality is quite head strong however I think Mount Pearl and Paradise would be more keen on each other .. St. Philip's Portugal cove .. they are already an amalgamated community and still don't really get along and the council there is nutzo Mcgee

it's funny though because most of these communities have already amalgamated .. imagine if we still had all the original municipalities ..

St. John's
The Goulds
Kilbride
Pouch Cove
Bauline
Torbay
Flat Rock
Middle Cove
Outer Cove
Logy Bay
Mount Pearl
Paradise
St. Thomas
St. Philip's
Portugal Cove
Manuals
Topsail
Chamberlains
Long Pond
Foxtrap
Kelligrews
Upper Gullies
Seal Cove
Petty Harbour


I'm sure I'm forgetting some former municipalities .. but you can see why it's so fractured .. it comes from many former towns

[SignalHillHiker]

I don't even know where St. Thomas is, ha! Is that part of Paradise?

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I don't even know where St. Thomas is, ha! Is that part of Paradise?

yup

History of paradise

While parts of Paradise have been inhabited since the late nineteenth-century, its growth only took off in the 1960s and 1970s as a "bedroom community" of nearby St. John's, and has grown at a rapid pace since. In the early 1990s, the Town of Paradise was amalgamated with the Town of St. Thomas. Other developed areas which had previously been administered by the St. John's Metropolitan Board, an agency of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, were also amalgamated with Paradise. These areas are Three Island Pond, Topsail Pond, Elizabeth Park, and Evergreen Village. Recently, Paradise has been identified by Statistics Canada as the fastest-growing municipality in Atlantic Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradis...d_and_Labrador

St. Thomas:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=st.+tho...rador&t=h&z=15

Also WHAT THE HELL was the St. John's Metropolitan board???? and what happened to it??

[jeddy1989]

I don't know if you guys know this exists but here is the North East Avalon Economic Development Board:

http://www.northeastavalonredb.ca/index.php

[SignalHillHiker]

That's what stood out to me as well. Maybe that's what we need to resurrect? It would probably be easier and cheaper than combining municipal governments or, God forbid, adding a new regional level of government (say, like the mainland's counties).

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by jeddy1989

I don't know if you guys know this exists but here is the North East Avalon Economic Development Board:

http://www.northeastavalonredb.ca/index.php

Never trust an organization that uses an acronym when it doesn't make sense to do so.

"NEA REDB"? No thanks.

[jeddy1989]

here is a review of Amalgamation done in 2011 by Stantec

this comes from that report:

3.0 MUNICIPAL REORGANIZATION IN
CANADA
The need for regional governance is almost unassailable. Even the strongest opponents
of amalgamation recognize that the scope of at least some services extends beyond
typical municipal boundaries. Regions with many municipal governments, like the
Northeast Avalon, normally have regional service agencies to accomplish this and
opponents of amalgamation invariably point to the viability of such agencies as a key
argument against amalgamation.
Three basic approaches are available to address regional service delivery:
• Inter-municipal Agreements and Agencies – Specific services can be delivered
through commissions, authorities, or similar bodies supported by two or more
independent municipal units. Each agency is responsible for one or more
services. In the United States, very large urban centres are served through ad
hoc arrangements of this type. In British Columbia, many inter-municipal
arrangements are coordinated through the province’s system of Regional
Districts.
• Upper Tier Regional Governments – Two or more independent municipal units
can participate in a regional government that will normally provide one or more
services mutually agreed upon by the participating units. The municipalities
separately provide the balance of services themselves. Two-tier structures of this
type were standard for a time in Ontario and were used in other areas as well.
They have been superceded in Ontario by single tier structures, although some
examples persist elsewhere in Canada, most notably the Montreal Metropolitan
Community.
• Single-tier Regional Government – Two or more independent municipalities can
dissolve into a single local government that provides all municipal services.
The last of these options is, in some respects, both the oldest and the newest.
Progressive annexation served many expanding urban areas well through the first
century of Canada’s existence and continues to be employed in many situations to
extend urban services to new communities and developed areas. By the 1950s,
however, the approach met with resistance in areas where established communities
came to abut each other, most notably in Toronto, where Canada’s first two-tier regional
government was established. The reform effort of the nineties, which more or less started

http://m.stjohns.ca/sites/default/fi...ort_102011.pdf

[Copes]

I don't have time to get into this deeply at the moment (about to run to a meeting) but my short answer is that yes, the region absolutely should. However, it won't. So, with that in mind, some sort of regional planning committee / council needs to get together and think rationally about the good of the area when it comes to projects.

[Townie709]

Yes. It should 100% happen. The benefits of amalgamation and regional cooperation are undeniable. But, unfortunately each community (especially Mount Pearl) is far too headstrong to amalgamate. The only way I see it happening is if the provincial government forced it (Which IMO, they should.)

Amalgamation is not the most important thing though. If our municipal politicians were civil enough to participate in heavy regional cooperation, amalgamation wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately everyone seems to have an attitude of superiority.. ex: the gushue Highway Ext.

[PoscStudent]

I'll elaborate later but I don't see what the benefits are for a full merger of the region. The only good thing is from a planning perspective, which I don't think will improve, and we don't need amalgamation for that anyways.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

I'll elaborate later but I don't see what the benefits are for a full merger of the region. The only good thing is from a planning perspective, which I don't think will improve, and we don't need amalgamation for that anyways.

Well, this is kind of your area of expertise, I assume - so I'm curious to learn your reasoning.

*****

I'd have thought it'd be cheaper for just about everything - easier to afford municipal council, municipal services, etc.

Of course, that said, I doubt taxes would actually go down .

[JHikka]

I'm not all that familiar with the municipal dealings between each of the municipalities in the Avalon area but I will try to provide something to this thread at a later date. Amalgamation and regionalization is something that we're really trying to work towards in New Brunswick at the moment.

[Marty_Mcfly]

It probably makes more sense for us to do it than it did for Halifax. The HRM is currently a mess of urban and rural regions being treated as one. In comparison, most of the northeast Avalon can be considered urban, with a few places such as Pouch Cove, Maddox Cove, etc. which are definitely more rural. I think some differences in how the municipality is run which would account for the different needs of each city/town would be a must.

If there was a way to encourage still using the old city names instead of just saying Northeast Avalon Regional Municipality or whatever it'd be called would definitely be a plus for each town/city.

Creating such a regional municipality would definitely keep the northeast Avalon from competing with each other and have them work as one to compete with other Canadian cities for regional funding/infrastructure/services.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I'm not all that familiar with the municipal dealings between each of the municipalities in the Avalon area but I will try to provide something to this thread at a later date. Amalgamation and regionalization is something that we're really trying to work towards in New Brunswick at the moment.

Awesome, please do.

The dealings are not really all that bad. I'm sure others can add more or correct anything if I'm mistaken, but here's how I see it:

St. John's generally feels it's footing the bill for surrounding communities that leech off its infrastructure and services without paying to keep them going. This is ESPECIALLY exasperated by the fact leaders and residents in these suburban towns often cite their generally far lower taxes as reasons NOT to amalgamate.

Suburban communities generally feel that St. John's is so horribly mismanaged that it would be devastating for their comparably smooth, well-run tidy, tiny town operations to join.

Beyond that you have the Townie/Bayman divide, which doesn't exist (at least not to the same degree, nor framed by the same prejudices) among younger people.

[ConundrumNL]

I don't like the fact that all involved parties consider amalgamation to be St. John's consuming all the communities in the region.

Why can't they do something like Greater London or the Dublin Regional Authority. Each community could retain it's legal status and councils, but there would a regional board that could handle things like public transport, fire services, water, and establish a regional plan.

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Awesome, please do.

The dealings are not really all that bad. I'm sure others can add more or correct anything if I'm mistaken, but here's how I see it:

St. John's generally feels it's footing the bill for surrounding communities that leech off its infrastructure and services without paying to keep them going. This is ESPECIALLY exasperated by the fact leaders and residents in these suburban towns often cite their generally far lower taxes as reasons NOT to amalgamate.

Suburban communities generally feel that St. John's is so horribly mismanaged that it would be devastating for their comparably smooth, well-run tidy, tiny town operations to join.

Beyond that you have the Townie/Bayman divide, which doesn't exist (at least not to the same degree, nor framed by the same prejudices) among younger people.

that's outside the metro region.. people from other parts of the province would just conciser the whole metro area townies .. people from paradise may have been rural and past the overpass years ago but not now lol CBS is just an extension

when you get out to holyrood and further that's when you get the around the bay in town divide, not in the NEA

you are definitely right about the other attitudes though