South Frontenac moves towards supporting Grace Centre upgrade

Jeff Green | Oct 27, 2021

“My hardest struggle is supporting a social program with property taxes. If you want to tax my income for social programs that’s one thing, but not property taxes. So that’s where I struggle with this.”

With that statement, South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal outlined his unease over a request by South Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) for a $750,000 commitment from the township towards a $1.5 million upgrade of the the SFCS offices at the Grace Centre in Sydenham.

The Grace Centre, formerly Grace United Church, is the centre for SFCS seniors’ programming, and is also the administrative centre for the agency. Agency staff and the South Frontenac Food bank, are located in portables at the rear of the former church. The renovation plans are to replace the portables with an addition.

Before Vandewal spoke, the other seven members of council responded, to a report and recommendation from township Chief Administrative Officer Neil Carbone, that the township supports making a financial contribution to the project, with conditions.

Councillor Alan Revill said that he was “uncomfortable with the ask of $750,000. One way that might satisfy me is for there to be a funding mechanism that secures the interests of the township in the project.

Councillor Ray Leonard also expressed concern about the amount requested, and wanted to know if SFCS has sought support from other municipal sources, such as Frontenac County and the City of Kingston. (SFCS provides service to residents of rural Kingston as well as South Frontenac.)

Councillor Ron Sleeth said he too, “struggles with the number, but having said that “they are the one organisation that serves seniors, throughout the entire township, who need help.”

Councillor Ross Sutherland said “I think this is somewhat reasonable because SFCS is both locally based and controlled, delivers a wide range of health services for seniors and is the leading edge of the aging in place strategy. Also, quite apart from anything else, the Grace Centre is a community asset that the township has an interest in maintaining. If anything happened to SFCS, having an interest in the Grace Centre property would be important.”

Councillor Doug Morey said he would like to see an option where SFCS raises money first, “and the township matches it up to a set amount. I also think we can finance this through reserve funds and not future taxation dollars.”

Councillor Randy Ruttan said “ditto to what Ross and Doug said, “I have no concern with the cost. You can't build much for $750,000 these days, as we all know. We have the money, we don't need to tax for it. I'm in full support of this. It's good for the township.”

Councillor Norm Roberts said “I don't disagree but I have a problem with $750,000 up front. I'd like to see it broken down somehow.”

While Mayor Vandewal said he was struggling, he did not rule out supporting the project.

“I would have been happy if we could have seen some major commitment from other donors. It would have been nice if they would have gone out to some others first. It's easy to say the community supports it, but so far as I know, the community is not in favour of tax increases. I would have liked to see some of those commitments from others in the community first.”

He then said that if the township makes a commitment, there should be some way to ensure the future of the Grace Centre.

“I would like something on this loan that if anything happens, this property goes to South Frontenac, that we have control over that facility which we could need ourselves.”

In his report, Neil Carbone did not recommend a specific dollar amount, but he outlined nine principles which staff will follow as they explore the details, once the motion stemming from the report was approved.

One of the key principles was that the contribution be structured as a “0% interest loan, potentially registered as a lien, or other instrument, for a set time period, during which SFCS would be required to maintain its independent legal status, facility ownership and local management and governance.”

Another, was that some of the contribution be taken from future tax dollars because the benefits from the contribution will flow to township residents in the future.

After hearing the conversation at council, Carbone said, “if this motion is approved, our subsequent report on this will follow the principles already set out in this report, with the exception of the funding model. Staff will look at reserve allocations instead, remembering that reserves are mostly already tied to specific spending plans, when they are created.”

SFCS also requested that the township waive the $55,000 in development fees, and Carbone recommended that that amount be included within the $750,000 maximum contribution, instead of being an additional amount.

The motion which was ultimately approved, said that Council “supports making a financial contribution to SFCS’s Grace Centre Expansion Project; and, that Council direct staff to bring forward draft terms of a contribution agreement.”

South Frontenac provides an annual grant of $15,000 to SFCS to support programming, and waives development fees for the Kinsmen Dream Home raffle, which benefits SFCS.

“In all, we already contribute about $30,000 per year,” said Mayor Vandewal.

These commitments are separate from the contribution to the Grace Centre project and will remain in place.