Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutEcon Dev Adv 2009-06-24 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES June 24, 2009 City of Kitchener The Economic Development Advisory Committee met this date, chaired by Adrian Conrad; the following members were in attendance: Brian Bennett, Jeremy Auger, Bob Denton, Peter Benninger, Bernie Nimer and Councillor Christina Weylie The following people sent their regrets: Steven Voll, Mark Bingeman, Mary Alkerton, Rebecca Short, Mark Collins, Dan Piedra The following people were absent: Ian Cook, Brent Richardson, Staff in attendance: Rod Regier, Tracey DeVille, Janette MacDonald, Valerie Bradford, Cory Bluhm, Robert Morgan, Kim Feere, Terry Boutilier, Jeff Willmer Minutes – motion by Brian, seconded by Bernie, carried. Item 1.1 Parking Strategy Recommendations Committee members were reminded that should they have a conflict of interest, as outlined in the Code of Conduct policy, in this discussion that they declare that and leave the room for the duration of the discussion. Cory Bluhm provided the Committee with a brief update of the parking strategy. Adrian Conrad, Jeremy Auger, Bernie Nimer declared a conflict of interest and left the meeting. Brian Bennett took over as Acting Chair for the remainder of the meeting. The following comments / questions were raised: ? Parking increases take us out of competitiveness ? Lease rates in Kitchener are lower so there is room to move on that It was advised that lease rates were compared with 2 buildings that current have no parking and it was determined that cost is approximately $17 to $19 a square foot compared with buildings that have parking which approximately $25 a square foot and up. The study showed that it will not be until 2020 that an increase in cost for an office building with no parking. Does council approve the parking rates? ? Yes as part of the annual budget and it has been raised 6 This committee is to focus on economic development and this is something that helps to encourage development. ? This needs to be visited on a regular basis to ensure we are in line with where we should be. Should we be planning for additional structures? Are we subsidizing for those that are developing in areas where they got the land for cheap. ? Tax dollars should not provide cheap parking. What can we do as a municipality to get people out of their cars? ? The Region has to play a role in that, they are the ones that supply the transit for the area, it is their role not ours, but we will be wiling to work with them to promote other means of transportation. Maintaining competiveness with downtown office market is important and is something that the Committee could add, if the rates are raised at a non incremental rate it becomes no competitive at the downtown. Increase rates, monitor and be careful with the structure in the warehouse district. Change plan to review the need for a city operated structure at Charles and Water Streets. Item 1.2 Manufacturing Innovation Network (MIN) Mr. Terry Riedel, Executive Director, MIN and Mr. Jason Santo, Program Administrator, IGLOO, introduced themselves and provided a presentation for the Committee on the progress to date of the Manufacturing Innovation Network (MIN). They provided an overview of the website and what the traffic has been like since the official launch in January of this year. Mr. Riedel advised the Committee that this is the only site like this in Ontario and both the provincial and federal government have shown an interest in the site. The MIN Board has partnered with EMC and submitted application to expand this site province wide to encourage growth. Are you hearing feedback from the manufacturers on success since this has launched? ? Yes, this has created a huge opportunity for many local businesses and for example Edgar Tool and Die took advantage of the free advertising available to them and has seen growth within their company, Custom Aluminium Foundry also took advantage and saw an increased growth within their website and they have also used the blog section to share their work they are doing and that has created awareness for their ability to be diverse in what they are capable of manufacturing. The job board has also been a positive environment for successful candidates. It is also important to note that all local manufacturers are listed on the site and for some this is their first time having a presence on the internet, without the expense of a website. Is there a way to measure how many people from outside the region are accessing this information? ? Yes, we do have that information; we are seeing traffic coming from the United States and overseas. How will you measure success? ? Traffic numbers, the connection we help create between local manufacturers The site is designed to allow for visitor rating on blogs etc., so there is a long way to go in terms of measuring success, but that is something that we have designed into the site to allow us to measure. Wellington and London are not that far away and to connect Province wide is important. The Committee thanked Mr. Terry Riedel and Mr. Jason Santo for their presentation. Economic Reality Check Janette MacDonald provided the Committee with an update on the labour force numbers. Some highlights of the presentation include: ? Unemployment rate is at 10.1% to 9.9%, mostly because of the numbers that exited labour force, we lost the same number as the prior month but because the labour force got smaller our rate went down, why they left is unknown, it may be people going back to school, or giving up looking for work. How do we know that people actually left is still hard to measure, we do know that education and training is up so the data does support that, there is perhaps more demand for education. They will survey 780 households in Waterloo Region and they will ask you if you are looking for work or are currently working you will be included in the labour force. They will then calculate statistically what that means. The number seems small however; it is a significant number of people in relation to accuracy. When you say there are a certain number of jobs lost – how is that number calculated? ? That is taken from the survey numbers and figured out through there What about unemployment numbers? ? Those are calculated separately; however, they are not seasonally adjusted, so the numbers are weak. Factory workers in Ontario lowest number employed since 1976. What are you using as a start of the recession? ? They are using October 2008 We are in a better position than we used to be, interest rates are low, our federal government didn’t start with a deficit, locally we are better since we are slightly more diverse than we were, we are still manufacturing community but have had more diversity. At the next meeting, a more comprehensive presentation will be available. We need to get information that we can take back to the community. Had discussions today on CPI, we hear about Canada and Ontario but what about locally? Is there anything out there that can give us an indication about our local CPI. Is there a summary? ? There is local GDP, and that may be something that is of more value. Is there something at a local level that we can measure what is really going on locally? ? There are local indicators with respect to real estate, GDP numbers, CPI in an Ontario comparison to other provinces. Some of the terms are confusing – can we have a sheet with what these definitions mean? - Janette will distribute an explanation of those things. Is this information of interest to the Committee, are we talking about the right stuff? - This is important for us as a Committee so we can take this with us into the Community. Janette provided a presentation on the volatility of the global market in terms of energy, the oil industry for example. How do we make sense of the oil industry and how will oil scarcity affect your industry? - China has kept the inflation rate down since we can consume goods from there with little cost that is one of the biggest things. Automation helps but it will not help keep inflation in check. It is complex potential set of scenarios out there, one of the interesting things about a year ago, Thomas Homer Dixon author of The Upside of Down, published in 2006 had forecasted a dramatic increase in oil and dramatic collapse and a saw tooth pattern over the future, it painted a picture in urban economy that if you were a consumer it would be a continuous set of shocks and it would be a cycle of paying more, paying less etc., what is encouraging is the reinforcement of where the City is going, reurbanization, better use of infrastructure, putting Brownfield’s back to work, this scenario is positive for light rail transit, it provides us an opportunity to move people, this creates a big resource for us in the future. The Committee thanked Janette MacDonald for her presentation. On Motion, the meeting adjourned at 1:00 pm.