Oxford Council Supports Community Centre
The Town of Oxford is foregoing $34,500 in building permit fees for the soon-to-be-built Oxford Community Centre, and that sits just fine with the Mayor and Councillors.
Council came together the night before Halloween for a special meeting to amend the motion adopted last week that saw the town waive the fees. The reason: to clarify the actual amount of money that would not be collected.
At the regular Council meeting, last week, council considered a letter from the planning department that suggested the building permit fees would be “in the thousands of dollars,” but it was not specific.
During debate on the motion to amend, Mayor Greg Henley said council was “under the impression that this was a few thousand dollars.” Regardless, he said Council should not collect those fees. “This free community centre that is being given to us by the organising committee — asking for building fees would be a slap in the face” to the committee.”
Linda Cloney, the CAO, noted that since the building fees were not a part of the town’s spring budget discussions, the money won’t be missed, and would have no effect on the Town’s planned expenditures for 2023-24.
Deputy Mayor Arnold MacDonald weighed in as well, wondering whether it would be better to offer a percentage of the building fee rather than the full amount. MacDonald had heard from town residents who were concerned about the amount of money in question, since the initial motion was not specific.
He supported the position that the Town should contribute to the new Community Centre, saying he was just bringing the voice of the constituents to the table.
Councillor Chrystal MacNutt was fully committed to waiving the fees, saying, “When I heard the amount, I was happy, because it means that we as a town are supporting it in a larger way. We’re unable to put hundreds of thousands of dollars into this project, so the more that we can help, the better. I thought what an amazing donation, really, it’s just not making any money at all, but what a great way that we can help that organisation create this building.”
In the end, all councillors present voted unanimously to amend the motion by specifying the amount of the fee being waived.
Council just had enough members on hand to meet quorum, as Councillors Paul Jones, Brenton Colborne, and Olivia Canning were absent.
Now, it’s back to waiting for the last piece of the funding puzzle — a commitment from the federal government — expected very soon to fall into place.
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