Summerside facing challenges of growth, says mayor in state-of-city address
CBC
Mayor Dan Kutcher delivered Summerside's first-ever state-of-the-city address Wednesday morning.
In a document containing the text of the speech provided in advance to CBC News, Kutcher spoke of the challenges facing Summerside, many of them connected to rapid population growth, and how the city is addressing them.
Kutcher delivered the speech to a small crowd at Credit Union Place.
"Our population has grown by over 10 per cent in just a few years," the mayor said.
"Recently we have been adding as many people each year as we added in total for the 20 years before."
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While this growth, much of it through immigration, is required to deal with labour shortages associated with an aging population, the speed of it has caused problems, Kutcher acknowledged.
"There are a growing number of unhoused persons in our community," he said.
The city is doing what it can to coordinate support services, Kutcher said, but the situation is not likely to improve soon.
"Until there is success on the prevention side — addressing the cost of living, building more affordable housing, greater support for those struggling with mental illness and addictions, and a provincially coordinated Joint Enforcement Team to combat the importation, prevalence and access of highly addictive drugs — this trend will likely continue," said Kutcher.
The city is making progress on building housing to accommodate all of its new residents, Kutcher said.
"Last year, Summerside led the province in housing starts," he said. "Over 500 units were under construction last summer and one third of those units were affordable housing supported by our provincial and federal partners."
The city set a record for value of building permits issued last year at more than $109 million. These were mostly residential, but Summerside is seeing growth this spring in commercial construction projects.
The city is also investing in infrastructure to support all those new homes, including the east-west housing corridor project.
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