Whitchurch-Stouffville, Ontario

BVM: Can you give an overview of the vision you started out with as Mayor? Lovatt: “Well, it’s probably good to note that we had a very challenging four years of previous council and there wasn’t a lot of activity taking place because of some political turmoil happening in town. My personal opinion is that development money went to the sidelines until after the Oct. 2018 election to see how the results would play out. If there was a change in leadership, there would be a huge entry into the market and that’s what we saw when I became Mayor. By March of 2019, there was almost $700 million of new development interest that had come through my office. A lot of that was multi- unit townhome and mid-rise applications, which is what we really need in our community to address affordable housing issues. Condos are selling for a lot less than single family homes. “In my 100-day action plan, bringing unity to Council and our senior director team was my first priority. I worked really hard from the very beginning to make that happen. One of the first things we did as a council that greatly helped unify us and our vision was we developed the Strategic Plan with all the senior directors and managers in the organization. That was an amazing process. We ratified the Plan in the spring, and launched it to the public.” BVM: What type of development is on the agenda? Lovatt: “A lot of our focus is opening up the commercial and industrial tax base in our land development on the 404 series highway and the unused lands we have from our southern boundary up to Davis Drive. In our inaugural Council meeting in January, we asked the province of Ontario to designate Gormley area as a provincially-significant employment zone. It’s currently in the Oak Ridges Moraine, so there are obvious restrictions because of that, but we desperately need these lands opened up to see our tax base balance out. WHI TCHURCH-STOUFFV I LLE , ONTAR IO