Halton Region is a location of choice for business investment and a place that residents choose to call home. Our Region has become one of the best communities in Canada. At Halton Region, we are committed to ensuring our quality of life continues.
Residents have identified that maintaining current infrastructure and planning for future infrastructure requirements is a top issue of concern. To address this, we have introduced Building a Better Halton, which is our infrastructure construction plan. This plan covers road, water and wastewater projects.
This year, Council approved $362 million in infrastructure investments. Upgrading and adding to our infrastructure will help us to reduce commute times, provide a high-quality water supply to new communities and complete preventive maintenance on key services such as wastewater mains.
These investments will benefit residents across the region — from Burlington to Halton Hills to Milton to Oakville, as we are upgrading and maintaining current infrastructure, and adding new services to not only meet the needs of residents, but also business owners.
Each year our budget focuses on an investment in the services and programs you have told us are important to you, one which includes infrastructure. Over the last four years, the combined tax increase for Regional programs and services has been less than 0.5% – one of the lowest among municipalities in Canada.
In order to keep Halton’s portion of taxes low we need to come up with other sources of revenue. One such example is how we are financing the infrastructure construction needs of Halton, which is being addressed through our collection of Development Charges. This year alone, Development Charges will cover 82% of the costs for road construction.
The use of Development Charges, (paid by developers on all new development and is the primary source of funding for the required infrastructure), to pay for infrastructure construction ensures that the developers pay for these costs, not taxpayers.
During summer construction, remember we’re Building a Better Halton to ensure that Halton remains a great place to live, work, raise a family and retire.
To find out more about Halton’s construction plans, dial 311. If you have any Regional concerns or comments you would like to share, please feel free to email me at gary.carr@halton.ca.
Communicating Building a Better Halton
In an effort to help keep residents informed about these and other Building a Better Halton construction projects, we are launching a Twitter feed @HaltonBBH on August 9, so residents can get real time updates.
Gary Carr is the Regional Chair of Halton – which consists of Oakville, Burlington, Milton and Halton Hills. Contact Chair Carr by telephone at 905-825-6115 and by email at gary.carr@halton.ca
Tags: Gary Carr, Halton Region
About the author: Richard Douglas
Richard contributes articles, photos and video about news and events happening in the Town of Oakville, Ontario.
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