As he approaches the halfway point of his first term, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall said he remains focused on tackling key challenges facing the city.
A key priority for Nuttall is addressing the housing crisis by ensuring the city continues to build and offer a diverse range of housing options.
“The housing crisis has been a massive challenge,” he said. “The idea that the young people in our community – when they grow up here – are not able to easily go out to neither rent a place that makes sense for them or even place a home.”
In 2024, Barrie was recognized as the top municipality in the Greater Toronto Area for approving new housing developments. Despite the progress, Nuttall acknowledged that many young residents still face challenges in finding adequate housing.
“The opportunities that existed 20 years ago are not here in the same way today,” he said.
“It’s spiralled since COVID, well out of control so we are working every day to make sure that the necessary number of units are being built.”
According to Barrie.ca, the city’s population currently stands at approximately 164,202 and is projected to grow to 210,000 by 2031 and 298,000 by 2051.
Nuttall emphasized the importance of balancing growth by expanding housing options while attracting new industries to strengthen the local economy.
“The last thing we want to do in this community is create a city that is more of a bedroom community,” he said.
“We have so much housing coming in, but we don’t necessarily have the appropriate lands available today to be able to build out industry.”
Nuttall said while he welcomes the growth in job opportunities in Barrie, there is concern that the city may lack sufficient land to accommodate larger industrial in the future.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of acreage on the industrial side developed quickly – lots of jobs are coming here, a lot of successes and strength from that. But we are running out of land.”
In September 2023, the City of Barrie’s request to expand its boundaries into the Townships of Springwater and Oro-Medonte was made public. Since then, discussions have continued, with officials from both townships opposing the move, arguing that boundary adjustments are unnecessary. Nuttall has stated that the proposed expansion is primarily intended to create space for new job opportunities.
He expressed hope that all parties will reach a resolution on the boundary issue soon.
“I think it’s been difficult at times with the neighbouring municipalities, but I still look at it as we are partners in this,” he said. “The City of Barrie has a humongous amount of weight in the county. And that’s because of the number of jobs that are in the city.”
When it comes to city finances, Nuttall said he has been pleased with how he and city council have tackled the issue.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve done with finances – we restructured the finances in the city so we’ve been able to deliver on a 0 per cent city operations increase,” he said. “We will have four years where there would not have been a single new percentage point added onto people’s taxes for the operation of City Hall or operations around Barrie.”
He expressed satisfaction with the investments in the city’s essential infrastructure,
noting that recent financial adjustments could pave the way for positive news.
“We’ve been able to invest heavily into infrastructure in Barrie, which was needed,” he said.
“By resetting the city’s finances, we could see an increase in our credit rating from A+ to triple A. That would be the first time in the city’s history.”
As he nears the mid-term mark, Nuttall conveyed confidence that the city is on the right track.
“I think we are stepping into an exciting era of the city where people will see the things they hoped for now coming soon. We have massive opportunities.”
Mayor Nuttall began his term in office on November 15, 2022.
