I am starting a new section on my blog where I’ll chat with a fellow Miltonian about the town.  I am kicking it off today.  Colin Best, the Local and Regional Councillor for Wards 2 & 4, is my first guest. 

Colin Best not only works and lives in Milton, he was actually born and raised in the town as well.  As a result, he approaches Milton-related issues with a passion that’s unmatched.  He has been a local or regional councillor since 1980 (with some gaps in between). 

If you do not see the full post then please click the ‘Continue Reading‘ link below. 

[Zeeshan] Hi Colin, thanks for meeting with me today.  I will kick off with the hardest question first.  What is your vision of Milton?

[Colin] Basically have a diversified town where you have a mixed economy and knowledge based employment – with research farm – and also the Derry Green area so you are not dependant on one industry, like the auto-sector.  Also have the community that grows up in, and stays in, Milton throughout their lives.  As my wife likes to tease me – “oh in three years you’ll be a senior citizen” – uh, thank you! 

Senior Citizen now starts with age 55.  It’s an active population still. I’ve worked with guys in their 80s who are still active, because they are using their minds, not their bodies.  Our society was built on guys who retired at 65 because they were worn out.  Now they’re 85, they do one job and say ‘hey, where’s the next job’? 

Last year in town, we had 6 ladies over 100, in our housing mix right now.  We went to [some] aparments and were hackled by a 102 year old.  That’s the whole thing, we have to realize that demographically we have older people who still want to be active and still want to be involved.  And we’ve never had that before.  People died off sooner.

So we have that coming on, as well as an increasingly diversified community.  Right now I’ve been to eight different churches we never had in town before.  We have Sikhs, Budhists, Hindus … we have a Muslim BBQ next week at the Fairgrounds.  People say ‘churches are dying in town’.  No they’re not.  New churches are coming in, they are just different. The town has changed that way. 

As a Councillor, my job is to see the population and see what’s happening.  Developers and people ask, ”where should we locate this” - there’s a public planning part – you say where is your population?  What usually happens is, what happened in Vaughn.  There is a Sikh community there.  They bought a farm and are building a temple there.  They renewed the community.  That happens, where one person from the community moves to an area and attracts others.  They say it’s a great place and brothers and cousins and everyone else moves near them. 

[Zeeshan] - Yes, once you get a temple or a church it attracts people to the area.

[Colin] - That’s what we are going to see in our neighbourhoods. They may buy an old house and convert it.  Similar to what happened in other areas. They have Sikh and Hindu Temples and Muslim Mosques.  Oakville started earlier, they are 10 years ahead of us.  It’s like time travelling.  You look at Acton, that’s what Milton looked like 30 years ago.  You look at Markham and Vaughn and that’s Milton 30 years from now.

[Zeeshan] - That gives Milton an opportunity too because Milton gets to see other cities and learn from them.  Hopefully avoid their mistakes.

[Colin] – I was talking to the Mayor of Brampton, Fennel, and see what they did.  A lot of that is figuring out what worked for them.  See what worked for other guys and that’s what we are doing for the allocation program.  Here what our order of allocation is and how much capacity you are going to give them because they have to pay for it.  It’s going to cost this much to bring the pipeline in here, and that’s 80% of your cost – water, waste water and roads – and make sure they are up for it.  Because a lot of developers aren’t up for it.  We have a development here, Milton Heights, that’s in this area here [he pointed to a map], they want 900 units.

[Zeeshan] – And the Province doesn’t pay for it anymore.

[Colin] – No, they don’t pay anything.  They got Peel, Durham and York and then got out of it. It was Mike Harris’ time. 

[Zeeshan] - But can you not try to convince them to spend some stimulus money here?

[Colin] – No, there’s not enough money.  And they want to do projects that get visible benefits.  Lisa Raitt was telling me before, what can you do that’s visible and can get done right away and is already in the budgets for the next 10 years. 

[Zeeshan] - I guess if visibility is important then no one sees the water line.

[Colin] – Exactly, that’s a big thing.  This area is planning to grow anyways.  In the downturn you don’t have to put stuff in that you are not going to need right away.  People say ‘why could it not go to the hospitals’.  Well, the entire stimulus funding could have gone directly to the hospitals, but no one would see any benefits.  Our budget right now is $1.4 billion to upgrade the hospitals just for Halton alone.  Imagine what it will cost elsewhere, especially with information technology and everything.

[Zeeshan] – So are you happy with the direction of Milton, especially the direction it took in last 2o years?

[Colin] - Not really.  I didn’t want the new pipeline in Milton, I was against it.  That’s why I ran against the Mayor in 1997, and I spent 9 years out of the office as a result [laughs]. I realize this is what was going to happen because I worked in Brampton.  You look at the old maps of Brampton, and it looks exactly like Milton.  It was a nice square and it blew out.  I started my appraisal work in 1980s here and same thing is happening in Milton. I didn’t want it, but unfortunately voters did not agree with me. 

[Zeeshan] - So is there anything we can do to control the growth until the hospital is done?

[Colin] - Very little unfortunately.  Under the Planning Act, municipalities have very little control.  I tried to do that, but we can’t do that.  We get ruled out.   Right now the economy is doing it for us.  It has slowed down  growth.

Ultimately it’s the Provincial government, they’ve known about it. They know Milton’s changing from conservative to liberal.  Ted Cheddleigh who was winning with fifteen to twenty thousand votes just won with 600 or so in the last election.  The town is changing and they are realizing it. Hopefully they will do something. 

Basically it’s the community that’s still self-sustaining.  But it’s the only community with growth.  In Mississauga, all the detached homes have been built.  There is almost nothing left.  If you go to Winston Churchill, it’s just multi-family apartments and condos mostly now.  So if you are a family wanting to start out then you have to move here. 

I go to the Farmer’s Market and everyone asks about the hospital. And also with schools. Right now there are our schools under construction, and that’s never been done before. We have one school going here, one there.  We should at least do a coordinated plan.  Milton has the highest ratio of under 4 year olds in the entire country.  Our average age dropped by 9 years.  We are the fastest growing community and will likely be in the next census as well. Because people realize that it’s close enough to Toronto but far enough away so you get a small-town community. And that’s the biggest thing I hear at the Farmer’s Market.  “We liked how it was a small down”.  Ya, you moved here and it is not a small town anymore [laughs]. 

That’s the whole point.  We saw that in last few Canada Days.  There were guys who grew up here when the town was 30,000 people and then they moved to Fergus.  Now Fergus is growing and they want to move further North. The town is trying to make it so everybody feels it’s their home town, whether they have been here 3 months or 3 generations.  That’s what we see in the HawthorneVillager.  It’s old-town vs. new-town.  We are trying to get away from there. Everybody’s same, no matter how long you’ve been here.  They should all get same levels of services, same level of features, parks and everything else. 

[Zeeshan] - So do you think the town can do stuff to maintain the small-town feel even with a large population?

[Colin] - Oh ya.  We have different communities.  A lot of people dont realize that Canada Day and Festivals and Santa Claus Parade, these are all put on by volunteers.  Canada Day gets very little funding from the town. Others get absolutely no money from the town, and some of them cost $25,000 to put on.  And as we go to 100,000 people from 25,000, we have to realize that things are going to change. 

People are mostly working out of town now, 70% of our population.  We are trying to change that with the Research Park.  That’s the problem, people who live here work in Mississauga or Toronto.  People who work here, live in Cambridge. That’s why you don’t see many people at the meetings.  People are too tired.  We had a total of 50 people at the intensification meeting.  We had same number at the Halton meeting, it was mostly just land owners.  Even though we put posts everywhere.  We told people they better find out about it because they would be impacted, but no one shows up.

[Zeeshan] - Is it because people just work too much now.

[Colin] - You look at yourself, you work from home and are in call 24 hours.  I am the same way.  People have called me at 1 o’clock in the morning saying [they] thought [they] were leaving a message.  Well, it’s my house phone.  [laugh].  Sometimes I get calls at 4 o’clock Friday for something that’s due 9:00AM Monday.  Okay, there goes my weekend.

[Zeeshan] - So we talked about the future of Milton and the past of Milton. But what about now?  What’s right with Milton now and what is wrong that we should work on.

[Colin] - We need the hospital.  We need education up there.  We need to fix transportation issues.  We need employment here.  But we are getting that way with the Derry park.  We are trying to put employment here so people who don’t have a car, don’t need to get a car.  We are fixing the infrastructure with getting James Snow done and Derry done.

[Zeeshan] - Do you prefer a couple of large employment areas or many smaller ones scattered all over the town?

[Colin] - Definitely scattered.  Because large corporations are dying.  Most employments are with companies with 20 employees or less.   A lot of high-tech work is done from home now.  You look at your neighbourhood and see how many people work from home. 

We have the thing at Thompson and Derry that’s starting to take off.  They’ll have 60 units there.  Basically office in the main floor and residence above.  We need more of those.  Basically that’s how it was many years ago, we’ve come a full circle [laugh]. 

[Zeeshan] -

[Colin] -

[Zeeshan] - I guess the Education Village will help.

[Colin] - Oh ya.  We are trying to keep offices there too.  We have older Brown-fill areas that are going to change into higher densities.  That’s the question for builders too.  Everyone thinks in terms of areas, they dont think in terms of height. 

Office buildings around Mississauga Road and 401 are only 3 or 4 stories high. And they could be located right here in the Main street. We have a lot of potential around the GO station and we have a lot of undeveloped and underdeveloped land. 

A community that’s very similar is Dundas. It has McMaster on one end and plain old downtown on the other.  They are trying to convert the industrial areas. 

[Zeeshan] - But they don’t have a lot of residential areas there.

[Colin] - And that’s what I am trying to do.  Intensify this area first [points to Ontario / Main on the map].  We have 20 acres here with 400 people, it could have 1600 … four times as much.  We could have office space, seniors, supported housing.  Its owned by the Ministry of Education, but they haven’t told us what they want to do with it.  Many buildings there are functionally obsolete.  They could keep the school here, but have senior housings there, have them as mentors for highschool kids.  Put offices there. 

[Zeeshan] - More employers will come to Milton as the population grows anyway. What else can the town do to attract more employers?

[Colin] - The main thing is – I will send you the link for the Education Village – to have a talented pool.  There are employees who are in the hightech field – a lot of software engineers - and are moving here. We have to highlight where they are and provide what they need.   We have to take out these brown-fills and convert them into research parks. 

We have this green area on the new side of town, 2000 acres, right next to the residential area.  We can do what Redmond and other places did, and put research parks there so people can work close to home.

[Zeeshan] - Redmond actually restricts the number of parking spaces employers can provide to encourage carpool or public transportation.

[Colin] - And that’s what we did at the townhall, we gave people carpool parking underground. So if you carpool, you can park in the garage.  No carpool, go outside. 

[Zeeshan] - Yes, employers in Redmond run connector business to transit  hubs.

[Colin] - We are just 10 years behind, we will get there.

[Zeeshan] - The elementary school situation right now is a mess….

[Colin] - That’s unfortunately because of Education Act restriction as well.  They wait until people are registered, that’s too late.  We have schools with 1600 kids that were built for 850. 

We have to try to work out other uses for these buildings.  Schools are closed 2 months a year.  Why can’t we make them more adaptive so they may become day-care or something else during this time.  No need to have sandboxed schools.

[Zeeshan] - You talked about phasing in residential developments as well so we don’t have to build four schools at a time.

[Colin] - Yes, that’s what we did with the staging with our surveys.  But we have Halton Hills and their development around Steels Ave.  After Derry is done, Steels will probably become a four lane road. 

[Zeeshan] - But Steels is more industrial than residentail.

[Colin] - It is an employment corridoor that’s close enough to Milton so we could run buses between the two areas to take people back n’ forth.  They have large commercial areas opposite to Walmart. 

[Zeeshan] - The way the town is growing, same school shortage problem will be faced down the year with middle and high schools. 

[Colin] - Well all schools are now Kindergarten to grade 8, so we’ve elimited middle schools. But that’s what I am working on. Middle schools did not help.  Some buidlers like Mattamy have been very helpful but others haven’t.  So we need to fix that.

[Zeeshan] - Do you think Milton should have a growth cap?

[Colin] - We already do in a way, it’s called recession [laugh]. 

We want to put the infrastructure up at the same time as the population grows.  We need to target appropriate Development Charges that can fund development. Then it does not matter what the population growth is, because the new development pays for itself.  Milton has development charges that is raised for specific projects. 

[Zeeshan] - But can the money be raised up front so we can avoid problems by moving people in first before the infrastructure is ready to handle them?

[Colin] - Yes, and that’s what we are looking into doing.  We have made developers responsbile for areas.  So this area [points to north of Derry / Scott], we made Fieldgate responsible for this area, even though there are four developers here.  That’s why Scott Blvd was finished right away, giving a North-South access here. 

But people need to get move involved too.  Often we don’t know what they need until it becomes an election issue.  They should ask the questions and raise issues.

[Zeeshan] - So what should we do to get residents more involved?

[Colin] - When you see a meeting, come in and say what you want. If you don’t hear from you, we can think you are satisfied.  That’s what happened in the 80s and 90s. We had these meetings and only people who owned lands.  We didn’t have people living there, who say wait a minute … we need this, this and this. We need people who own the land, people who are building it and people who will live there.  And it’s one thing we don’t hear about.  People who live there, they don’t show up. 

[Zeeshan] - But in Milton people who will live there are often people who aren’t in Milton yet.  Or they are working  two jobs.

[Colin] - Thats why we are trying to do more stuff online, so you can read at your leisure and send comments online.  But then again, it’s talking to Councillors and have discussions. That’s why we need more councillors, so they are more accountable. We need to keep 10,000 people per Ward with a councillor so we don’t have this huge Wards with 40,000 people as we have now.

[Zeeshan] - I was going to ask you about that too, I didn’t like two councillors per Ward.

[Colin] - That’s what we are looking for. We saw a need for this.  It isn’t just accountability, sometimes one Councillor carries the whole work-load, and the other one never shows up. I am not going to say names, but it happens.  The whole thing is that we have to have councillors who are involved and take responsibility of their issues. 

We used to have four councillors in just one Ward.  But we didnt know who was responsible for what and who was pulling their weight. 

[Zeeshan] - And it kills the purpose of Wards. The whole idea is to have small units so there is a person responsible and accountable for the area.

[Colin] - It’s the first election we have where we have three new Wards, just for new areas.  It is good, especially for people who are interested in getting involved.

[Zeeshan] - Do you think Milton should have more representation in the Regional Council?

[Colin] - Yes, that’s what I was pushing for and was disappointed that we did not have a fourth seat in the Council.  We need another Councillor from Milton to balance the work-load. Right now Councillor Lee and myself have the two biggest Wards in the entire region.

[Zeeshan] - And it’s going to get worse because of the growth.

[Colin] - Yes, our Wards are now bigger than some Provincial Ridings.  Some ridings have less than 40,000 people, and MPPs get their own staff.

[Zeeshan] - And their salaries and benefits.

[Colin] - Ya.  Good thing is that in Milton you work with the whole community, no matter what side of Milton you are on.  Right now Milton has become mostly Urban. And a lot of people have become resentful of growth, as you may have heard.  They think it’s too much, too fast.

Well, we have no choice.  We have seen what happened with Brampton and Mississauga and other areas.  Our challenge is to get involved and say what we want here and want we dont want here.  That’s what we are trying to do, is to create neighbourhoods, not have half-finished neighbourhoods around. 

That’s what makes planning harder.  We have vacant lands and we don’t know what’s happening with those because they [developers] haven’t decided what to do with those yet. 

[Zeeshan] - So what you are saying is that you can’t stop growth, but you can manage it better.

[Colin] - Ya, it’s a challenge.   A lot of times we see that different agencies do not communicate well with others.  We see that sometimes with school boards, town planners do not communicate with school boards.  And with hospital agencies.  Information and money is not flowing where needed.

[Zeeshan] - How would you like to differentiate Milton with other cities in the GTA region, especially Mississauga.

[Colin] - One, we are still small enough that you can know your neighbours.  Two, we have everything in the community that we need.  Three, we still have a rural focus and the escarpment.  Five minutes from any house, you can be in the middle of a farm. You cant do that in Mississauga.  And solve other issues. People say ‘oh there’s nothing to do in Milton’. Well, they should have tried thirty years ago [laugh]. 

Basically have a community where you can live, work and retire.  We have jobs in Milton, but people who work there can’t afford to live in Milton.  If we have starter level jobs then we need to have starter-level housings as well.  People complain about commute to Markham and I  say why didn’t you move to Markham? 

[Zeeshan] - My problem is that I don’t want people to move to Milton just because its cheaper, I want them to want to move to Milton.

[Colin] - Yes, they have to be able to work here and live here and do everything they want here. 

[Zeeshan] - And want to be here

[Colin] - Yes, I find it amazing that in the morning there is a lot of traffic coming into Milton.  That’s employees coming into Milton while Milton residents are leaving elsewhere to work. That does not make a lot of sense.  That’s why it’s so hard to get organized.  Most of our community meetings used to have 30 to 40 people. Now it’s less because people are working 12 hour days. 

[Zeeshan] - So what can the town do to get more diverse housing…

[Colin] - That’s what the whole intensification study that Bill Mann is incharge of is about.  We know that the Province is coming down to us saying we need to have housing for everybody, not just single-family detached homes.  We have to realize that the whole society is changing.  We now have people working longer and living longer.  They don’t always need two-story homes. I am looking to get into one level because going down to the basement can become a problem.

[Zeeshan] - My parents have been thinking about that too.  Large houses with a lot of land also make less sense now that that both spouses work and they have fewer kids anyway, no one’s around to enjoy or maintain the large living space.

[Colin] - And have rooms down so you don’t have to climb the stairs. We finally realized that after 80 years. People need recreational and cultural activities.  People ask why the culture centre.  Well, what do you expect in a community?  You can’t keep building houses.  Have you been to a library lately?  You can hardly get in.  It’s the municipal government’s business because libraries dont make any money.  Parks don’t.  Fire deparmtment doesn’t. Police departments don’t.  Some things are businesses that generate revenue.  Some are services.  We have to build something that’s appropriate for the community. 

That’s why we are phasing some of these, so we build small and as the community grows and its needs change, we extend it.

[Zeeshan] - So as the community grows and it sprawls more to the East [towards Mississauga], do you still want a single downtown or several city hubs?

[Colin] - That’s why I brought this along [points to a map].   Most people dont’ realize, we dont have to have a single story downtown, you can have four-story European style downtown which is still have a focus of the community. Bronte street has a lot of potential of turning into an employment area.  Similar to what’s happening in the First Street in Oakville, or downtown Burlington.  We have a lot of potential. 

What we are trying to do is to keep established neighbourhoods appropriate for the area.  Look at Brampton, their downtown never took off.  Imagine if this is Brampton.  That’s the 410, this is downtown [points at the map].  This area never took off. I am trying to do this area first, then grow out.  Do intensification first, that’s why we pulled it to 2015. The question for staff is to make sure we phase it, so the area South of Britannia is not growing everywhere at once.  Misissauga is the same.  It had pockets that grew and the area in the middle took 20 years to fill.  Some areas did well, others didn’t. Streetsville still has a vibrant downtown.

[Zeeshan] - Yes, I went to highschool in Streetsville.

[Colin] - And downtown Milton can be even better.  We can’t go any further west. We have a border there, we have 401 to the North, so we are limited to where we grow.  Brampton has construction activity on the west side of Mississauga Road now, it’s too far out.

[Zeeshan] - So it’s good that we are constraint.

[Colin] - And that’s what we want.  We want people to say ‘this is something I can identify with’.  A lot of our population came from Mississauga and Brampton because they could not identify.  It got too large for them.

[Zeeshan] - If you are a builder then why would you build downtown instead of South of Britannia?       

[Colin] - Well, the cost.  That’s where the whole intensification is about. The infrastructure is already there.  Look at what’s happening in Europe and Asia.  People are going multi-unit because the land and development cost is too high.  The builders are complaining that the development charges are too high. Well, it gives them incentive to build in existing areas.  People can have a walkable downtown.  There is a lot of opportunity here.

[Zeeshan] - Yes, a lot of people I speak with now are a lot more open to having community spaces than their own large yards.

[Colin] - Yes, people have fewer kids now and smaller families.  In my generation everybody had three kids. Now it’s rare.  And you have retired couples and single people and young couples in the neighbourhood as well. 

[Zeeshan] - We should keep it that way.  I sometimes see a risk where we can end up with communities catering to specific demographics.  I like diversity instead.

[Colin] - Yes, we shuld have a mix because it’s appropriate.  We also have younger seniors and older seniors. We have a lot of single people.  If you are a single person then it’s a very lonely town.  There isn’t a lot to do.  Not everybody will be married with 2.5 kids. We have to realize that we have a different culture now.  People complain but I say that’s Milton now, get used to it. 

[Zeeshan] - With that we can conclude.  Thank you so much for taking time out to chat with me.

[Colin] - It wa a pleasure, I look forward to working with you.

[Zeeshan] - Thank you.