Sarnia Journal Questionnaire

Sarnia Journal Questionnaire: Chris Oram

1. Housing — Sarnia recorded 654 housing starts in 2025 and collected another $400,000 from Ontario’s Building Faster Fund. Lambton’s own plan says the county still needs 1,096 affordable and specialized homes over 10 years, including 412 rent-geared-to-income units. About 1,000 households are on the community-housing wait list. Rents have risen 38 to 42% since 2020, and the county lost a net 190 affordable rentals between 2016 and 2021. What city tools will you use so new supply includes homes people who already live here can afford — not only market units that clear a provincial scoreboard?

Housing is mostly a county responsibility, but the city still has an important role in shaping where and how new homes are built. Under Section 106 of the Municipal Act, municipalities cannot offer direct financial incentives to a specific developer, such as targeted tax breaks, loans, or free land. These forms of “bonusing” are prohibited.

However, the Planning Act provides a key tool. Municipalities may establish a Community Improvement Plan (CIP), which allows financial incentives for redevelopment, infill, building rehabilitation, and affordable housing. These incentives must be offered through a transparent, universal program rather than to one developer alone.

I believe new housing should be planned according to actual community needs. Instead of relying on large subdivisions filled with high‑priced homes, we should encourage a broader mix of housing types: detached homes, duplexes, row houses, and purpose‑built rental units, with a strong emphasis on affordability.

Housing solutions should also include the redevelopment of vacant buildings and underused lots throughout the city. These sites represent real opportunities for creating affordable homes without expanding our footprint unnecessarily.

Building new homes simply to qualify for provincial rebates is not a long‑term strategy. If residential growth is not paired with land development for new business and industry, we risk repeating past infrastructure challenges. New subdivisions require costly new infrastructure, and the property taxes from single‑detached homes rarely cover the full lifecycle cost of maintaining that infrastructure as it ages. When that time comes, the city is left to absorb the shortfall, hence a future liability.

That’s why attracting new businesses, as neighbouring municipalities have done, and encouraging construction of larger multi‑residential buildings must be part of the plan.

These developments generate significantly more tax revenue relative to the infrastructure they require, helping reduce future financial pressures and supporting a more balanced, sustainable approach to growth.

Stimulating business/industry growth in concert with a long-term housing strategy has another purpose: People who buy these new homes can only do so if they have a place to work.

Also, addressing supportive housing and assisted living facilities needs to be part of the strategy. As the placement of  such housing options can generate controversy, long term planning and establishing zoning bylaws for them is essential.

2. Police spending — When Derek Davis became chief in 2022, the Sarnia Police Service operating budget was $27.36 million. The board has now sent a 2027 operating figure of about $41 million to city council — roughly $14 million more per year than that 2022 baseline. Percentage increases have been getting smaller. The dollar total has not. If you are elected, will you push the police board to freeze or cut operating spending, and what number would you accept? If you now sit on that board, or recently did, say how you voted on these budgets and whether you would vote differently next term.

I speak to this issue from the inside out. Thirty-two years with the Sarnia Police Service gives me a perspective no budget document can replicate.

Sarnia's police service was, at times, slow to modernize. That's fair criticism, and it created a genuine backlog of legitimate needs. When Chief Davis arrived from one of the province's wealthiest and fastest-growing regions, he brought ambitions sized for that environment. A Police Services Board with limited policing experience provided little friction. The conditions were ideal for ‘salesmanship.’

I'll give credit where it's due. The canine unit was long overdue and is genuinely cost-effective. Some catch-up investment was warranted.

But I also see extravagance. A second deputy chief. A wave of new hires, many recruited from Halton Region come to mind. And yet, for all that investment, I don't see a measurably greater police presence in our neighbourhoods. That disconnect is what concerns me most.

Before this council agrees to another dollar of police budget growth, I will insist on four things:

1. A frank deployment audit. How many sworn officers ,trained at significant public expense are filling inside, administrative, or support roles that a civilian employee could handle, or could what they do be blended into other roles? Are specialist officers working in the specialties taxpayers paid to certify them in? If not, why not? The community deserves officers in the community, not behind desks.

2. An adequacy standards review. Ontario's police adequacy regulations set a floor, not a ceiling. I want an independent review of every area where Sarnia's service exceeds those mandated standards, and a clear, evidence-based justification for each one. Exceeding standards isn't automatically wrong; spending public money without scrutiny is.

3. An overtime analysis. Overtime is one of the most telling indicators of operational efficiency and scheduling discipline. I want a full accounting of how overtime is tracked, managed, and reported to the board.

4. Equipment/Resource acquisition and use.

   
   

The principle is simple: before asking for more, demonstrate that what you have is being spent well. That is not anti-police. it is pro-accountability, and every resident who picks up a tax bill deserves nothing less.

Further, I see the Sarnia per-capita costs have crept up the $450 range(rough estimate).  There are a few cities that are higher, but we are near the top. Another consideration in budgeting for police.

3. The police headquarters — Financing for a new headquarters in the $91-million range was pulled from the 2026 city budget. The service is leasing two off-site locations. Christina Street remains headquarters. What should happen next: a new central building, a cheaper distributed model, a real repair-and-reuse plan for the station that exists, or something else?

I publicly stated at a debate that the proposed new police building was ‘the wrong infrastructure proposal at the wrong time.’

Given the sticker-shock police budgets over the last three or four years, and then adding a new build to the city’s infrastructure when the city is lagging on upkeep and needed expansion on existing infrastructure to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars, it is too much to ask.

To put it in perspective, the new station, as it was proposed, would constitute a cost of more than one year’s worth of total city own-source income.

We must look at a ‘repair-and-reuse’ plan for the near future until council gets a handle on a number of financial issues. We cannot abandon other priorities.

I am open to hearing other proposals as we move forward. There are properties to the south of the police station presently for sale (food for thought). No matter what happens over the long term, the main police building should remain downtown. The park on Modeland is not a good location.

Also, until the Police Services Board sorts out its mess with the suspensions of senior staff, etc., a new police station is not the most urgent matter. (I have many questions about that)   

5. Sarnia BACE — Council has already put city money behind the BACE sport and activity campus. The Curran family donated the 27 acres. What is your position on the city’s remaining capital role, on operating risk if revenues fall short, and on guaranteed public and low-barrier access so this does not become a private-club facility with a municipal invoice?

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Sarnia Tennis Club, one of the community groups behind this proposal. Our club voted to contribute a significant sum of its own money toward making this happen, as did the other participating groups. I want that on the record.

With that transparency established, I support this project, and I do so on its merits.

Sarnia has needed an indoor community sports facility for years. Council has been too slow to act, and other Ontario cities have long since built what we are only now considering. The opportunity in front of us is a strong one: land at no cost to the city is a rare advantage that may not present itself again, and the coalition of motivated, self-funding community groups behind this proposal signals exactly the kind of partnership that makes projects like this viable.

The demand is real and it is growing. The Sarnia Tennis Club has been active for decades and has an expanding membership. Many of our players currently drive to Port Huron to use indoor courts in the winter. That is demand we are exporting to another country. Pickleball, meanwhile, is the fastest-growing recreational sport in North America. An indoor facility positions Sarnia to capture a market that is only going in one direction.

The other involved groups also have active and growing memberships. All these groups, along with the entire community will make great use of this facility, making it highly viable.

The financial model is also sound. User fees and membership revenues are designed to sustain operations, and the risk of underutilization is, in my view, negligible. Beyond day-to-day use, a facility of this kind opens the door to high-level tournaments and major community events: economic and civic activity that other cities have been benefiting from for years.

On the question of municipal investment, I believe there are creative funding structures worth exploring , including profit-sharing arrangements with the city that allow any long-term public contribution to be recovered over time rather than treated as a straight expenditure. That conversation should be part of the approval process.

This is a worthwhile investment in Sarnia's quality of life, it’s recreational infrastructure, and it adds to the  ability to attract and retain residents. I support moving it forward.

6. The waterfront — Council adopted the Downtown Waterfront Master Plan in 2022 — about 3.5 kilometres of public shoreline, a 15-year horizon, and a $55-million (2021 dollars) capital and operating program. Ferry Dock Hill is the first major piece. Are you committed to moving that plan forward in the next term? What is the first project you would fund, and what would you refuse to let private towers or industrial conflict quietly replace?

The waterfront is essentially another matter that relates to infrastructure spending.

It is a phenomenal feature in our city that needs to be maintained and improved as a major attraction.

That said, everything from Ferry Dock Hill down needs to be looked at in terms of priorities.

This also ties in to our dire need to rehabilitate the downtown.

The Ferry Dock Hill proposed development is ambitious, and can be done in increments, at the pace budgeting allows. This could be the start of making downtown more inviting.

A boat dock is proposed as a down-the-road possibility in the plan. To make that worthwhile, establishing the downtown as a destination for day-trippers is essential.

That said, this is a good topic for discussion for the incoming council. The private enterprise/public feature question is a multi-faceted issue. Perhaps there is room for a public-private partnership in this area to accelerate the process.

A successful downtown requires the involvement of private enterprise and entrepreneurship. Perhaps that can be extended pragmatically with the waterfront-downtown connection without it being over-commercialized.

7. Downtown vacancies, small business and public art — Vacant storefronts on Christina and Front are an ownership and grant-design problem, not a branding problem. Murals and other public art in Sarnia have been paid for by a patchwork of Creative County grants, city facade money, nuSarnia, property owners and volunteers. Studies of mural streets elsewhere link them to higher foot traffic when they sit next to restaurants and shops — not when a painting is dropped onto a dead block. Would you expand or redesign the downtown / Mitton Village Community Improvement Plan grants, and should the city create a dedicated multi-year public-art budget with artist pay standards?

Yes. The Downtown and Mitton Village CIPs should be updated to focus on vacancy reduction, coordinated block‑level improvements, and small‑business readiness. Sarnia should consider a dedicated, multi‑year public‑art budget, perhaps covered or enhanced by sponsorships from businesses that would benefit from such efforts, so public art is planned alongside active storefronts rather than placed on dead blocks. Standards of artistic work should be set to complement the area.

8. Bluewater Power — Sarnia owns about 86% of Bluewater Power. The 2000 shareholders’ agreement kept politicians off the operating board. Council, as majority shareholder, annually confirms the directors on a slate recommended by Bluewater’s own nominating committee. The utility returned just over $3.3 million to Sarnia in 2024. Should a city councillor sit on that board, or should the independent-board model stay? What extra public reporting, if any, do you want from a company the city already owns?

As the major stakeholder, council should be represented on the board of Bluewater Power. Reporting should be enhanced to the point the average citizen is able to see what goes on with Bluewater Power, as we all pay a substantial bill each month.

9. The county housing numbers -Lambton is the housing and homelessness service manager. The county still needs 1,096 affordable and specialized homes over 10 years, including 412 rent-geared-to-income units. About 1,000 households are on the wait list, and the county’s own assessment counts roughly 700 suppressed households already living here. If you sit on county council, what number will you accept being measured on this term — units approved, units opened, or shelter beds closed — and what city-side zoning or process change would you make so those projects do not die at Sarnia’s planning table?

I am not running to be on county council, but as a city councillor, I see a role the city must play in the housing issue.

I believe the city was caught unprepared with the Indwell issue, and such a dilemma creates a learning opportunity. The city must address supportive housing in its zoning bylaws. There are several areas of the city that could be available and are better positioned for such facilities.

That said, supportive housing is only one part of the housing issue. Good communication between the city and county is essential to be on the same page as to the need for affordable housing, and what each can do to expedite the supply. Streamlining red tape and other approval requirements at the city level must be explored.

10. Homelessness is a housing issue — Supportive and affordable housing files in Sarnia have repeatedly hit neighbourhood opposition, extra conditions and delay even when they meet the official plan and the building code. Encampments and overflow shelters remain the visible edge of the shortage. How would you stop a project that meets the rules from being delayed to death, and what should happen when people are living in parks?

The challenges surrounding supportive housing, affordable housing, and homeless encampments are being felt in almost every urban community, and it’s fair to say that few municipalities were fully prepared for how quickly these issues have grown.

I’ve toured Indwell’s facilities in St. Thomas and London, and the St. Thomas model in particular shows how much location matters. Those sites are situated in areas with natural buffer areas between the buildings and nearby residential neighbourhoods, and as a result, their impact on surrounding R1 and R2 zones has been minimal.

By contrast, the proposed George Street site (which did not meet existing zoning laws) sits on a very constrained lot in a neighbourhood that has already been living beside a shelter for years. Adding a much larger supportive‑housing building there would place a disproportionate burden on that block, especially on such an under-sized lot.

There is a clear need for supportive housing in Sarnia, but the city must be proactive in identifying locations that offer appropriate separation and transition zones, like what exists in St. Thomas, to reduce conflict and avoid unnecessary controversy.

This is also a county‑wide responsibility. Other Lambton municipalities, such as Petrolia, already have the local services needed to support some level of supportive housing and should be part of the broader solution.

Updating our planning and zoning bylaws to clearly define supportive and affordable housing and to map out suitable areas in advance would help prevent or minimize neighbourhood objections, many of which can be legitimate.

Proactive planning will reduce delays, create clearer expectations for all parties, and ensure that supportive housing is placed where it can succeed for residents and the surrounding community.

As for people living in parks, the courts have made it clear: They cannot be evicted unless suitable shelter spots are available. That necessitates that the city work with the various agencies that provide shelters. This is only a temporary solution, but the goal is to help people transition to a better level of independence.

11. City and county — Sarnia has five votes on Lambton County council. Housing, homelessness and social services sit at the county table; planning and policing sit at the city. What is underfunded at the county, what Sarnia habit makes the county’s work harder, and what would you change first in how the two councils work together?

We must realize that the City of Sarnia covers almost 50% of the county tax income. So, when we talk about the county spending money, it is our money as well.

It seems obvious we are underfunded when it comes to supportive housing and affordable housing, as we are well behind on meeting the demand.

I don’t know what if anything the city does to make the county’s work harder, but communication with citizens needs to be improved immensely, as the Indwell issue has shown.

Chris Oram