Q+A: Mayor Josh Morgan looks ahead to London’s 2025 challenges

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London Mayor Josh Morgan is halfway through his four-year term, and has had no shortage of issues to tackle, from housing and homelessness to an exploding population and steep property tax hikes. City hall reporter Jack Moulton caught up with Morgan to discuss what Londoners can expect in the new year. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You are officially halfway through your term. Is London in a better place now than when you started?

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A: It is. There are certainly still challenges, affordability challenges, we haven’t gone as far as we’d like on the housing file or homelessness, but they’ve all started trending in the right direction. On public safety, look at the way that the stats have turned this year and where they’re starting to trend now. On homelessness, it will not feel like it’s getting better when you walk and you still see people on the street. But what we’ve been able to do there is bring more people indoors. The problem would be worse today, if not for the almost 100 units of supportive housing that we’ve been able to create, the hundreds more units of affordable housing, the rebuild of London and Middlesex Community Housing properties.

Q: The population of London and Middlesex County is forecast to swell by more than 50 per cent in the next 25 years. Is the city ready?

A: No, the city is not currently ready for that. Those numbers are massive, and the city will only be ready for that with the support of the provincial and federal governments. London is a desirable place to come, it is an important economic centre, people are going to come here and we don’t have a choice. If government grants don’t go up to help, if we don’t get the support we need, property taxes go up. You’re seeing that in London, and I hate it, and everybody else hates it.

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Q: On the budget, you mentioned that, going forward in 2026 and 2027, any further cuts to bring down tax hikes might require cuts to services Londoners care about or rely on. What could that look like?

A: This is why a new (financial) deal for municipalities is very important, because it’s not just going to be us. You’re going to see other cities start to talk about the services they offer, because we do not have an endless ability to raise property taxes. I don’t like the property tax increases at the level they are, but we need investments in public safety, homelessness and housing, in transit. Those were the big asks, and we needed to catch up on some things that were under-invested on.

Q: There wasn’t as much movement as you, council and Londoners might have wanted on homelessness. What can we expect going into this new year?

A: There wasn’t as much movement as we wanted because our limiting factor is provincial operating dollars. This is where I’ll give the province a lot of credit; they listened to London specifically, they looked at the hubs model, and then they designed the HART hub application, which we’re submitting to, and if we get that, that’s like three hubs in one. We needed to focus on the HART hub application, but we can open another expression of interest for the hubs that are part of our plan, and that will happen in the new year.

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Q: London’s made some fairly significant changes to spur more housing. At this rate, is there more that can be done? What about development charges?

A: London has moved from (a city that) is lagging in the building of housing to (a city that’s) now leading in the construction of housing, and that is because we’ve made the changes that we needed to make to set the groundwork to have that private capital flow here and build the housing we need. Let’s just confront development charges straight up: I think ours have been reasonable, in consultation with the development community. The province brought in statutory exemptions to, say, if you build purpose-built rentals or affordable housing, you’re going to have to give development charge waivers. That means property taxpayers are now putting money in the development charges fund to pay for exemptions. That went up in 2021 from about $3 million, to about $28 million this past year; that is completely unsustainable.

Q: Looking forward to the latter half of your term, have your priorities shifted?

A: No. Not only have they not shifted, but we’ve been aggressively tackling them. When I came in, I said we needed to create density in the downtown, and over the next 10 years, we need to build 50,000 new homes, and we need 10,000 of them in the downtown. We’ve now had cranes in the sky in the downtown, we’ve got multiple residential developments approved and under construction. (The) priority on homelessness, (we) definitely have continued to lead the way on that. I also said we have to have a livable city. We moved $4 million to accelerate the parks and recreation master plan. So, you’re going to see a bunch of projects over the next few years with that new injection of cash, where improvements are coming to your neighbourhood park and your area of the city.

jmoulton@postmedia.com

@JackAtLFPress

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