Small Steps Create Big Shifts-Growing Saint John
Back in 2021, the growth team had some great growth with building permit totals reaching 254 Million dollars. That was great and one of my focuses was to have Smart Growth in the City of Saint John. This means being ready for growth and approving development projects that will work in the community for years to come. We went along approving projects and this last year in 2025, I am happy to say that building permits totaled 389.9 Million dollars. This total is record breaking development and will help to support the downfall in infrastructure deficit in the future.
One thing that I did to support this was send information to Envision Saint John on developers that were not working here in the City but investing in the Atlantic provinces. I asked Envision if they are proactively reaching out to developers and they said yes. We have since then had one of those businesses come into the city to do business. The business information that I gave, I don’t know personally but I watch other councils and had been collecting their information over the years. This work that Envision has been doing is paying off. I appreciate their efforts in this area. It is going to really help the city a lot in the future.
How will that support the 500 Million dollar infrastructure deficit? Great question. Once these buildings are finished being built, they will contribute more to our tax based growth. It is that taxed base growth that will allow future councils to invest in services that Saint John residents deserve. It will ensure that fire and police services are sustainable and their equipment should have more opportunity to be replaced ensuring more efficiency and less expenses in repairs in the department. Equipment makes up some of the infrastructure deficit dollars.
One of the other goals that I had when getting elected was to create more opportunities for job opportunities in the city. The thought that I had was one that many people had around the table and that was expanding our industrial parks. I was tired of hearing that Moncton gets this and Moncton has all of the jobs knowing that Moncton has 4 industrial parks. We have two and we needed to expand on that. Our council waited until a consulting company came back with recommendations on where to expand these services and the recommendation was clear- Lorneville was the answer. We did have opportunity to expand there and there is interest coming to Envision Saint John for potential investments in the city. The city went and did their due diligence and we went ahead and approved rezoning and the Industrial Park board was put in place so that there would be a focus on it.
The growth team has come up with grants to encourage development including large scale development projects. It has been incredible watching all of the work that city staff have done. The growth team has expanded a great deal. I am very proud of the work that they have gotten done.