Six months into his new role as chief administrative officer for the City of Cornwall, Mathieu Fleury says he’s excited to tap into Cornwall’s “significant” potential – and his 12-year stint as an Ottawa city councillor is coming in handy.
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Six months into his new role as chief administrative officer for the City of Cornwall, Mathieu Fleury says he’s excited to tap into Cornwall’s “significant” potential – and his 12-year stint as an Ottawa city councillor is coming in handy.
Fleury decided to leave the political realm in late 2022 after more than a decade on Ottawa city council. After doing contract work for various organizations in the region, now he said he’s hoping to “make a difference” in Cornwall’s future.
Fleury says his extensive experience in local politics has already given him a leg up in his new role.
“(In Ottawa) I worked between 80 and 90 hours a week for 12 years. I was on a range of projects and there was a lot happening,” he said. “I’m a bit unique in my journey in that I’ve touched a lot of areas that gave me an insight in terms of opportunities and risks and roles of municipal government. And that fits well into my abilities to support the goals of the City of Cornwall.”
Despite the geographical and cultural differences between Ottawa and Cornwall, Fleury said the two cities are not as disparate as some might think. Both are “hub cities” that attract people from across the region, he explained, and both cities offer an array of economic opportunities and services. The major difference is the population.
While Ottawa has a population of more than one million people, Cornwall is home to about 50,000 residents. Fleury said this discrepancy is part of what attracted him to his new job.
“The scale is different. (Cornwall) has close to 800 employees and a range of services that are the same level as the City of Ottawa, whether they’re emergency services, social housing, long-term care, or roads and recreation,” he explained. “So they’re very similar, but at a different scale, and the ability here for me to influence that scale with those projects is exciting. There’s an opportunity to make real change.”
As a source of hope and inspiration for the progress that can be achieved with a smaller city, Fleury points to a project he was involved in when he first took on his new role.
“There was an encampment here and, within three months, we’d rented long-term care home units where each person now has a room and private bathroom as part of our winter housing plan,” he said. “There are no encampments now. It was disbanded, and not because police came in, but because we found the units.”
While Ottawa and Cornwall might share some characteristics, Fleury said their economies are unique. In contrast to Ottawa, where the main industries are the public service, tech and tourism, Cornwall relies on large industries that Fleury said are now undergoing a “transformation.”
Fleury said the city is looking to “new frontiers to develop the economy,” with expansions in logistics and transportation, as well as small-scale entrepreneurship.
“This is a very important point in time for the Cornwall economy,” he said. “We have so many residents who are retiring from industries and Cornwall is their home city. There are (baby) boomers who have lived in Cornwall and their families are here developing our main streets.
“Then we have newcomers coming to our city and the potential to build up our small businesses and local economies is immense.”
Reaching that potential won’t come without challenges, Fleury noted.
Like many municipalities in the region, adding more affordable housing is a top priority for Cornwall, he said. There has been increasing demand for housing development, he explained, adding the “housing landscape” in Cornwall could prove tricky.
“There’s been a lot of green development and new subdivisions, but now we’re talking about infilling and even adding housing on the waterfront, and for some that’s scary, and for others on council it’s needed and has to be part of the plan,” Fleury said.
One such proposal calls for two towers at 10 Brookdale Ave., offering 506 residential dwelling units, amenity space, parking and commercial units on a 2.8-acre parcel of land. The 18- and 21-storey highrises would tower over the St. Lawrence River and Cornwall Canal.
The proposal is one that Fleury said the city is both “excited and nervous about,” but not one that is unfamiliar to him. He noted that Ottawa’s Rideau Street underwent a similar transformation while he was a councillor that saw two- and three-storey buildings along the downtown thoroughfare make way for highrises.
In Cornwall, though, policies are not set up for this kind of development, Fleury explained.
“The Cornwall planning department is familiar with managing the new subdivisions, but that’s very different from heights and infills and this plan,” he said. “The policy work to position the city to be ready for those improvements has not been completed.”
While the former industrial site on Brookdale Avenue holds opportunities for increased density and height, allowing the developer to build units of different sizes aimed at renters with a range of incomes, Fleury said the project has “been a bit of a scramble” without pre-established policy work.
“The downside is when it comes to the engagement on a policy planning front, with residents and stakeholders ahead of them so people were ready, the city didn’t have that opportunity,” he said.
“We want an environment where we have that planning policy set up prior to receiving those applications, but the economics made it so the application came before that,” Fleury continued. “Otherwise, we would have had a proposal in front of council by now.”
The city is also working with Transport Canada, which owns the Cornwall waterfront land, to have the ownership transferred in order for the site to be serviced and redeveloped. Fleury said he is “confident” that will happen by the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Another development that has been the talk of the town – and the region, Fleury laughed – is the Great Wolf Lodge resort proposed for Cornwall.
Last year, Great Wolf Resorts announced it had entered into an agreement of purchase and sale for 40 acres of land along Highway 401 at the northern extension of Nick Kaneb Drive in Cornwall.
But while the initial announcement said the resort, which represents a US$350-million investment by the company, would be built within the next few years, the project is awaiting support from the provincial government and land servicing from the City of Cornwall.
To uphold its end of the agreement, the city must extend the road and municipal water and sewer network to that plot of land, a project to which it has committed $15 million and that Fleury said is planned for this year.
“(A Cornwall resort) is a tremendous opportunity, but there’s been continued rumours of hot and cold,” Fleury said. “Our community is tight, which is a strength, but sometimes there are compounding rumours that are destructive and not productive.”
Fleury said residents and resort-goers can be assured that Great Wolf Lodge and the City of Cornwall are “on the same wavelength.” In fact, representatives of the proposed resort visited the site in person earlier this week.
“We have obligations for servicing the site, which are continuing to advance, and we want to respect (the company’s) tight timeline,” Fleury said. “Great Wolf is also continuing negotiations with economic development funding from the province, but it continues to be heading in the right direction and we will be seeing an announcement in the near future.
“Definitely, seeing them in person in our city this week is a good direction.”
As he looks ahead to 2024, Fleury said he sees a bright future for Cornwall, and it’s one he’s excited to be part of.
While transportation and logistics industries will remain, he says the city has opportunities to look to “emerging economies,” explore development options, and make Cornwall an attractive home for young families and newcomers.
“We’re thinking of university and college programs and the future of some industries and asking, ‘How can we position Cornwall to be on the leading edge?’” he said. “When you walk into a city like Cornwall, you feel potential. There’s pride and there’s an immense ability for cities to advance when they’re at this scale.”
