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Maria Mavridis – 2022 responses to forum questions!

 

Based solely on her 2022 candidate presentation, these are the specific commitments, promises,

priorities and policy positions she articulated. I have used direct quotations where they

capture the commitment most clearly. All points below are drawn from the transcript.

Core campaign promise

  • The preservation of this community is my top priority.

  • Tourism, traffic, parking and transportation

  • Complete the Tourism Strategy

  • Collaborating to complete the tourism strategy is important to me.

  • Revisit and revise the Transportation Master Plan

  • The master transportation plans that were presented... does not work. We need to take it back to the table, sit down, and look at it.

  • Solve parking problems affecting both residents and workers

 

She specifically identified:

  • Visitor parking

  • Employee parking

  • Residents driveways being blocked

  • Late-night loitering

  • Late-night littering

  • She noted that there were more than 1,700 employees working in the heritage district who also required parking.

  • Improve public transit

  • We still to this day don’t have public transportation.

 

Although she supported the existing on-demand transit system, she said:

  • It too needs a lot of tweaking.

 

Development

  • Support continued development

This was one of her clearest policy positions.

  • I feel we do need to move forward with development

  • Support development in the Glendale area

  • We’ve got the entire Glendale area that needs to be built

  • Use development to generate municipal revenue

She argued that:

  • The funds that would come in from development charges and residential taxes alone will keep the town growing and moving in the right direction.

  • Establish clearer planning rules for developers

  • We do need to set out the OP, the zoning bylaws, policies, and procedures that the developers can follow.

 

Community engagement and communication

  • Make Join the Conversation more interactive

  • She specifically criticized the existing online consultation tool.

  • Join the conversation needs to be a little more interactive and updated.

  • Open the conversation

  • Before joining the conversation, we need to, as council, open the conversation

  • Improve communication about municipal activities

She criticized the lack of communication regarding:

  • Road closures

  • Community events

  • Municipal notices

She specifically advocated bringing back a prominent public event board so residents and

visitors could see upcoming activities.

 

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Municipal grants

  • Continue supporting local charities and not-for-profits

  • There are many not-for-profits and charities in Niagara-on-the-Lake that are deserving of our support.

  • Redirect discretionary funding toward resident-focused organizations

Her position was that:

  • The discretionary funds that come out of the residents' taxes should go towards residential associations.

  • Oppose using discretionary funding to support tourism festivals and events

  • She stated that festivals and events should be promoted through other mechanisms rather than through municipal discretionary grants.

 

Noise bylaw

  • Oppose the proposed 50-55 decibel residential noise bylaw

  • This was an explicit policy position.

  • I support that the council didn’t pass that

  • Revisit the noise bylaw immediately

  • Despite opposing the proposal, she also said: It is very, very important that we revisit this almost immediately with the new council.

  • Begin with enforcement before rewriting the bylaw

  • The noise bylaw needs to be looked at starting from how it will be enforced and work backwards.

 

Short-term rentals (Airbnb)

  • Keep short-term rental properties zoned as residential

  • The zoning needs to remain residential

  • Increase licensing fees for short-term rentals

  • I think that we need to increase licensing fees.

  • Cap the number of short-term rental licences

  • Put a cap at how many licenses are given out for the short-term rentals for Airbnb

  • Require short-term rentals to contribute to the municipal accommodation tax (MAT)

  • Short-term rentals fall under the accommodations and should also pay into the MAT tax eventually

 

One-sentence summary of her platform

Her 2022 platform can be distilled into six commitments:

  1. Preserve the character of the community. 

  2. Complete the tourism strategy.

  3. Rewrite the Transportation Master Plan.

  4. Support continued development, particularly in Glendale.

  5. Improve public engagement and municipal communications.

  6. Reform, rather than restrict, tourism-related issues such as noise and short-term rentals.

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