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Recommendation Based on the analysis contained in the following document, we recommend that the City of St. John’s pursue amalgamation with the City of Mount Pearl and the Elizabeth Park, Evergreen Village, and St. Anne’s Industrial Park areas of the Town of Paradise. This amalgamation will bring together within one municipal unit all lands that drain into the Waterford River Basin and then into St. John’s Harbour. Exclusion of the areas of Paradise examined provides no advantage. The balance of Paradise will be better off with a more consistent level of service and lower tax rates. In addition, postponing this relatively minor addition will simply leave the issue for a further debate in the future. Acknowledgements This is the fifth report on the subject of St. John’s and its amalgamation with adjacent municipal units prepared by John Heseltine, MCIP, and the second in which Tom McGuire, M.A. (Econ.) has assisted. Mr. Heseltine has graduate degrees in Urban and Regional Planning (Queens) and Public Administration (Dalhousie). Mr. McGuire has a graduate degree in Economics (Dalhousie). The authors have worked together regularly for more than a decade on economic impact assessments and cost-benefit studies, as well as studies related to tourism, economic development, and public administration. Mr. Heseltine has completed many assignments for the City of St. John’s. He led a team that worked with City staff to respond to the proposal of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to amalgamate municipalities on the Northeast Avalon in 1990 and authored the resulting Position Paper for the City. He has also prepared reports relating to annexation of lands by the City of Halifax, on amalgamation of Summerside and Charlottetown, PEI, and on behalf of the City of St. John’s in response to the application of the City of Mount Pearl to annex the Southlands as well as previous editions of this document. The current report is the fourth review of amalgamation prepared for St. John’s. It provides an overview of amalgamation experience in St. John’s and across Atlantic Canada. It also contains an assessment of the viability of amalgamating Mount Pearl to St. John’s, and possibly portions of the Town of Paradise that drain into Mount Pearl and then into the City of St. John’s, including Elizabeth Park, Evergreen Village, and St. Anne’s Industrial Park. For the current version of the report, we have updated information on the City of St. John’s and the amalgamation experience on the Northeast Avalon Peninsula in consultation with City of St. John’s staff. We have also re-interviewed many senior municipal administrators across Atlantic Canada previously contacted for earlier reports and/or other municipal staff familiar with current municipal operations and financial conditions. As we have adjusted the focus in the current study to also investigate several areas in Atlantic Canada where amalgamation has been considered but not pursued, we interviewed some representatives from those areas for the first time. The authors would like to express their appreciation to all of the individuals who have assisted us by providing information and/or taking the time to participate in interviews for this and previous work on municipal reorganization for St. John’s. Executive Summary 1.0 INTRODUCTION This is the fourth version of this report. The format is not greatly changed from earlier versions, which each established the background of municipal reorganization in Canada, with an emphasis on amalgamation in the 1990s. They have also assessed key municipal amalgamations undertaken in the Atlantic Provinces during that period. The preceding reports have then reviewed municipal service delivery in St. John’s and the Northeast Avalon, and the anticipated fiscal consequences of a recommended amalgamation of St. John’s, Mount Pearl, and a portion of the Town of Paradise. This report covers the same topics, although we have made some adjustments to the order for this edition. It draws now on a growing depth of experience with amalgamated municipalities in the region, which now have a track record that can be compared to those areas that have remained unorganized. 2.0 AMALGAMATION AND ST. JOHN’S Like most cities in North America, St. John’s owes much of its growth to annexation and amalgamation. The city took on areas on its periphery largely at the behest of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1963, 1984, and 1992. It has expended substantial funds to upgrade the areas for which it has assumed responsibility. Since 1992, the neighbouring City of Mount Pearl has twice attempted to annex attractive lands from St. John’s. St. John’s, for its part, has through previous versions of this report and the statements of its staff and political representatives, made the case that Mount Pearl should be joined with St. John’s to strengthen the Northeast Avalon region and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The amalgamation of St. John’s and Mount Pearl has been adopted by the St. John’s as a Strategic Direction in the City’s recent Strategic Plan. This version of St. John’s Amalgamation Review has been prepared to support and advance that initiative by outlining the case for amalgamating the Cities of St. John’s and Mount Pearl and the portion of the Town of Paradise within the Waterford River watershed into a single, unified city and stronger capital for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. 3.0 MUNCIPAL REORGANIZATION IN CANADA The need for regional governance is almost unassailable. Even the strongest opponents of amalgamation recognize that the scope of at least some services extends beyond typical municipal boundaries. Canada has been a leader in the establishment and refinement of regional governments. Metro Toronto, which was established in 1953, was an immediate and widely admired success. It led to the establishment of similar two-tier regional governments throughout Ontario and in other major Canadian centres such as Winnipeg and Vancouver. St. John’s Amalgamation Review 2011 ES.1 Executive Summar Atlantic Canada, which largely missed, the era of two-tier regional government, initiated the second wave of regional reform in Canada led by the Newfoundland program, which among other changes resulted in the reorganization of municipalities on the Northeast Avalon in 1992. Several other major Atlantic Canadian communities were also amalgamated into single tier regional municipalities, most notably Halifax. Subsequently, Toronto was also amalgamated into a unified city and by the end of the decade only three of Canada’s twelve largest metropolitan regions had a two-tier regional structure. The upheaval of the 1990s, however, came to an end led by the forceful resistance of academic proponents of public choice theory, who have pointed to the examples offered by many large American cities that are divided into as many as 200 municipal units. The example is not, however, compelling, especially when one considers the problems of cities like Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis that are offered as models. Many Canadian analysts continue to see a need for consolidation for regions facing economic challenges and the benefits that have been gained by the many regions that have been reformed. 4.0 AMALGAMATION IN ATLANTIC CANADA To respond to criticism of amalgamation when we prepared the first version of this report in 1999, we reviewed the nine major amalgamations approved in Atlantic Canada in the 1990s to assess whether the new governments had performed effectively or not. We have revised and added to this evidence in each subsequent edition to develop a picture of the evolution of amalgamated municipalities and, in this version, have added a comparison of amalgamated municipalities to areas in Atlantic Canada for which reorganization was considered but for one reason or another not pursued. Although most indicated in our first round of interviews that the transition presented substantial challenges, nearly all have now adjusted to new structures, as have the citizens they serve. The City of Miramichi, New Brunswick, which struggled with substantial increases in costs immediately following amalgamation, has now, for example, brought its expenditures in line with pre-amalgamation levels. In Grand Falls- Windsor; Charlottetown and Summerside, PEI; the Saint John area of New Brunswick; and three regional municipalities in Nova Scotia, indications are that amalgamation has either been neutral or has reduced municipal expenditures. Comparison of amalgamated municipalities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to unamalgamated regions and municipalities in general based on municipal financial data published annually by each Province indicates that the amalgamated units have controlled their costs as well or better than their unconsolidated counterparts. There are many lessons that can be derived from recent amalgamation experience in Atlantic Canada. Certainly transition has been smoother where municipal administrators supported the amalgamation initiative. Most important though, the evidence strongly indicates that amalgamation can save money, can stabilize financially troubled local government, and has ultimately been durable in every region that it was undertaken. ES.2 St. John’s Amalgamation Review 2011 Executive Summary 5.0 MUNICIPAL SERVICES IN ST. JOHN’S The Cities of Mount Pearl and St. John’s, and the portion of Paradise under consideration for amalgamation have similar levels of service. They are all urban areas in which most development is connected to piped water and sewer services. These services are shared among the three municipalities under the oversight of the City of St. John’s. Nearly all wastewater is ultimately disposed in St. John’s Harbour, where it is now treated by a sewage treatment system largely located on St. John’s Harobur. Water supply areas are also nearly entirely in St. John’s but the infrastructure is shared among the municipalities.

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