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OPINION: Stats debunk Sarnia’s old grey mare image

George Mathewson Sarnia is a city of old folks. A place where retirees cash in their chips, schools close, kids flee and the only real growth industry is retirement homes. Right? Well, not exactly according to a new study.
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George Mathewson

Sarnia is a city of old folks. A place where retirees cash in their chips, schools close, kids flee and the only real growth industry is retirement homes.

Right?

Well, not exactly according to a new study.

Sarnia has a population of just over 75,000 people. Of those, 19% are age 65 or older and another 21% are under the age of 20, according to a comparative report on 105 Ontario municipalities from BMA Management Consulting.

Compared to the Greater Toronto Area, Sarnia is indeed a city of fogies. Just 13% of the GTA’s population has reached retirement age and 26% are children and teens.

But the GTA is an entity onto its own. And when Sarnia’s age demographics are more reasonably compared to the rest of the province they look remarkably unremarkable.

In fact, the percentage of seniors in Sarnia is either on par with or just marginally above its municipal counterparts in every region of Ontario, outside the GTA.

The story’s the same for the percentage of young people.

Bottom line: Sarnia may indeed be getting older but once you get outside Toronto so is the rest of the province.

The annual BMA report is a gold mine for stat freaks.

When I was a kid Sarnia was the 10th largest city Ontario; but it has since fallen to 31st overall.

Between 2006 and 2016, however, the population rose 3.9% to 75,165. Surprisingly, that places the city in the middle of the pack for population growth over the past decade.

Lambton Shores, Chatham-Kent and Windsor – nearby municipalities to which Sarnia is often compared - had stagnant or declining populations over the same period.

Economically, it’s a mixed bag. Sarnia had one of the lowest debt loads per capita in the province in 2015 but new construction activity was pathetically low.

The average household income of $89,698 was slightly below the provincial median of $90,504.

In fact, Sarnia is middle of the pack for many of the comparators including the cost of public transit, storm sewers, garbage collection, running City Hall, etc.

One exception is fire and police protection.

Sarnia Fire and Rescue costs each resident $256 a year. That’s far above the provincial average of $173 and the highest among all 25 cities in Ontario with a population of 30,000 to 100,000.

For police protection, Sarnians pay $329 for every $100,000 of tax assessment, compared to the average $297.

Despite all that, residential property taxes are relatively low, according to the study.

The average tax bill on a detached bungalow last year, for example, was $2,934, ranking Sarnia in the lowest one-third.

The owner of an average two-story home paid $4,505, mid-range, while the taxes on the average “senior executive” home were among the lowest in the province at $4,954.

The 2016 BMA Municipal Study can be downloaded, in two parts, at www.sarnia.ca. Look under the “City Government” tab.


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