Month: February 2024

The Town of Hudson isn’t using its multi-million-dollar surpluses and cash reserves to best advantage, according to an audit of its fiscal procedures by the Quebec Municipal Commission (CMQ), the municipal affairs minister’s governance arm.

Worse, says the CMQ, there has been an historic lack of accountability and followup when it comes to knowing how tax dollars are being spent until it’s too late to do anything about it.

With an accumulated surplus in excess of $8M and long-term debt of close to $23M at the end of 2023, Hudson was one of three similar-sized towns (with Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier and Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan) flagged last May for in-depth audits to determine why they were piling up year-over-year cash reserves instead of providing residents with services, leveraging infrastructure improvements or paying down long-term debt.

In Hudson’s case, the municipal affairs ministry had already noted the town’s total debt load per resident — $1.85 per $100 evaluation — because anything over $1 per $100 is considered high.

Posted this morning (Tuesday, Feb. 27) on the CMQ website, the audit will be be tabled at the March 4 council meeting. On March 11, financial consultants RCGT (Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton), mandated in 2023 to prepare the Town’s financial portrait and projection for 2023 to 2028, will present their report to residents, a fact the CMQ audit took into consideration.

Most of the 31-page document applies to all three municipalities, beginning with the observation that surpluses and reserves are not well integrated with the planning process. Councils and staff didn’t prioritise how or where the monies should be spent. Triennial investment plans (PTIs), adopted along with annual budgets, were concocted with minimal public input and didn’t conform to Cities and Towns Act requirements that funding sources be included. Although councillors discussed how PTI projects were to be funded, this wasn’t shared with the population, leading to a possible transparency issue with residents.  

Without transparency, there can be no accountability, the report continued. “Without the accountability that the citizens have a right to, a municipality can’t guarantee sustainable finances.” Without sustainable finances, a town makes itself vulnerable to unforeseen situations.

The CMQ’s second observation: none of the three municipalities has a formal framework for how they earmark their surpluses and cash reserves. In the case of Hudson and St. Gabriel, a lack of followup mechanisms means the management of these surpluses and reserves is left to individuals, with no guarantee the funds will be spent according to the town’s long-term strategic plan — if there is one.

The audit singles Hudson out for special mention on issues dating back to 2013, including:

— taxing property owners before the enabling loan bylaws were approved by Quebec or shifted from bridge financing to long-term debt, then failing to compensate them for the excess collected;

— failing to make clear the funding source for spending bylaws until the end of the fiscal year, long after decisions had already been made;

— shifting funds between earmarked surpluses without enabling resolutions.

Most of the allegations have already been the subject of management letters from the town’s external auditors. The overtaxing of property owners connected to the municipal sewer system  was dealt with by the previous council, although the victims were never compensated. 

“The report makes clear to me that the CMQ is prepared to blame the past and point to the bright future,” said a source familiar with the file. “It is positive [and] points to a future plan. Still curious what that is.”

Mayor Hutchison mentioned it in passing but most people probably missed it. For the next four months, you won’t be allowed to do anything to your house, commercial building or property that will be affected by the bylaws the town wants to adopt. One way to find out who and what will change.

So don’t be cutting any two-inch trees without checking in with Urban Planning.

Under Quebec’s Land Use and Development Act (LAU), Hudson’s proposed planning bylaw revisions trigger a four-month freeze on any application or operation which would be altered or refused once the two bylaws are given final adoption.

But if council fails to adopt bylaws 767 and 768 within that window for whatever reason, the freeze is automatically lifted, leaving only the town’s stale-dated interim control bylaw (RCI) to block property owners from demanding permits under current bylaws.

Two months after that, the proposed replacements become what is known in municipal parlance as zombie bylaws — still on the books but inoperative.  

The countdown began at the Jan. 10 council meeting where notices of motion for draft bylaws 767 and 768 were presented, followed by their adoption.

LAU Art. 114: When a notice of motion has been given to adopt or amend a zoning by-law, no building plan may be approved nor may any permit or certificate be granted for the carrying out of works or use of an immovable which, if the by-law that is the subject of the notice of motion is adopted, will be prohibited in the zone concerned.

Because both bylaws were presented and adopted, council gains an additional two months for final adoption:

The first paragraph ceases to be applicable to the works or use in question on the date occurring two months after the filing of the notice of motion if the by-law has not been adopted by that date or, if the by-law has been adopted, on the date occurring four months after the date of its adoption if the by-law is not in force on that date.

Council can buy more time in the form of a replacement bylaw. (A revised bylaw could be based on citizen’s comments and recommendations): 

Where, however, within two months after the filing of the notice of motion, the amending by-law is the subject, under section 128, of a second draft by-law, the first paragraph ceases to be applicable to the works or use in question on the date occurring four months after the filing of the notice of motion if the by-law has not been adopted by that date or, if the by-law has been adopted, on the date occurring four months after the date of its adoption if the by-law is not in force on that date.

As the mayor explained at the Jan. 10 meeting, final adoption is planned for the April council meeting, after which the bylaws go to the Vaudreuil-Soulanges regional municipality to ensure they harmonize with the MRC’s master plan before the town can bring them into force. 

All this time, the LAU clock is ticking. 

UPDATE: Here’s the town’s response to my question about the freeze at the last council meeting (my translation):

As a follow-up to your question at the last city council, here is why there is no freeze that applies:

Currently, tree-cutting applications should not be suspended until the regulations come into force in the fall, because our notice of motion has no freezing effect.

Any adoption of a regulation must be preceded by a notice of motion and a tabling of the draft regulation. In urban planning, the notice of motion can have a freezing effect if it is a zoning (or amendment) by-law, subdivision, PIIA or on municipal works agreements. According to section 114 of the Planning and Urban Development Act, the freezing effect seems automatic. However, in 2012, the courts determined that a notice of motion must be specific enough to have a freezing effect. The purpose of the freeze effect on the filing of the notice of motion is to prevent the municipal will from being neutralized by the filing of substantially complete permit applications before the coming into force of the by-laws, Whereas the procedure for adopting urban planning regulations is longer than that for other regulations.

As we are already under a certain freeze with the Interim Control Regulation (RCI) in place, it was decided not to impose an additional freeze effect.

Once the revised bylaws are given final approval later this spring, the mayor has said council will vote to lift the RCI.

Those familiar with the LAU’s regulatory timeline say any delay in lifting the RCI increases the likelihood of a legal challenge. “An RCI is supposed to be an interim measure”, one municipal governance consultant told me. “By Year 3, a judge could agree with a plaintiff the clock has run out.”

So it’s no wonder that Hudson’s mayor and council are hoping to get away with “a few tweaks” in their rush to adopt 767 and 768 in their final versions. The alternative: a geriatric RCI, zombie bylaws and three years of squandered promises to their supporters.

“Groundhog Day”, Buddy said to me prior to this week’s public consultation on draft bylaws 767 and 768. “Remember?”

On Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, mayor Jamie Nicholls chaired a public consultation on draft bylaw 526.8 proposing to establish a 30-metre buffer zone around watercourses and wetlands.

The proposed bylaw — within council’s authority, according to an opinion from one of Quebec’s foremost environmental lawyers — would ban all tree-cutting as well as the owner’s use of machinery within any part of the setback on their own property, including lawn cutting. Any new projects — pools, sheds, decks, gazebos, even replacement of a failing sewage treatment system — would be prohibited.

In the leadup to the consult, the urban planning department was asked to create a map overlay showing the 30-metre line imposed on a municipal cadastral map. The overlay confirmed the proposed bylaw would directly impact hundreds of properties throughout the municipality.

The mayor opened the presentation by telling the room that councillors were deadlocked 3-3, so he had already decided to vote yes to break the deadlock. In other words, don’t waste your breath, folks.

“We’re not doing this to make people angry or to remove peoples’ rights,” Nicholls told the standing-room-only crowd at the Community Centre. “We’re doing this to protect the network of wetlands and watercourses which make up Hudson’s natural spaces.” 

Nicholls strove to convince residents this was the price taxpayers needed to pay for protecting Hudson’s natural heritage, thus opening the outrage floodgates and a pushback campaign by the bylaw’s supporters. By that December, the mayor had taken a leave of absence and caucus had agreed to let 526.8 expire without adoption. (It remains on the books, even though it has no effect, a so-called zombie bylaw.)

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There may be those who have never seen the classic 1993 film Groundhog Day. In it, Bill Murray is a burnt-out weatherman and Allie McGraw the bubbly TV reporter trapped in a time loop centred on an annual celebration of the rodent’s storied ability to predict the weather. Groundhog Day has become a synonym for being trapped in an unpleasant situation without hope of a positive outcome.

On the eve of Groundhog Day, 2024, I’m listening to the recording of that 2019 public consultation. Many of the voices are those of people who spoke out at Thursday’s public consultation. The comments and the tone of the 2019 gathering were remarkably similar to those of 2024.

The difference was that this time, the mayor sat this one out. Apart from her opening and closing comments, Chloe Hutchison and councillors left it to former DG and special projects consultant Martin Houde, urban planning department deputy director Melissa Francis and Paré+ urban planning consultant Vincent Langevin to answer questions. Running the meeting was professional facilitator Marie-Hélene Gauthier. 

The mayor’s absence at the front of the room meant that questions concerning the intent of the bylaws went unanswered because they were political. Instead of taxing growth and improvement, why not finance park infrastructure upgrades and new acquisitions with Hudson’s $8 million accumulated surplus or the $1 million plus the town collects from the welcome tax? Or how about a townwide special tax, seeing as how parks and greenspace are for everyone’s benefit? 

That’s political, we heard. Save it for the next council meeting (at 7 p.m. next Monday, Feb. 5). 

From the outset, it became clear that those answering questions were not familiar with the contents of the draft bylaws or how they propose to modify Hudson’s current zoning, tariffs and land use bylaws. For the vast majority of residents, Sections 10 and 11 of draft bylaw 767 were hopelessly confusing and poorly explained. What renovations cross the 33% threshold by volume? Why is the commercial threshold — 25% of floor area — different than residential? Where does a building’s footprint enter into it? Why should council be the arbiter in determining whether the 20% tax grab in the urban core is in land, cash or both? What constitutes an intensification of existing activities? A change in usage? The difference between an extension and an addition?

The deeper they got into the weeds, the more people realized that the explanations and Cole’s notes they had been given at the two open houses were either misleading or just plain wrong.

Some of the answers came as a shock. The town has no clue what revenues they hope to raise through green fund “contributions,” which suggests to me they don’t know who and what will be taxed. Property owners would have no way of knowing they have triggered the parkland contribution threshold until they find out their building permit will cost them $40,000. The findings of an upcoming parks and recreation study could force a change in the tax structure.

Other sections of both bylaws were no clearer. The owners of a lot in Hudson Valleys were told their lot was unbuildable because it contained a wetland — regardless of the facts that suggest the wetland was created by the buildup of adjacent properties since the original subdivision. Many wondered whether a protected wetland had a minimum area to require a 15-metre buffer. (what, my frog pond?) A resident whose property abuts on one of the four zones slated for comprehensive development programs in draft bylaw 768 asked whether the developer would be required to ensure a minimum treed buffer on the property line (not in the bylaw). Would the town consider paying for the biologist’s report? Why not subsidize the cutting and replacement of ash trees on private land?

Because of the lack of clarity, emotions ran high. Ken Crombie’s questions — shouldn’t all citizens pay for greenspace instead of a small percentage and what can we do to force a referendum instead of letting six councillors decide — brought the first of many rounds of applause as resident after resident vented their frustrations. For many, it was purely personal. “With this bylaw, who will buy a fixer-upper,” one resident asked. 

I suspect that this council will be more cautious than our council was in the 2019 showdown. Wiser heads will prevail and the draft bylaws will be sent back for revision. But as several residents opined on Facebook, it makes it difficult to trust a council when something this full of holes is run up the flagpole. Again.