Oxford County Council discussed the price of garbage bag tags and removed the development charge exemption for industries yesterday.
OXFORD COUNTY - The price of garbage bag tags will not be going up in Oxford County, at least for now.
There was a lot of debate during yesterday's County Council meeting over a report that asked Council to increase the price of garbage bag tags from $2 to $3 effective May 1st, 2025.
Two motions were brought forward and they were both defeated by a split 5-5 vote. One asked council to defer the decision while staff looked into other options, while the other asked council approve price change.
The meeting moved on as scheduled once the two motions failed, but Warden Marcus Ryan says the matter was brought up again later on.
"Later on in the agenda at the point where a councillor can put forward a new notice of motion for a future meeting, Councillor David Mayberry put forward a motion for consideration at a future council meeting to go to $3 per bag tag but instead of May this year, it would be January 2026. So council will debate that at a future meeting."
The County will be introducing a green bin program next year in Woodstock and South-West Oxford, and in 2027 for the rest of Oxford. The County also uses a user pay system for waste collection, so you cover the cost of your waste collection through the price of garbage bag tags.
Warden Ryan says this means you could still end up saving money if the bag tag price increases.
"So in theory, you could divert enough from your garbage bag (to your green bin) that you don't need to buy as many bag tags. So the price of a single bag tag could go up, but what you spend over a year on bag tags could still be the same."
Oxford County Council also officially removed the development charge exemption for industries during yesterday's meeting. This was something that was originally put forward by Warden Ryan during budget discussions last year as a way to bring down the tax levy for 2025. He said a lot of industries might still come to Oxford County anyway because of our access to Highway 401 and Highway 403.
However, something else that was considered during the discussion yesterday was the threat of 25 percent tariffs from US President Donald Trump. Warden Ryan says council was wondering if eliminating this incentive for industries was the right thing to do in the world we're living in right now.
"The short answer to that is, no we're not sure. While we were debating it, I got a text from staff that said President Trump is deferring the tariffs until April, is he though? I don't know has he changed his mind again? So I think its a little bit of a false gain to think that we can analyze what he is doing to do, when he going to do it, how much of it he's going to do and if he's going to change his mind."
Warden Ryan says it's also important to note that County is experiencing growth pressures, using the lack of family doctors, the amount of portables being used at local schools and the need for more housing as examples. He says its important that the County experiences growth at a rate it could handle.
Council also looked over a recap of all of the progress it made last year on its 10-Year housing and homelessness plan yesterday. Some of the big items from 2024 included the approval of 20 new transitional housing beds and the County diverting $2.9 million from Ontario's Homelessness Prevention Program towards programs and services that address homelessness.
Warden Ryan says we're taking steps in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.
"I think the report says that we're doing the right things, but its clearly not enough because there are still people living in encampments in our parks and that's not a good thing. So we still need to do more, but I think that we're making the investments and unfortunately some of these investments take a little bit of time to come."
He adds there's also more investments on the horizon with the recently approved HART Hub and the homelessness service centre that the City of Woodstock will create with its funding from the Building Faster Fund.
During his interview on the Heart FM Morning Show today, Warden Ryan was also asked about how the construction project on the Highway 59/Vansittart Ave bridge was progressing in Woodstock. He said it was supposed to be finished by the end of February the last he heard, but he provided us with an update off-air after the interview. The project is now expected to be completed by the end of March.
You can listen to our full interview with Warden Marcus Ryan below:
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