The council of the Municipalité régionale de comté (MRC) d’Argenteuil has approved its 2024 budget. The regional government will be collecting more in total from its municipalities, but some of those municipalities will actually be contributing less.
The total value of the budget is $21,562,397, which includes the $6,192,630 for the non-profit internet provider Fibre Argenteuil. For 2024, the nine municipalities which are part of the MRC d’Argenteuil will contribute $4,882,934 to its budget, which is an increase of $98,561 or 2.06 per cent from 2023.
“We respect the ability of our contributors to pay. The economy is difficult,” acknowledged MRC d’Argenteuil Prefect Scott Pearce at a press conference held on December 11.
The amount each municipality contributes to the MRC d’Argenteuil budget is not based totally on taxation, but instead upon the population and amount of the MRC’s services it requires. The MRC provides additional environmental and land use planning support to the municipalities. In some cases, the amount a municipality will contribute to the MRC in 2023 is decreasing. The largest decrease is for Brownsburg-Chatham. The town’s 2023 MRC contribution was $1,014,080. The 2024 contribution is 1.99 per cent or $20,130 less. In 2023, the municipality of Mille Isles contributed $286,229 to the MRC. The Mille Isles contribution is decreasing by 6.39 per cent or $18,295 in 2024 to $267,934. In 2023, the village of Grenville contributed $202,859 to the MRC. In 2024, Grenville’s contribution will be $10,127 or 4.99 per cent less at $192,732. The Township of Harrington will contribute $262,306 to the MRC d’Argenteuil in 2024, which is $9,784 or 3.6 per cent less than its 2023 contribution of $272,089. The municipality of Saint-André-d’Argenteuil will also contribute 1.36 per cent or $6,024 less to the MRC d’Argenteuil in 2024. In 2023, St-André-d’Argenteuil contributed $442,526. In 2024, its contribution is $436,503.
The greatest increase in contribution to the MRC d’Argenteuil in 2024 is for the city of Lachute. In 2023, Lachute’s contribution was $1,527,402. It is increasing by 6.77 per cent or $103,336 in 2024 to $1,630,738. The second-greatest MRC contribution increase is in Grenville-sur-la-Rouge. The municipality will contribute $50,095 or 12.17 more to the MRC in 2024 for a total of $461,622. The Township of Gore’s contribution is going from $397,427 in 2023 to $406,256 in 2024. Wentworth’s 2024 MRC d’Argenteuil contribution is increasing by just $663 to $230,895.
In addition to municipal contributions, which represent 31.8 per cent of the MRC’s revenues, other sources of revenue come mainly from grants from the Government of Québec, the Government of Canada, reserves and free accumulated surplus. As part of the 2020-2024 Fiscal Pact ratified between the government of Québec and municipalities, the MRC d’Argenteuil benefits from additional funding to cover the cost of ever-increasing responsibilities, particularly for regional development, support for competence of local development, innovation, intermunicipal cooperation. In addition to these dedicated grants are various government subsidies linked to the deployment of high-speed Internet, the management of municipal assets, the planning of local road works, adapted and collective transport, the community agriculture project, marketing territorial, youth, immigration, crime prevention, healthy lifestyles, promotion of arts and culture, protection of built heritage, protection and enhancement of natural environments, implementation of the agricultural zone development plan, and adaptation to climate change.
Collective and adaptive transportation is receiving an additional $100,000 in funding in 2024 due to the service expanding to five days a week from the previous three days per week.
In 2023, the MRC d’Argenteuil returned operational responsibility for the Aréna Gilles-Lupien in Brownsburg to the town of Brownsburg-Chatham. MRC d’Argenteuil Director-General Éric Pelletier said there will be a savings from the transfer of responsibility, but it is still not apparent what the total savings is.
As of September 15, 2023, the property value of all properties (buildings and land) located on the territory of the MRC d’Argenteuil amounted to more than $6.5 billion, an increase of 19.7 per cent from September 15, 2022.
In 2024, the MRC d’Argenteuil will continue to make all necessary efforts to meet its responsibilities. Projects during the year ahead include the development of a housing strategy for the MRC territory in response to a shortage of rental housing and increasing rent.
The Synerlab initiative, whose mission is to propel projects linked to circular economy strategies, will experience significant growth in 2024 with the inauguration of its first facility. Synerlab aims to be a unifying place where each partner, company and client can collaborate to find solutions to optimize the use of resources and, at the same time, reduce the environmental footprint while promoting economic growth.
The MRC d’Argenteuil will begin the process of revising the Land Use and Development Plan in 2024. The last time it was revised was in 2009. This is the most important official document of the MRC in terms of planning. In the context of recent population growth, the housing shortage and an increase in the concrete effects of climate change, the time has come to renew the regional vision of sustainable land use planning. This will make it possible to better coordinate the decisions and interventions made by the nine constituent municipalities, but also by the provincial and federal governments.
