Charlottetown mayor says Myers can't tell council what to do on future of outreach centre site

The mayor of Charlottetown says P.E.I. Housing Minister Steven Myers is trying to "usurp the power" of his councillors when it comes to a decision about the Community Outreach Centre's future.

On Tuesday, Myers told the provincial legislature and later CBC News that the centre will remain at its current location on Park Street whether Charlottetown councillors like it or not, saying: "It is not moving, and that's the end of the story."

But Mayor Philip Brown said the housing minister needs to be patient and wait for the city's decision on approving the province's request for a zoning amendment to let the centre providing services for vulnerable Islanders stay put. 

"I'm not going to be forced to be in a defensive mode on this. We're here to work together," Brown told Island Morning's Mitch Cormier on Wednesday.

"When another level of government tries to usurp the power of a lower-level of government like a municipality, I think that needs to be discussed in the [P.E.I. Legislature], and hopefully our members of the Opposition will bring this up." 

The province provides funding to a third party, the Adventure Group, to run the centre, which is located near the emergency overnight housing shelter made up of modular housing units on Park Street. But provincial officials had to get zoning variances from the city to operate those two services at that location.

Without an extension, the variance allowing the outreach centre to operate at Park Street will expire in March, while the variance for the emergency shelter is set to expire next month.

Last summer, the province said it would not have time to move either facility before those deadlines, and asked the city to grant indefinite extensions for both.

Council hasn't voted on that request. The original vote last January to let the outreach centre move from Euston Street to the new location ended in a tie broken by the mayor, with wording built into the resolution saying no extensions would be granted.

But the mayor said Wednesday that there is no danger of the outreach centre or emergency shelter closing before the city decides whether it will approve the province's variance application.

"When someone says that it's going to close down, people are going to be out in the streets, that's not the case," Brown said.  

"To think that we are going to be pushed or be told what to do — I don't think that's fair to this council, this city hall, this city. We can get into this sandbox fighting but… I want to stay on the high road and talk about where we're going for the mid-term and the long-term." 

In October, Charlottetown councillors voted to have the zoning variance request go to a public meeting, which council said is the next step in the process.

A notice of motion was filed by Coun. Justin Muttart for Tuesday's council meeting, asking his fellow councillors to postpone such a public meeting until late January to give residents living near Park Street more time to prepare.