A year after Smooth Rock Falls started a unique campaign to entice people to move in, the CAO says the town is surpassing its goals.
Luc Denault said there have been more than 1,000 queries from interested people and businesses. Every week, he said the calls continue to come in.
“Certainly, I believe it’s surpassing the goal that we thought we would reach,” he said. “We’re quite pleased.”
Smooth Rock Falls is a town of approximately 1,300 people about an hour outside Timmins.
Last year, it started offering financial incentives to encourage new people to make the move.
Some of those incentives included:
- land offered for up to 90 per cent below market value; serviced land in town and on the golf course can be purchased for $500;
- enormous tax breaks for new homeowners over three years: 100 per cent the first year, 75 per cent the second year and 25 per cent the third year;
- economic development incentives for business owners: loans or grants up to a maximum of 15 per cent of eligible costs, up to a maximum of a million dollars;
- loan guarantees for residential and non-residential construction projects up to 50 per cent of construction costs: up to a maximum of $100,000 for residential and $500,000 for non-residential projects; and
- a generous Tax Increment Grant Program for businesses, including: a 75 per cent rebate in year one, 50 per cent rebate in year two and 25 per cent rebate in year three.
In the past year, 43 residential and six commercial properties have changed hands. Since last October, 24 new families have moved to Smooth Rock Falls and one family has returned.
“The process of converting a query of interest in Smooth Rock Falls to moving to town and opening a new business takes months and often years,” said Michel Arseneault, Mayor of Smooth Rock Falls, in a statement.
“We’re taking our time and doing our due diligence; we want to make sure both the individual or business and Smooth Rock Falls will benefit. We’re excited about some of the current prospects and look forward to sharing more information in coming months when details have been finalized.”
While the town hasn't done a formal review of who is moving in, Denault said there are young people as well as active older people who are retiring.
There are a number of perks for people considering calling the community home.
Denault noted it’s safe, has a great hospital, curling club, arena, and snowmobile trails.
“Then also the fact that they could own a home, where in other places it may be years before they can own a home,” he said.
“Not discounting the fact that we have schools, we have a pool. We have everything that they need, and they still remain within a close distance to a one-hour drive to fly to the warm countries in the winter should they want to.”
This month, the town has re-released 12 surplus residential lots to put up for sale, along with 10 remaining commercial lots.
In a 2016 community profile, Denault said it showed that about 40 per cent of the town’s population commutes for work.
“Some of these people are either working in Timmins or Detour or Cochrane, OPG, and our local hospital hires a lot of people and there’s several contractors as well,” he said.
Some of the new people are starting businesses.
“We have a couple who’s into property management and general maintenance and we have others who are going to be starting up new businesses and we have investors coming in,” he said.
The town is also working on an industrial park at the former Tembec site, which closed in 2006.
Denault said an engineer has created a 12-lot conceptual plan that they hope will be shovel-ready in 2019.
“By that time, what that means is that there’ll be service lots available for businesses to set up their businesses on the lots. And the lots are going to either be leased or sold depending on the need,” he said.
He added they also have an anchor tenant signed up that is interested in establishing its business in the near future.
Anyone wanting information on the initiatives in Smooth Rock Falls, can visit here.
