07: The Growth Conversation Every Small Town Is Having

One of the things that I've come to love about making small town stories is discovering that while every small town has its own personality, they're often asking the very same questions. This week, that question is about growth. Not whether communities should grow, but how they grow. And while today's conversation begins in the village of Merrickville, it's one that small towns across Canada and well beyond are also having.

Welcome to Small Town Stories, the podcast exploring the business behind main streets and the people shaping small towns across Canada, the U.S., and beyond. I'm Jim Disco, top right podcast host, marketer, and small town local.

And every Thursday, we're diving into honest conversations about entrepreneurship, creativity, marketing, reinvention, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the small town today. From local storefronts to growing brands, community builders to nationally recognized names, this is where modern business meets small town life. Let's get into it. Well, hello, and welcome back to Small Town Stories.

I'm your host, Jan Ditchfield, and I'm really glad you're here. One of the things that I've been thinking about lately is how impossible it is to separate a small town business from the community around it. The people who live there shape the businesses, the businesses shape the community, and when one changes, the other changes too. I think that's why conversations about growth can feel so complicated.

On one hand, growth will bring in new families and new customers and new businesses and new opportunities. And on the other hand, it naturally raises questions about how we hold on to the character of the places we love while making room for what's next. And the more I've worked on this show, the more I've realized that maybe the question isn't whether small towns should grow, maybe it's how they grow, which is what led me to today's conversation. Over the past several years, Nick Privasic has been part of an ongoing conversation about growth here in Merrickville.

Drawing on a long conversation in public service, he helped organize one of the largest public consultations the village has seen in years. Not to argue against growth, but to ask how communities can grow thoughtfully. And while our conversation begins in one small Ontario village, it's really a question that small towns everywhere are asking. How do we create room for what's next without losing the things that made people want to be here in the first place?

So let's get into it. Nick, welcome to the show. It is such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you very much.

One of the things that I've noticed while I've been making this podcast is that every conversation around small towns eventually comes back to a conversation about change. It seems to be an ongoing topic that we we bring up. And while we celebrate growth a lot of the times, I think sometimes we don't stop to think about what it asks of us, members of small towns and small communities, and um how we can change and adapt. And this is really where I'd love to start this conversation with you because you have uh you moved here to a small town and you had a long career elsewhere, and then you decided you were going to make meritful home after that.

And over the years, I think you've become more interested in how the communities are changing. But what I'd like to know is what drew you to this conversation in the first place? Like what was it that made you see something that perhaps wasn't being talked about before you came? That's a really good question to start our conversation.

Um I've had a long career, as you said, in the public service um for just about 35 years. And most of that uh activity has been in the preparation of science-based information that you actually um explained to the minister or to the prime minister or various other groups on diverse issues. And what occurred to me when I moved to Merrickville, I was still working for the last couple of years, but then you know, we retired permanently, um, was that um there's a whole series of decisions and discussions that are taking place at the municipal level that I was totally unaware of.

And the more often I attended council meetings in person or watched them on the YouTube channel, I realized that there was a consistent pattern to how decisions were being made regarding growth and development in our own community. Um and one of the things that became apparent to me was that nobody, um, as part of that debate, either on the council level or in the audience, really seemed to be concerned about what the cumulative impact was of the decisions. So for example, um there were several over the last year, there have been several different developments being proposed in different corners, both in the rural area of Merrickville Wolford and in the Merrickville village itself.

Um and when you look at the independent information for one development, sure, there are discussions about how many houses go there, what kind of houses there are, how they're going to access sewage and water, uh, what's the transportation going to be like. Um but nobody said, well, wait a minute. Um, there's another development just across town where those same questions are being asked. So now we have 200 houses instead of 100.

Now we have 1.5 cars per house where before we weren't only looking at one of those developments. And when you start adding it all up, you realize that the cumulative impact is really what is going to have a major impact on the community's look and feel and how people who live here are going to be interacting with all of those impacts. So we sat down, I myself and just a very small group of other people, and we we went to our council and actually asked for a growth strategy for our community because we were concerned that the the big picture was getting missed.

Um and it wasn't a positive reception. So we said, why can't we have our own meeting? There's nothing stopping us from actually having a public discussion, a public discourse. So we had um an amazing public consultation on growth and development in Merrickville.

We rented the Legion. Um we anticipated 30, maybe a maximum of 50 people, and we would be delighted if 50 people actually showed up. Well, we had 105 people show up, and we had many more who couldn't get in because we exceeded the capacity of the building. Um and it was really, really surprising about how and how detailed the discussions were and why so many people felt that it was important for them to come out and provide their point of view.

It's probably the largest single public consultation meeting that took place in in Merrickville for many, many years. So we were at that meeting, and I think for me, um one of the things that sometimes people don't realize again is is who if you're not from the village or you haven't visited the village, or even somebody who isn't really aware of like what small town means, we are a very small town. We are a thousand people proper in the village, and about 2,500, if you include Merrittful Wolford in total, we're somewhere in that range.

Um, and so this conversation is something that impacts us deeply. Um, I think it impacts every small community deeply when it happens. And the conversation tends to be, I feel when we talk about growth, it becomes very polarizing quite quickly, because people either assume growth is automatically a good thing or it's automatically a bad thing. And I'm curious to know why do you think it's so difficult for us to have a more nuanced conversation?

Because we do have to grow. We can we small communities need growth. But how do we do that in a way where people feel like they're part of that conversation or we can find a middle ground for that to have the conversation? Yeah.

That's a really good question. It's been our experience here in the village. We've lived here for 15 years now, um, and we're still considered as newcomers. Yes.

For the part. Um but people have lived here for a very long time and they hold the village very, very dear. Yes. Uh, and I think it's natural for small communities, populations, individuals, um to be leery of change.

Um, and what is really, really important, therefore, is the people who actually make the decisions, whether it's council or the county or the province, um, need to do a better job explaining things to small communities like ours and listening closely to what their response is. Because I think there is a lot of a lot of opportunity to look for that middle ground, provided um the people who are making the decisions actually truly want to listen. And I think we have to be aware of a couple things.

One is there are many competing interests when we talk about development in communities. Obviously, there's the interest of developers who create a business and building houses. Um, there's um the interest that the province has who develop uh policies that actually encourage the creation of houses because, as the province has indicated many, many times, there's going to be a shortage of houses. So, so they're looking for not only small communities but large communities to step up and actually start to increase the building.

And I think there's also a a lot of misinformation. Um the the process of how houses get built, how they're what their look and feel is, um, how many units gets get built, um, transportation issues. Um, there's a lot of misinformation about how all that can be managed. Um I think people are reticent about actually accepting it if they haven't been part of the process to have a good explanation as to what is actually going to take place.

And then there's a lack of understanding about the political process. Many small communities now actually are not in the driver's seat in making decisions about what kind of housing takes place in their community. It's often done at the county level. And the counties actually, who are fairly large organizations with their own planning offices, are the ones to which developers will submit applications.

Now, the county does ask the municipality what their interpretation is of the development process and get some input. Um, but they're not required to actually do that. You know, so I think what is happening is that if you can increase um the amount of information provided to the public about what is the process, how can they intervene, how can they be heard, and how can they influence some decisions if the opportunity occurs, a lot of that resistance, you know, will actually go.

Now, at the same time, I think it's important to point out that the meeting that we we developed and the input that we got um was not anti-development at all. Um I mean, people, this wasn't about not my backyard syndrome. You know, these were people who were listening to the discussions and wanted to make certain that smart growth and development were actually taking place. And that means being thoughtful.

It means being um uh having identification of the impacts um and being told what how those impacts will actually be dealt with. If you can explain those things to people, I think a lot of the problems actually will will disappear. Yeah. I feel like that's a conversation really isn't about whether you know growth should happen.

It really is about more like whether communities are having a voice within the growth. And that seems to be the thing that really is the driver behind what small communities are asking for. Yes, I agree. One of the ideas that you've talked about is looking at growth as a whole and uh rather than just one project at a time, which seems, and that was an eye-opener for me, again, coming in and listening to this conversation.

I'm wondering if you can explain what you mean by that more. Sure. Um, you you can't, I don't think you can really understand truly what the impacts are of developments if you look at them individually. Um so for example, we in the in the public consultation that we had, we identified that there were approximately 516 new houses being proposed to be built in several different areas, primarily in the village, but some in the rural areas as well.

And when you do a simple math calculation, uh and you realize that uh the number of new people that are going to be coming in are going to be looking for services, um, they're going to be paying taxes, their expectations are going to be quite high. We're now going to be having 1.5 cars per household. So now we've got 750 cars on the road, where before we didn't.

Um and the same thing for some of the services. People will be using our libraries, they will be expecting services, recreation facilities. Um, people will be expecting to have access to our health center for um nurse, practitioner, or doctor access. Um, so all of these things have to be considered.

And and the problem was nobody was looking at the bigger picture. So, unless you actually bring it all together and have a plan that says we can accommodate, you know, maybe not 250 new houses in five years, maybe 150 houses, because we've done our due diligence and we know what the impacts are, and this is how we plan on mitigating the negative parts of those impacts. That has not happened in our community. Why do you think it's important to think about housing and infrastructure and services and um taxes, transportation, even in the environment, together rather than separately?

Because the the impacts are so dependent upon one another. Right. Let me give you a couple of good examples of that. The one of the the um positive elements of having more houses is an increased residential tax base.

Our community actually almost entirely has residential tax bases. We don't have an industry, we have some businesses, but not all that many businesses. So all of the revenue that's generated for all of the infrastructure needs, all of the other activities comes from the tax base. The problem, though, is the more housing you have and the better, bigger the tax base, also the greater the expectation.

Um and now you're gonna have to start putting more money into water and sewage services, more money into roads, more money into your police forces, into your fire services, and things of that nature. So you can't really look at them individually. You've got to look at them holistically. And I'm glad you mentioned the environment because you know the environment component is really quite important.

Um when I was growing up and just starting my university career, one of the books that to me was the most influential in the early 1970s was a book written by Armor Amory Levins called Limits to Growth. And what he was actually uh positing was communities, municipalities, much like natural ecosystems, have very, very similar characteristics. And there are limits to growth. In a natural ecosystem, populations rise and decline depending on the availability of natural resources.

Those that decline because they've overused the resources often die off quickly. Small communities are very much like ecosystems and organisms. We have people coming in, we have services that are needed, we have energy that is consumed, we have outputs as a result, and we have to plan carefully because small communities, you know, small communities are vulnerable in many, many ways. And one of the things that has drawn people to small communities is the ability to be able to interact on all of these levels, including the environmental aspect of it, um, and feel safe and confident.

And once we start reducing those, people will leave, or they they choose not to come here for exactly those reasons. I think conversations like this sometimes we focus so much on the challenges, you know, because there are many, and it is that the deeper we get into the conversation, the more they come up. But we also have opportunities. I think when we think about growth and what growth can do for us as small communities, what kind of thinking, like what can thoughtful growth actually make possible for a small community like ours or other communities who are also perhaps walking their own journey with this?

I think it'll do a couple of things. One is it can identify specifically where development should take place. Right now, um that's pretty much left up to developers. Um good example is in our small community, houses are being bought, torn down.

And when there was one house on the lot, now we're having two or three or four um three-story um triplexes being put in to take its place. So determining whether or not that's the appropriate place to build is a good example. Um, and it's very, very important as well in the rural areas. Um, land is cheap in southeastern Ontario in the rural area, when you compare it with just outside of Ottawa or Toronto or any large metropolis.

Land is very, very expensive. And what we've noted is happening is that developers several years ago started to buy up parcels of land, which were farmland initially, um, or rural pastures or woodland. Um, and they've been very quietly sitting on that property until the market conditions arise for them to be able to actually build. And then suddenly an application is presented to county or to the municipality, and people are not only surprised uh but dismayed that now you're getting what used to be a beautiful field with trees and woods in it, and now is going to be developed.

Um, so I think from that perspective, you know, we have to be very, very careful. Um, but there are there are indeed some positive aspects to it. And I think the biggest is you're increasing the diversity within the population of people coming to visit. And, you know, Merrickville is such a unique and interesting sort of village.

There are so many people here with such an incredible diversity of background that share information about what they've done in the past and they contribute to the community in enormous, enormous ways. And we've already met just within the past two or three months, we've met several people that have moved here who are now incorporating themselves into the community very well. They've become volunteers. Um, you know, they they use the services, they contribute positively to the growth of the village.

Um, and you know, that is a welcoming thing that we really need to have, you know, that and sure, we're gonna have increased commerce for the businesses, we're gonna have an increased tax base. Um, but to me, having the diversity of of individuals coming in here is a blessing and it's uh it's really essential. Yeah, I I think that's a really good point. And I think one that we don't talk about enough is how that individual experience can come and actually make a community better.

Because one of the big things about coming into a town is very hard to be invisible in a small town. And one of the easiest ways to get involved in the community is to become part of the community. So what we can continue to grow here can be richer and bigger and more unique. And Merrickville is very unique, as we know.

So, but I that is a very positive element that I don't think we've really talked about enough of what that could bring to us. So let's keep talking about growth here a bit. We usually talk about roads and we talk about buildings and infrastructure, but beneath all of that are people. And I think that that's the heart of it.

Why do you think change feels so personal in small towns? I recall when I first got here, we we we had a three or four people that we knew um uh almost immediately who were very welcoming. And one of the first things I recall um saying was um, someone one of these people actually saying was, they recall when there was no paved road in the middle of Merrickville, that it was a dirt road. Um, there was one general store where you could get all the tools you needed.

Um, and they were very wistful about uh the good old days, you know. So I think um I think we'll we'll never get back to that kind of time. Um, we'll never get back to becoming a Victorian village. Um, but I think change um is is certainly uh is both, you know, it comes with risk, um, it comes with adaptability, um, it comes with changes that uh are going to disrupt perhaps your daily life and some of the activities you have planned on year after year.

So there's a natural inclination um to be a bit resentful about what is actually taking place. And I think there are ways to counter that. And and you know, I mean the more we we talk with um individuals in the community, the more we come together to actually explain our point of points of view, um, the more we're able to live together and and accept change and the waste actually coming. Yeah, I do think that I think there's ways that communities can evolve without losing their identity.

And do you agree with that? Uh I do. I do. It depends um on a couple of factors.

One is certainly um resource allocations, financial resource allocations, where money is actually spent to help enhance and maintain and retain those elements of the community that are really important to us. So certainly our stone buildings is part of our heritage. Um the canal system is part of our heritage. Um we need to preserve those.

We need to preserve the parklands, the rural areas that are that are forested, the farmlands, especially. This is a rural community. This is a small village in the midst of a rural community. And it's absolutely essential that we maintain our farmland and our identity from an agricultural perspective.

We can do that. But it means reallocating, it means reprioritizing, it means listening to people who have said, Um, they're concerned about what is happening to the land and the land base and the sustainability aspects of having new developments. There's ways to counter it. And it starts by having a conversation.

I think one of the things that fascinates me so much about your story is that you didn't just watch these conversations unfold. You were really somebody who felt that you wanted to be part of the story. Um I come from a long background of advocacy, so I tip my hat to you, sir, when it comes to that. But I'm always wondering what was it that made you want to get involved?

Like from a human perspective, not from the, you know, all the things, but you, you, Nick. Why do you care? I I think I've always had the feeling um that you have a choice. Um you can be involved in a community or a corporation or a large uh a large city, um, and you have an opportunity to provide input if you don't agree with something, or you think that there is a problem and you can have some opportunities and suggestions for fixing it, you have that opportunity.

If you choose not to, then you are the recipient of somebody else's decision that is going to affect your life. But unless you stand up and unless you actually insert yourself into the process, and it's daunting, you know, you're speaking publicly, you're putting it all out there, but you may influence the outcome. And that's what got me personally involved. Let's zoom out for a moment because I think this is a really good time to kind of look at this, maybe for communities across Canada or even beyond as well, that might be facing similar questions in their backyards, in their hometowns, and their communities.

And what lessons do you think that they'll learn about growing? Or what lessons even can we pass on from what we've learned here? Um, I think there are a couple that we can pass on. I I think the first is never underestimate the power of citizens getting together and being active.

Never underestimate that. Um the decision makers, um, the process that is is created um across Canada, we we all share the same political system, is premised on the belief that decisions are being made in the public interest. Um, but they they will listen. They may not listen to me or one person coming out, but they may listen to a hundred people coming out.

Um so one of the things that I'm very encouraged about and optimistic about is that when we band together in the common good and we have interests and we vocalize those interests, people will listen. Officials will listen. So I think people across Canada can actually learn a little bit from our own experience. Do you think there's common challenges, regardless of whether we're in Ontario or other, you know, with good this the same thing could be happening in Newfoundland or it could be happening even, you know, in the small community in the southern states?

Like it, what are the common things that we face? Yeah. I mean, uh I mean this that's a really good that's a really good question. We have similar issues on a number of different fronts is how do we maintain our rural characteristic?

Um, how do we be able how are we able to actually raise the capital necessary to ensure the infrastructure and the continuity of services actually exist? Um how do we retain populations? You know, um one of the things that Merrickville um is is changing somewhat, but one of the one of my concerns about Merrickville a few years ago was that very few young families were actually moving here. They were going to larger communities because the services were actually better.

Um and had nothing to do with the price of housing per se, but it had a lot to do with with the services for their children, for the school system that was actually taking place. Um and now I think gradually within Americville, we're actually seeing that that's a very important consideration. And happily we're starting to see a few young families coming to live in the village again, which I think is great. On the other side of that are people who have lived here for a long number of years and want to stay in the community.

And one of the things that I found is I've met several people who have actually moved to other larger centers. Um, once they've sold their house here, um they're they're not they're they're not seeking long-term care, but they want to downsize. Um so it's really important to actually have um our seniors uh considered in terms of housing. If we strip away the politics, though, and the zoning bylaws and the council meetings and all the debates, what is it that you hope communities never lose?

A way of life. Yeah. You know, um, I mean, we uh we're privileged in this small community um that provides our services, um, our transportation is relatively simple and straightforward. We live in a beautiful community.

We have tourists that come here and they love the village, and we love that they come here. Um, you know, tourism is probably the largest single business, you know, within the community. But the way of life in a small community where you know your neighbors, you help your neighbors, uh, and they help you. Um you can uh provide input to the municipal office whenever you feel like it.

Um you know who your counselor is, you know who the mayor is. Um and it's just it's a way of living together that is really extraordinary and important. It's how do we preserve our way of life? Doesn't mean it doesn't have to change, it can get better.

Um but there's a basic sort of core group of activities and and belief systems and values that we cherish here, and we want to maintain those. When you think about the future, Nick, what gives you the most hope? I'm I am hopeful. I'm an optimistic person, and I think people um will make good decisions for the right reasons, you know, provided we've given them um the evidence-based information that really actually provides some of our perspectives.

I am optimistic. I'm optimistic that young people, especially if we can get young people involved in in the political discourse in community life, um, are going to be the next generation that is going to be able to take those values and that concern for small communities into the next generation. You know, I believe strongly that there's that. I think what really um strikes me most about this conversation is that it really isn't about development.

I can really think at the end of the day, I think it's about how communities respond to change. And I think there's a lot of conversations in here too about communication and how we talk and how we're open and transparent. And I think that was brought up a lot as well because the question isn't going to be whether it happens, is it's gonna happen to all of us. We're all gonna grow.

But it's how intentional we're willing to be in that growth that matters the most. So how do we make room for what's next without losing what's made us who we are? It it's such a, you know, it's it's it's such a large question. It's it's very difficult to be really, really precise.

It starts um it starts in conversations, it starts in being really clear and articulate what um uh the issues are that we face, the positive and the negative. Um it starts with sitting down and mapping out a process um and you know, and and trying to influence the decision makers of the day. So to me, it's it's just it starts small, it gets bigger, um, but people need to be heard, to be taken seriously. I think with this last question I'd like to ask you is so for somebody who's listening to this conversation, and whether they're a business owner or a community leader, or they're just somebody, somebody who simply really cares about where they live, um, what do you hope they'll take away from the role that they can play in shaping the future of their community?

I think they have an inordinate amount of power and untapped power, unrealized power. Um, business owners, um, especially in our community, are um are incredible people. They provide us with uh fabulous services, but they do have a strong voice. I think many of the residential residential concerns uh expressed for development are the same for businesses.

Businesses want to prosper. So I think individuals um can actually make an enormous difference. Um and I mean, you know, it comes back probably pretty much to the same thing that we've discussed over the last several minutes, and that is not to feel that you're powerless. We have far more power than we actually know.

You know, having a meeting where we thought there was going to be 30 people and have 105 show up, that was enormous. Nick, I want to thank you so much for joining me for this conversation today. I think it's something that isn't talked about enough. Um, and it's so incredibly important to the shaping of of small communities everywhere is how do we do this and how do we do this effectively, and also how do we do this in tandem with the decision makers.

So I very much appreciate you being here. This was a lovely chunk, lovely conversation. Thank you very much for having me. As I sat with this conversation afterwards, I found myself thinking about how very little in a small town happens in isolation.

It's actually one of the things I love most about these places. A new business opens, and suddenly there's another reason for people to spend an afternoon on a main street somewhere. A young family moves into town, and before long they're volunteering at the local arena or showing up at community events. One decision quietly becomes part of another.

And before you know it, the community has changed in ways that no single person could have planned. Maybe that's why conversations around growth feel so important. Not because growth is good or bad, but because every decision we make has a way of shaping the place around it. I don't actually think this conversation was really about development.

I think it was about being intentional, about recognizing that businesses don't exist apart from their communities, and communities don't exist apart from the people who choose to invest in them. Maybe that's the business behind Main Street. Not just the shops and the restaurants we see when we walk down the sidewalks, but the relationships, the choices, and the people behind them that quietly shape what those streets become over time. I don't know that there's one right answer to any of this, but I do think it's a conversation worth having.

After all, we're all leaving our fingerprints on the places where we live. Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is what we hope people will find when they arrive after us. Anyway, just something to noodle on until the next time we talk. Thanks for listening to Small Town Stories.

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com. All right, I'll see you next Thursday for another conversation about the business behind Main Street.