City council is hoping to stop the flood of payday loan businesses in Belleville to assist with a disturbing increase in local poverty.
Council agreed Monday night to prepare a bylaw limiting payday loan businesses, which have popped up like weeds in recent years, to only three areas of the city – North Front Street, Bell Boulevard and Dundas Street, including Front Street – and allowing only one more such business in each zone. Existing businesses will not be affected by the bylaw unless they cease operation, and in that case a new payday loan business would not be allowed to take its place.
Coun. Paul Carr originally requested the report regarding payday loan businesses saying there are more payday loan businesses on North Front Street than banks and that speaks to a bigger problem – poverty.
Carr said there are 10 such businesses operating in the city, calling the number a saturation. He said it “doesn’t send a very good signal” avout the state of the economy in the city.
The report notes as part of the public consultation process, both the Poverty Roundtable Hastings Prince Edward and Belleville Police Service supported the move of restricting and licensing payday loan businesses.
Representatives of the Roundtable and other groups dealing with poverty were at the meeting.
Councillors Egerton Boyce and Mitch Panciuk agreed with Carr about the need for the bylaw, and the need to do more work in helping those struggling to make ends meet.
Boyce said the real issue council needs to address is poverty.
“The next council that sits at this table must work closely with the Poverty Roundtable to try and do something about poverty in this community,” he said.
Meanwhile, council also passed a motion changing the city’s property standards bylaw to reduce the period of time that a vacant building can be boarded up from 12 months to six months.
At the suggestion of Mayor Taso Christopher, council only gave the bylaw first reading to allow for feedback from the public.
Panciuk praised the move to allow public input, predicting the public will be “very supportive” and could suggest the six month timeline isn’t aggressive enough.
“I think we will find property owners who are keeping their property in good condition will want these repairs done even quicker than six months,” he said.