Ryan Doyle considered politics a hobby until deciding he wanted to run for Stratford city council.
The Stratford resident closely followed politics at a provincial and national level. He started watching Stratford city council and began to think about running as a councillor after reading about Xinyi Canada’s plans to construct a facility in Stratford.
Doyle referred to it as the ‘glass plant fiasco’.
The project was criticized by local groups due to a perceived lack of transparency, including a request to the province for a minister’s zoning order to ensure the land could be used for the intended industry, sidestepping democratic processes, in the opinion of local opposition groups.
While the Xinyi project was eventually indefinitely suspended by the company, and the request for a zoning order was withdrawn by city council, opposition groups have stated more information should have been presented to the public.
“It was the trigger point of why I am running. The project was too large for Stratford. We have problems with open jobs in manufacturing here already, why do we need a larger factory?”
Doyle said not enough information was presented including the rate of pay for potential jobs.
Born and raised in Stratford, Doyle works in systems design IT at Wilfrid Laurier University, a career that sees him shuffle between different work sites. He is also the president of his Avonwood Drive condo board, with experience dealing with individuals and/or groups and problems that arise at the residences.
Doyle said after he started watching city council meetings, he found himself getting engaged in the topics and not always agreeing with the direction council was taking. One example was a new apartment build on the site of the former Sobeys plaza, which Doyle feels is a great project to address the need for housing in the city, but could potentially be built too high for the neighbourhood.
“It is good for the area, it will attract a lot of young workers but it depends on what that developer is going to rent the places out for. Rents are high,” he said, adding some retail options on the ground floor are needed to fill the void after the plaza shut down.
Doyle likes that the city is adding more affordable housing but would like to see more than one and two bedroom units being built. “I see an expansion of affordable units to three bedrooms, we have a lot of single families out there that are disadvantaged.”
Whether subsidized, or new units open to anyone, rents have to be affordable if people are going to live and work in Stratford, Doyle said. Some of the new build homes in the city are out of reach for the average family due to high costs, he suggested.
“If you look at today’s (new build) real estate market, you need $150,000 of household income to afford it and that is just not there. Maybe there isn’t a market for million dollar houses anymore.”
Doyle said he wants to bring fiscal responsibility to Stratford city hall, including keeping a closer eye on the budget process to avoid further big tax hikes. He would also like to see more debate happening in the public eye and less in camera meetings.
“I want to throw my hat in the ring, I want to see progress in Stratford. But I think we have to make sure that the scale of that progress is maintained, it can’t be too big.”
