Alberta and Russell Neice always thought of Barrie just as a place to pass by on the way to cottage country, but four years ago that all changed when they took a detour and fell in love with the city's downtown waterfront.
"It's magnificent," said Alberta, 68, from her new condominium overlooking Barrie's Kempenfelt Bay. The Neices, who had spent all their lives in the Steeles and Yonge area of Toronto, were so impressed with what Barrie had to offer that they put a down payment on a home in one of the new 16-storey condominium buildings on the waterfront. They moved in a year ago.
"We love it here; the people are so friendly and Barrie has everything we need without all the traffic jams," said Alberta Neice. They are not alone.
Data released from the 2006 census yesterday indicates that Barrie and its immediate area, with 177,061 residents, is the fastest growing Census Metropolitan Area in the country. Its population has grown by 19.2 per cent since 2001, nearly four times the national average.
The city itself grew 24 per cent, to a population of 128,430.
Steve Knowles, who has been selling new homes in Barrie for nearly 20 years, says demand for the 147-unit Nautica condominium tower on the waterfront has been so brisk, it was 95 per cent sold out within a few weeks.
"People are moving here for the lifestyle, and the No. 1 attribute is the lake," said Knowles.
For the younger crowd, aged 30 to 35, another big draw is the affordable homes, says Barrie real estate agent Ed Tracy.
"The motivation is getting more of a home for their money," said Tracy, who estimates the average cost of a newer three-bedroom, single-family home of 2,200 square feet at $260,000.
Barrie's director of planning, Jim Taylor, said the census numbers come as no surprise. "We anticipated the growth and planned for it," he said.
The problem is, Barrie is now bursting at the seams.
"We've experienced so much rapid growth that it has consumed all the land within the city limits," said Matt Pryce, president of the Greater Barrie Builders' Association.
The province's plan under the 2005 Places to Grow Act forecasts population growth for Barrie and the surrounding area of 245,000 over the next couple of decades.
But intensification of the downtown core and completion of existing subdivisions will accommodate only about 40,000.
The answer is for the city to "pursue a boundary expansion" into neighbouring communities to fulfill its role as an urban regional centre, Taylor said.
"It's a balanced approach to establish places for people to live and work while meeting the goals of Places to Grow," he added.
Barrie developer Ron Armstrong, a member of the Ontario Home Builders' Association Land Committee, agrees that expansion into neighbouring communities is a solution.
"But it's not popular with the people in the small towns and villages around Barrie," he said.
Barrie's chief building officer, Gord Alison, says that a lack of available development land has already brought a consistent decline in the number of new homes being built in Barrie, from 1,870 in 2003 to just 1,052 last year. Meanwhile, commercial and industrial development is growing rapidly, Alison said. "All the residential growth makes it an attractive place for business and industry."
Barrie's population growth was a key reason George Horhota decided in 2004 to open SuiteWorks - a high-tech 120-workstation "telework centre" that allows telecommuters to work from the south end of Barrie as if they were in a company office in downtown Toronto.
"Things have gone really well for us," Horhota said, "because the whole pattern is people moving to Barrie for a better lifestyle."
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