The Essex Region Conservation Authority says growth is both an opportunity and a challenge as it starts work on its budget for next year.
General Manager Richard Wyma says the authority is getting more applications for permits than ever before. In the past year, it's had over 1,000 applications, double the number two or three years ago and reaching par with larger conservation authorities like Grand River and Toronto.
The number of trails in the region also continues to grow with the addition of the Cypher Systems Greenway. Construction on that stretch starts soon.
While Wyma welcomes both developments, he admits it puts a strain on staffing: being able to respond to applications in a timely fashion, and maintaining additional greenspace.
The authority is also unique in that it gets less than 30% of its funding through municipal levies. Wyma says the other 70% comes from senior government grants and fundraising. It would like to continue to expand, but doing so is difficult without a predictable revenue stream year after year.
"It becomes more and more challenging when we want to work in a much more integrated fashion, to deal with things like climate change, to deal with things like the Great Lakes, to deal with things like restoration and habitat replacement and wetland work," he says. "We're only able to fund them when resources become available."
Despite that, Wyma won't say if the authority is considering an increase in the municipal levy or hiring more employees.
"I don't yet know if it's hiring or if it's taking a look at how do we relieve the pressures that we have," says Wyma. "We've maintained a fairly tight ship here for many, many years. In fact, through the work of our recent sustainability plan we've lost capacity."
Over the past few years, the authority has received more from the City of Windsor and municipalities in Essex County. Right now, the levy works out to about $15 per household.
In the next year, it plans to eliminate a historical deficit that reached $470,000 in 2011.
The budget will go to the municipalities in December and finalized in February.