City mulls spending $2.4M to 'beautify' Exchange District

The city has new plans for the money it originally intended to use as grants for condominium buyers in the Exchange District.

• Councillors sour on $10K condo incentive plan

A meeting Monday of the downtown development committee will consider spending the $2.4 million on neighbourhood beautification and advertising instead.

St.Vital Coun. Brian Mayes never liked the idea of giving condominium buyers a $10,000 incentive.

"My view is, the developers took the risk of building there and they're going to have to bear some of that risk," he said Friday.

"We're not going to have the city government give $10,000 subsidies just to try and help sell off individual units. We can try and make the neighbourhood better and more attractive."

North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty, however, doesn't like the new idea, and would rather see the money put back into general revenue.

"I just think that could go back into general tax revenues." he said. "In fact a break for taxpayers is always welcome. It is a shared program between the city and the province, but there's only one taxpayer at the end of the day. Just reduce the program by the amount of the condo subsidy program."

Browaty said there's already a lot of buzz about living downtown and an advertising campaign isn't necessary.