When the clock strikes midnight and 2016 gives way to 2017, Brantford residents will suddenly find themselves living in a bigger city.
Jan. 1 is when a deal to transfer 2,700 hectares of land from the County of Brant to the City of Brantford takes effect.
Affected land includes the area between Powerline Road and Governors Road north of the city, a partial of industrial land between Highway 403 and Lynden Road, and the Tutela Heights area south of the city.
Tutela Heights is where Keith Lazenby has lived for the past 25 years.
He says he and his neighbours “feel kind of threatened and taken advantage of,” as their complaints about becoming part of Brantford weren’t enough to stop the deal from going ahead.
“Most of the community isn’t very happy with the whole idea,” he says.
An estimated 500 households will see their addresses switched from Brant County to Brantford on Jan. 1.
One of them belongs to Mary Thorne, who lives near the intersection of Powerline Road and Highway 24.
She too says she feels the concerns of people directly affected by the boundary change weren’t taken into account.
“It’s not a dislike for the City of Brantford – it’s a love for the county, and the openness, and the land,” she says.
Officials say the deal is designed to help Brantford accommodate future growth in the city.
Provincial projections have the city’s population rising to 115,000 by 2020, and 163,000 by 2021.
People whose properties are affected by the change have already received information about the issue in the mail.
For affected residents, services like waste pickup and snow clearing are not expected to change in the near future.
With reporting by Victoria Levy
