London committee to hold public meeting on supervised injection facilities

As the debate surrounding potential sites for a supervised consumption — or injection — facility continues, city politicians will be looking at policies, and they want to hear from the public.

There will be public participation during the planning and environment committee meeting Monday.

“Right now we have absolutely no policies when it comes to these facilities,” said Ward 9 Coun. Anna Hopkins.

“We have to put them in place.”

Once the policies have been figured out, Hopkins says applications for specific sites will come forward and public participation meetings will be held again at that time.

At Monday’s meeting, people will be able to voice their concerns about the facilities themselves, just not the specific locations, said Hopkins.

“Staff will be able to explain our policies and I think the committee would like to hear from the community their concerns about these facilities,” she said.

“We want to have that conversation about our policies and where the policies are needed, how we can tighten then up or not.”

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Hopkins says she wants the policies to have some wiggle room

“We’re trying to implement these policies hoping they have some flexibility because we know we have to put them in areas where there is a need for them as well. It is going to be a balancing act,” she said.

The meeting gets underway at city hall at 4 p.m.