From Family to World: The Gardener's Lesson on Service
A short true story of Andrii Zvorygin about how service starts close to home and grows outward into care for neighbours, community, food security, and the common good.
The Three Pillars and Main Priorities
Transparency
Residents should be able to see where City money goes and what results it produces. Detailed financial transparency, zero-based budgeting, and public examination of City spending can help identify waste and efficiencies, protect valuable services, and reduce pressure on property taxes.
Andrii has already worked toward this through helpos.ca, which makes Owen Sound agendas, transcripts, and local articles easier to access so residents can decide when to attend a meeting, follow what happened, and understand the outcome.
Priority: transparent budgets, staffing, services, decisions, and measurable results.
Participation
Transparency opens the books; participation gives residents practical ways to use public information, contribute expertise, care for their neighbourhoods, and develop solutions together. Shared stewardship can prevent costs where appropriate, while local hiring, import replacement, repair capacity, and co-operative enterprise can keep more municipal spending circulating within Owen Sound.
Owen Sound would continue electing seven Councillors at large. After the 2026 election, each would take primary responsibility for one geographic Ward while continuing to represent the whole city. Within each Ward, smaller Local Areas would hold an annual voluntary neighbourhood gathering where residents meet neighbours, discuss local concerns and projects, and choose their Local Representative for the coming year.
Learn more about participation, read the Ward and Local Representation Plan, or meet participants in cooperative local leadership.
Compassion
Compassion means helping people meet basic needs, preventing avoidable crises, and creating practical paths toward stable housing, food security, recovery, dignity, and belonging.
Compassion in practice:
- bring prepared food closer to people experiencing homelessness;
- prevent homelessness through genuinely affordable homes, food security, tenant protection, and productive land;
- keep Affordable Rural Communities available as general affordable housing, separate from voluntary rural recovery;
- offer voluntary recovery pathways for people seeking help with addiction.
Learn more about compassion, downtown services and voluntary recovery, and the Affordable Rural Communities proposal.
Candidate Facts
- Name: Andrii Zvorygin
- Running for: Mayor of Owen Sound
- Election: 2026 municipal election
- Location: Owen Sound, Ontario
- Focus areas: transparency, participation, compassion, affordable housing and land access, practical local capacity, Ward and Local Representation, downtown renewal, suitable support services, and voluntary recovery
The Core Idea
Andrii’s campaign is about a more transparent, participatory, and compassionate city: public decisions and spending residents can understand, practical ways for people to contribute, affordable routes to housing and land, and care for everyone affected by difficult public problems.
Shared stewardship would give residents practical ways to care for their streets, parks, neighbours, and local food systems. Geographic ward and local representation would make responsibility easier to see while keeping Councillors accountable to voters across the whole city. Community land trusts, food forest communities, and affordable rural communities could help younger generations, working families, seniors, growers, and people rebuilding their lives access homes, land, skills, and meaningful contribution.
Over the last term, Grey County established a stronger County-wide approach to rural and agricultural land-use planning. After several years of Andrii communicating with County mayors, deputy mayors, and staff about regional opportunities, County Council adopted Official Plan Amendment 23 in 2025, updating the common Rural policy framework and two Agricultural development policies. Grey County then approved the project-specific Thornbury Acres residential farm co-operative amendment. This groundwork gives the next County Council a realistic foundation for one common Affordable Rural Communities framework across participating municipalities.
As Mayor of Owen Sound and a member of Grey County Council, Andrii could introduce the motion directing County staff to develop that framework, a pilot programme, and model zoning provisions. Participating municipalities would retain their zoning authority, adopt compatible local provisions, and decide which suitable sites to approve.
The goal is a city where people know who represents them, know how to help, have credible paths to housing and land, and can build stable, connected lives together.
Affordable homes and access to land
Affordable housing matters to working households, young adults and families, seniors, renters, growers, and residents seeking access to land. Affordable Rural Communities would create a lawful path to small, serviced settlements with secure long-term tenure, shared facilities, gardens, workshops, food production, firewood systems, family life, and rural livelihoods.
Housing could include insulated yurts, cabins, tiny homes, or modular dwellings. Voluntary recovery would be one specialized pathway within this broader housing and community programme.
Read the Affordable Rural Communities proposal and cost model.
Experience and Qualifications
Andrii has lived in Owen Sound since 2015 and has spent years doing the practical work around local government, public systems, community infrastructure, communication, and food-producing resilience.
He brings hands-on experience directly relevant to the work of mayor: understanding City and County processes, communicating with residents, advocating to upper levels of government, and helping practical ideas move toward public action.
His background includes:
- IT and communication systems work with local organizations and businesses.
- Farming and tree nursery work focused on food security, edible landscapes, and long-term resilience.
- Direct interaction with Owen Sound and Grey County council and staff processes.
- Years of County-level civic involvement, including relationship-building, policy advocacy, and work to encourage cooperation and social cohesion.
- Service as treasurer for a federal campaign.
- Candidate interviews during provincial and federal elections.
- Advocacy to municipal, County, provincial, and federal governments on food security, housing, land use, local resilience, manufacturing capacity, and intergovernmental cooperation.
- Familiarity with local MPs, MPPs, ministries, public bodies, and advocacy channels, including work involving the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
- Building helpos.ca to make Owen Sound agendas, transcripts, meeting results, and local civic issues easier to follow.
- Service as treasurer of the Grey Bruce Makerspace, supporting local skills, tools, practical education, and community infrastructure.
- Helping strengthen the Grey Bruce Makerspace website and communications to reduce costs and support long-term sustainability.
- Hosting a monthly podcast where internationally recognized scientists and engineers present research on resource limits, energy transition, infrastructure, food security, and practical transition pathways, including guests whose work has appeared in leading journals such as Science and Nature and who have presented to the UN as well as other international and national bodies.
- Practical experience explaining complex systems in plain language so more people can understand and participate.
Through this work, Andrii has developed a practical understanding of:
- how public decisions are made;
- how City, County, provincial, and federal responsibilities fit together;
- which offices, ministries, representatives, and public bodies to contact for different issues;
- how communication gaps affect residents;
- how trust and social cohesion shape council effectiveness;
- how systems and infrastructure shape daily life;
- how budgets, tools, volunteers, and local organizations support community capacity;
- how food, housing, energy, land use, and local resilience connect;
- how global resource pressures can affect local costs, food systems, infrastructure, and municipal planning;
- how Owen Sound’s decisions fit into the wider Grey County region.
For the actual work of mayor, Andrii believes he brings the most relevant hands-on experience in the race.
Read the full article: The Most Relevant Experience for Mayor
Media
Watch recent videos and interviews from the campaign.
How to Pronounce Andrii Zvorygin
A short music video to help people pronounce Andrii Zvorygin's name and get a better sense of who he is as a candidate.
Interview with James O
A campaign interview filmed in the local history section of the Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library.
County-Level Leadership
The mayor represents Owen Sound at Grey County, where decisions about housing, roads, social services, land use, public health, and regional infrastructure affect daily life in the city. Andrii’s approach emphasizes practical coordination with neighbouring municipalities so Owen Sound can advocate clearly for local needs while helping strengthen the wider region.
Why Andrii Is Running
Many residents feel local decisions are too distant from neighbourhood realities. Andrii is running in the 2026 municipal election cycle to make city governance more transparent, more participatory, and more compassionate.
This campaign is based on shared stewardship: the idea that Owen Sound works better when residents have clearer ways to understand local needs, contribute their abilities, help care for the places where they live, and feel that they belong in the life of the city.
Andrii wants to help rebuild community cohesion by encouraging residents, neighbourhoods, city staff, council, local organizations, and neighbouring municipalities to work through challenges with respect and compassion for everyone involved.
He aims to build a practical civic culture where people feel heard, useful, and connected; where future council leadership can grow from neighbourhood experience; and where difficult decisions are made in a way that strengthens trust, belonging, and compassion for everyone involved.
Campaign Links
Frequently Asked Questions
Would Councillors be elected by ward in 2026?
No. Owen Sound would continue electing seven Councillors at large in 2026. After the election, Council would assign each Councillor primary responsibility for one geographic ward while all seven continue to represent the whole city, vote on every citywide matter, and remain available to every resident. Formal electoral wards could be considered closer to 2030 after public consultation and the statutory ward-boundary process.
How would Andrii address homelessness and substance use?
Andrii supports moving concentrated homelessness and meal services away from the downtown commercial core and toward suitable, accessible peripheral locations closer to where many unsheltered residents already spend time, with practical connections to health care, transit, shopping, and County services. The transition would be developed with independent service providers through suitable facilities, leases, transit coordination, grants, and service agreements.
The goal is to maintain reliable access to food and support while reducing the concentration of homelessness-related activity downtown. This would help downtown streets, businesses, parks, and public spaces serve families, residents, visitors, and community events more effectively.
For people who choose recovery, Andrii supports one voluntary rural rehabilitation pilot combining stable shelter, recovery support, food growing, practical skills, relationships, responsibility, and a pathway into permanent Affordable Rural Communities.
Read the housing, homelessness, and recovery strategy.
Who are affordable rural communities intended for?
Affordable rural communities are general affordable housing for seniors, young adults, workers, families, growers, and others seeking secure housing with access to land. Residents moving from intensive addiction recovery or similarly high-support pathways would form only a small minority within intentionally mixed communities, reducing institutionalization, stigma, social isolation, and ghettoization.
Read the Affordable Rural Communities proposal and cost model.
Who is Andrii Zvorygin?
Andrii Zvorygin is an Owen Sound resident and official candidate for Mayor of Owen Sound in the 2026 municipal election.
Is Andrii Zvorygin running for mayor of Owen Sound?
He is an official candidate for Mayor of Owen Sound in the 2026 municipal election cycle.
What is his platform?
His platform is built around transparency, participation, and compassion: clear City finances and results; practical resident participation, local capacity, local food security, and Ward and Local Representation; and compassionate action on affordable housing and land access, downtown renewal, suitable support services, and voluntary recovery.
What are his main priorities?
His priorities follow the campaign’s three pillars: transparent budgets, staffing, services, decisions, and results; participation through local skills and production, resident involvement, and Ward and Local Representation; and compassion through affordable housing and land access, downtown renewal, accessible support services, and voluntary land-based recovery.