Mayor tells planner to mind his own affairs

By Bruce Hain Barrie Advance
INNISFIL – Mayor Brian Jackson isn’t too pleased with comments published in last weekend’s Toronto Star by Victor Doyle, an architect of the Greenbelt Plan whose goal is to moderate and regulate development in the Greater Toronto area.
Doyle is highly critical of the proposal to create massive urbanized areas within Simcoe County along the Highway 400 corridor, including the Town of Innisfil’s Enterprise Zone.
He made his views known in a letter as a citizen, not in his role as a senior planner with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, addressed to the Ontario Growth Secretariat.
“The article is somewhat troublesome,” Jackson said. “I just about flipped.”
Doyle said the proposed developments on Highway 400 in Bradford and Innisfil could result in a “cumulative effect will open up a new linear pattern of urban sprawl along Highway 400 running virtually from the Holland Marsh to north of Barrie.”
Doyle also alleges Ontario’s Simcoe County Strategy repeats a “pattern strikingly similar” to what occurred in York Region along the Yonge Street corridor, where sprawling residential and commercial developments overtook the landscape.
Doyle’s opinions were buttressed in a Sunday Star editorial titled “Revisit the Simcoe plan.”
The editorial says Doyle’s 15-page submission “deserves consideration before the government proceeds with its ‘growth vision’ for the Simcoe region.”
The Star editorial summarizes by saying the provincial government should “give the Simcoe plan a serious second look.”
Jackson strongly disagrees.
“Developing our lands near Innisfil Beach Road and Hwy. 400 would create an opportunity to have a live/work/play environment for many of our residents,” Jackson says. “We have 20,000 vehicle trips a day on Innisfil Beach Road. The article has raised some concern for Innisfil council and the County of Simcoe. I have a hard time trying to fathom their logic.”
The town has been trying to service the Innisfil Heights area since 1988, Jackson said. After more than 20 years, “The County has finally recognized our Enterprise Zone. It’s taken a long time to get to where we are today. We get calls almost weekly from people wanting to locate on the highway.
We’ve got to provide that service.”
The last thing Jackson, his council and their county cohorts in Midhurst want is another prolonged study into potential industrial and commercial growth nodes.
“There’s always something that prevents us from growing,” Jackson complained. “If we don’t have an Enterprise Zone, it limits our ability to create a complete community. It is the key to our industrial growth.”