Grits leave Midland mayor in dark

By DOUGLAS GLYNN Midland Free Press September 8 2010
When Midland Mayor Jim Downer met Brad Duguid in Toronto recently he handed the Liberal cabinet minister a document dealing with an issue he asked to have expedited.
The document was a year-old request from Midland and Penetanguishene seeking “urban node” status under the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
“I think it’s only fair to give us some direction, either way,” Downer told Duguid when he met him at an Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference.
Duguid responded, saying: “some of you are not going to like what you hear.”
Downer didn’t get to hear whatever it was Duguid was going to reveal because the next morning a Cabinet shuffle was announced that saw Duguid’s role reduced to minister of energy from that of minister of energy and infrastructure.
The mayor is still pondering what Duguid meant.
Midland’s mayor is not the only Simcoe County municipal politician concerned about the failure of the Ontario government to provide answers about their planning concerns.
In fact, the government’s inaction has had a serious impact on planning across Simcoe County ever since the county submitted a proposed official plan nearly two years ago to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
The Ministry failed to make a decision in the 180 days allowed, so the county -after waiting for many weeks -launched an appeal with the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).
The OMB scheduled a pre-hearing conference for later this month, but at the request of the county, the province and other appellants the hearing was adjourned.
Kathy Suggitt of the county planning department said clarification is needed concerning a number of issues.
The adjournment was sought, in part, she explained, because the possibility of 400 people showing up asking to be a participant or party to the hearing could have been a very complicated activity to orchestrate.
“We are making another request for the provincial development facilitator to become involved in the hope that she will be able to help us scope some key issues.
“Many municipalities are anxiously awaiting (the outcome) ,” she said, “but there is no indication one way or the other this is going to be concluded any time soon.”
Meantime, the County has sent each of the 16 municipalities a letter asking them to provide specific information on whether development activity is down in the past two year.
Until the county’s plan is approved, the official plans of its 16 member municipalities are “on hold” because their plans must be consistent with and conform to the county plan.
The county’s official plan allocates the increase in population and jobs each municipality expect by 2031 under the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
What has made matters worse is a report titled, Simcoe Area: A Strategic Vision for Growth, which was prepared by the Ministry’s of Energy and Infrastructure and circulated in June 2009 for consultation.
If adopted as an amendment to the Growth Plan, the Vision Paper would redistribute 40,000 of the total county population growth to what it calls “urban growth nodes,” which it identifies as Barrie, Orillia, Bradford, Alliston and Collingwood.
Midland and Penetanguishene responded to the vision paper In September, 2009, by making a joint submission asking to be recognized as an urban node in North Simcoe. It was that document Downer gave Duguid last month.
One impact of the province’s inaction became evident at a planning advisory committee meeting in Midland Sept. 1, when a rezoning application was made on behalf of the owner of the Bruin Engineering plant on Highway 12.
The owner is seeking to rezone the property from industrial zone M1 to an industrial exception zone M1 to add various additional permitted uses.
Wes Crown, Midland’s director of planning and development, has recommended that the application be deferred until an employment area policy review study is completed.
Crown says the study will address the policy requirements section of the Growth Plan and specifically identify employment areas that should be protected and preserved and those areas where conversion to nonemployment uses would be permitted.
He says the study is going ahead, although the town’s new official plan has been put on the back burner because of the delay of the County plan.
“Because we had a number of these issues of converting industrial lands for commercial use, we consulted both the County and the province and asked if we could proceed with an employment area study looking at this one, very specific issue.”
Crown says if the study reaches some conclusions that require amendments to the town’s official plan those amendments would have to go to the county for final approval.
Rene Hackstetter of Royal LePage, who has had the Bruin plant listed for sale for more than a year, the owners would like to see the property rezoned highway commercial so it could be used for a combination of purposes.
“However, the zoning is a constraint. The sooner the province acts to clear the way for the county official plan, the better it will be for everyone,” he said.
Meantime, Midland has joined with the County as a party to the OMB pre-hearing.
“It means we would participate, but we would not have the same rights and responsibilities as an appellant,” says Crown. “We would attend the hearing, we would be able to present evidence and we would be able to cross examine witnesses.”
He said it is his understanding that the province and the county may have been meeting to discuss potential modifications to the County official plan dealing with non-growth related issues.
“They cannot deal with growth issues until the province releases the proposed growth plan amendment. Once that is released and approved,” he said, “the county will know what the numbers are and what they need to do in their official plan.
More importantly,” he said, “we will finally know what we need to do with our official plan.”
Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop said he will raise the issue when the Legislature resumes this month.
“I’ve talked to the warden and to different mayors about this. They are concerned and they want action so they can move forward. A lot of projects have been delayed and it is having an economic impact. it just goes on and on!
“It makes you wonder why so many things end up in McGuinty’s Ministry of Indecision,” he added.