County releases its draft Official Plan seeks municipal, public comments

  New Tecumseth Free Press Online June 27, 2012

Had it been approved on schedule back in 2008, Simcoe County’s Official Plan (OP) would be nearing the five-year review period anyway. Plus, the new draft hardly resembles the one sent to Queen’s Park for approval.

The Province never signed off on it, The County appealed that lack of decision to the OMB, and in January the Liberal government imposed a solution by Order in Cabinet.

Those policies, which include the creation of urban settlement areas that will get the lion’s share of new growth, have now been incorporated into the draft made public yesterday afternoon. The County is now soliciting input from its 16 member municipalities and the public until Aug. 22 before County councillors take over to debate its merits, and eventually vote on it.

And that’s important because each of the lower tier municipal OPs have to confirm to the upper tier’s package.

New Tecumseth, which threatened to appeal the County’s OP if it didn’t provide for an appropriate review and commenting period, has since rescinded that threat.

“I am pleased that additional time has been provided to comment on the revisions proposed for the County OP,” wrote Mayor Mike MacEachern in an email to Free Press Online. “The Town planning staff will provide a comprehensive report to Council prior to any formal submission of comments to the County.”

OP amendments from now on will be required for the following developments: settlement expansions, triggered by way of a municipal comprehensive review, country recreation uses that are on lands greater than 40 hectares in size and/or which include major buildings, golf courses, expanded rural employment areas, airports, new waste disposal sites, and mineral aggregate operations.

Among the significant components of the plan are the separation of agriculture and rural desginations, with agricultural being the most restrictive. It’s one of the policies that New Tecumseth’s farming community has opposed for several years out of fear that their farm properties would lose speculative property value, which farmers used to borrow against. That situation has lessened greatly over the past few years because many of these same farmers have sold their land to land bankers like the Walton Group which now owns over 4,000 hectares of rural property in New Tecumseth.

The draft OP also includes extensive references to transportation and transit expansion and initiatives to pursue.

These include:

The County will encourage and support the planning, corridor protection and the early construction of the following Provincial transportation facilities:

a) Highway 400/404 Link (‘Bradford Bypass’) as a goods movement and transit corridor.

b) Highway 400-series Barrie Bypass.

c) Cookstown Bypass.

d) A long-term Provincial road facility bypassing traffic around the Collingwood area

e) A Provincial road facility/corridor that adequately provides goods movement access and transit service potential to communities in the North Simcoe area.

f) Extension of GO Transit bus and rail service to additional locations in Barrie and the surrounding municipalities (i.e. Tottenham, Alliston, Utopia, etc.).

g) Extension of transit linkages into adjacent regional municipalities.

h) A high capacity north-south transportation corridor addressing existing and forecasted travel demand between the County of Simcoe and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

The County will, in conjunction with local municipalities and GO Transit, establish Transit Service Areas and Plans to address such issues as:

a) the feasibility of improved transit links within the Georgian Triangle area (Town of Collingwood, Town of Wasaga Beach and Township of Clearview);

b) the feasibility of improved transit links between the Towns of Midland and Penetanguishene, and the Townships of Tay and Tiny;

c) the feasibility of improved transit links within and between the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, the Town of Innisfil, the Town of New Tecumseth and the Township of Essa;

d) the provision of innovative intra-regional transit services through partnerships with the private sector;

e) the pursuit of innovative approaches to encourage increased use of public transit;

f) the role of the County and local municipalities in the implementation of the Transit Service Plans.

The County, in conjunction with local municipalities, will work with the Cities of Barrie and Orillia to expand existing transit services to adjacent municipalities and communities within the County, where feasible and appropriate.

Click here to review County’s draft Official Plan

Link to AWARE Simcoe critique of Amendment 1