Truth comes out: Modified Official Plan ‘a fair bit different’

By Kate Harries AWARE News Network March 5 2013

Last June, 295 people signed a petition launched by AWARE Simcoe and Environmental Defence for public meetings to be held on Simcoe County’s draft modified Official Plan. 

This was the OP that the county had passed back in 2008 and that the provincial government had refused to approve because it violated Provincial Policy Statements and the Places to Grow Plan, with lax policies governing development and excessive growth targets.

Our argument to Simcoe County Council was that there had been substantial changes since the document was approved, many negotiated confidentially between county and provincial bureaucrats. “None of these discussions have been in the public domain,” AWARE Simcoe growth committee chair Sandy Agnew said in a September 3 2012 letter to councillors.

But council denied the request. 

Planning director David Parks said the modified OP was essentially the same as the one approved in 2008, with some adjustments to “insert” provincial legislation into the document.

Warden Cal Patterson said there was no point to holding a public meeting because it would only hear from “the same people all over again.”

At the September council meeting, Penetanguishene Mayor Gerry Marshall put forward a motion to have two open houses on the modified OP. Councillors voted 16-11 against.

This morning, at a Ontario Municipal Board pre-hearing into the Official Plan, the truth came out.

County lawyer Roger Beaman told OMB panelist Sylvia Sutherland that there had been extensive “public participation” regarding the new version of the Official Plan, through notices posted and sent out and advertised in the media. He did not mention that council had decided there would be no need for direct public participation through public discussion, or that there had been a written request for such participation from almost 300 people. 

Beaman told Sutherland the final update of the proposed modified Official Plan was dated Jauary 22 2013 and was posted on the county’s website. “You can also find the original adopted plan,” he said, “although I must confess it’s a fair bit changed.”

Beaman was the only person to address today’s pre-hearing, apart from lawyers who weighed in on scheduling for the next two pre-hearings. The first pre-hearing today – at the Nottawasaga Inn in Alliston – lasted a little more than an hour (memo to those being charged by lawyers, of whom there were many: check your bill).