Frontenac County to provide free planning for townships

Jeff Green | Feb 25, 2015

Politicians from South Frontenac had been waiting for a year to find out if their ratepayers would be subsiding planning services for residents of the three other townships in Frontenac County.

At a Committee of the Whole meeting of Frontenac County Council last week (February 18) the representatives from South Frontenac were the only ones who opposed a plan whereby all municipally generated planning work done under contract between the county planning department and North and Central Frontenac and Frontenac Island township would be done for free.

The Frontenac County planning department provides service to the county, and, as of last year to local townships as well. It is funded through the corporate services budget of Frontenac County. Because it has the largest population, South Frontenac ratepayers pay 57.8% of that budget.

South Frontenac Township does not benefit from the free planning services because they have their own busy planning department already in place.

In a report to the Committee of the Whole, the County Manager of Planning, Joe Gallivan, outlined several options for payment for the services that are being provided to three of the four townships. The one that is in place, called the incremental cost model, calls for no charge for day-to-day planning work and land use policy work generated by the townships. However, all privately initiated applications (e.g., minor variance, severance, rezoning) for which the applicants are charged a fee by the townships, will result in a charge from the county.

Councilor John McDougall from South Frontenac said that he favoured a “full cost recovery model, which is the fairest way to do this. But in place of that we are willing to accept some sort of flat fee arrangement. South Frontenac pays for our own department and we pay into the county department as well, I must point out,” he said.

Current Warden and Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle said, “The planners are already being paid. Any money that is raised from privately initiated planning applications will help cover those salaries, and South Frontenac gets the most benefit from that. It really is a win-win.”

South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal did not see Doyle's logic.

“I hate to say this but if we don't have enough work for the people we have then we might consider looking at staffing levels to save money. To me, if any service is going to be offered by the county to one or more townships it should be paid for. Otherwise it's not fair to taxpayers in the townships who do not use the service,” he said.

Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith said that when the county offered to do the planning for Central Frontenac, it was on the basis that the township would be getting “free service and only private applications would be billed. If that changes then we will have to look at our options again.”

When it came to a vote, all six council members from the three townships who stand to benefit from the policy supported it, and the two from South Frontenac voted against it.