South Frontenac ready to support Frontenac County Official Plan

Jeff Green | Oct 30, 2014

Lindsay Mills said on Tuesday that he is ready to recommend that South Frontenac politicians vote in favour of approving the Frontenac County Official Plan.

Mills, who is the head of the South Frontenac Planning department, attended what he described as an “excellent” meeting between Frontenac township chief administrators, planning departments, county staff and senior officials from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on Thursday, October 23.

However, on Monday of this week he added that he needed to see the proposed changes to the plan that resulted from the meeting.

When contacted again on Tuesday, after seeing the changes, he said that most of the “drop dead requirements for changes” that his department had identified had been made and he thinks South Frontenac can live with the document.

“I still have problems with it. I think it is too detailed, too prescriptive, and gets into things that might lead to difficulties down the road, but as they say it is a 'living document' and we can make changes if parts of it turn out to be unworkable,” he said.

He added that he had not been alone in expressing concerns and asking for changes to the document at the meeting that was held last week.

“Jenny Duhamel from North Frontenac and Cathy MacMunn from Central Frontenac both raised important points that had to be addressed. This was not only a South Frontenac issue,” he said.

Approving the draft document and sending it to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs had been expected at the regular monthly meeting of Frontenac County Council on October 15, but when the representatives from South Frontenac spoke against it, a deferral was proposed in order for the October 23 meeting to be organized in an effort to achieve a more solid consensus among members of Frontenac County Council.

That might prove relevant if, as is expected, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs seeks to make changes to the document that are not acceptable to Frontenac County.

“I can't comment on the issues between Frontenac County and the provincial government,” said Mills, “that's really for them to deal with. I can only comment on the document itself and its impact on development in South Frontenac. As it was before, I was worried that it might have stopped us in our tracks, and I am less worried now.”

Mills added that while he expects that the South Frontenac representatives, outgoing Mayor Gary Davison and Councilor John McDougall, will vote in favour of the document, he expects that Mayor Davison “will have some interesting things to say at the meeting.”