Grey County is going to continue to explore the possibility of merging local planning departments with some of its member municipalities.
At its meeting on Nov. 28, county council voted in favour of a staff report that recommended continuing to explore the possibility of creating a joint planning department with two thirds of the nine local municipalities.
A joint council meeting to discuss the concept further will be organized in the new year.
The county has been looking at the possibility of creating a joint county-wide planning department for the past few months. In recent weeks, the county has been gathering feedback from local municipalities about the idea.
Deputy CAO Randy Scherzer and Planning Director Scott Taylor delivered a report updating council about the progress on the project.
“We have received a fair bit of feedback from municipalities,” said Taylor. “Not surprisingly, we heard a lot of questions on this one.”
Taylor outlined a number of concerns and questions the county heard about the idea including:
- Where a joint planning department would be located
- The importance of maintaining face-to-face direct service as local offices with developers and the public
- Office hours for a joint department
- Office logistics
- How roles of local municipal planners who might service on local committees (example: a local heritage committee) would be impacted
- How the financials of such an arrangement would work
- How the concept would impact planning application fees
- The staffing levels for a joint planning department
- How and who would do the hiring for such a department
- How proceedings at the Ontario Land Tribunal would be impacted
- How the processing timelines for applications would be impacted
- How billing would work
- How legal resources would be deployed
Taylor also noted that there were questions about options other than a joint county planning department including a hybrid system, or starting small with a pilot project.
Scherzer explained that county staff had recently met with the Grey County CAOs group for further conversations about the concept. He said based on feedback received so far, approximately two-thirds of the county's nine municipalities are interested in investigating the idea further.
Scherzer did not mention which municipalities had declined or said they weren’t interested, although the Town of The Blue Mountains has passed a resolution saying it does not wish to participate.
Members of council were supportive of continuing on with the project based on the joint planning department being a hybrid model with some municipalities participating, while others did not. The idea of a joint meeting for all councils was also supported.
“We need to give time for council members to ask questions,” said Grey Highlands Deputy Mayor Dane Nielsen, who said the county and local municipalities needed to have a full dialogue on the concept that outlined the risks and opportunities. “Let’s get the answers out there.”
