The updated official plan for the Town of The Blue Mountains continues to wait for council approval.
At its committee of the whole meeting on Feb. 4, council again delayed making a decision on the updated official plan and once again turned the document back to staff and requested further reports and clarifications about several sections of the draft update to the plan.
This was the second straight committee of the whole meeting that ended without a decision on the matter and with council sending the draft update back to staff for more information.
In Dec. 2024, staff brought forward the updated official plan for council’s consideration and recommended that it be approved in order for the document to be sent to Grey County for final approval (following which, there is a 20-day appeal period).
At that time, council did not make a decision and instead requested that staff provide more information in a follow-up report on six different topics: affordable/attainable housing, building height and density, the time and dollars spent on the official plan review, parkland dedication, Georgian Trail access and tree protection.
At the Feb. 4 meeting, staff delivered a 17-page follow up report that addressed each of the issues and included various options for council to consider. Included in the report were staff’s recommendations on the various options.
Council did not make a single decision on five of the six topics covered in the report.
Instead, council voted to request more information, clarification, additional wording and stronger language on five of the topics covered in the staff report. The lone exception was the section of the report outlining the time and money spent on the multi-year official plan review.
The draft update of the official plan was a hot topic the day of the meeting. Council received three delegations and multiple pieces of correspondence on the topic. The delegation topics and correspondence can all be found on the agenda for the meeting online here.