The Blue Mountains council has delayed the implementation of a new allocation policy for town water and sewage services.
Two weeks after approving the new policy at a committee of the whole session, at its meeting on Sept. 30 council chose to defer the matter for a month for staff to seek more legal advice about the new policy.
The deferral came after council received two presentations from development community representatives about the new policy. Council heard from Ken Hale of the Georgian Triangle Development Institute and Kathleen Schofield of Great Gulf on the issue. Schofield was unable to attend and Hale read her comments to council.
The Blue Mountains is proposing the implementation of the allocation policy through a bylaw, a relatively new power given to the municipality by the province. It sets out criteria that will be used to allocate limited water and sewage connections to development projects as they near approval.
Hale raised concerns about the bylaw aspect of the policy and called it: “a pioneering shift.”
In her letter to council, Schofield said the Lora Bay development had invested in infrastructure many years ago at the start of its development process (known as front ending) to allow its project to proceed.
She asked that the town clarify how the policy would impact Lora Bay and requested an exemption from the policy for Lora Bay. Schofield said phase 4B of Lora Bay has draft plan approval and the proponents are concerned about the impact the new allocation policy might have on the project.
“There is a very real concern that the proposed allocation bylaw scoring matrix may withhold servicing allocation. Such an outcome would be detrimental to the investment Great Gulf has made in this community,” she said in her letter.
After hearing from the delegates, council chose to lift the allocation policy from the committee of the whole minutes for further discussion.
Coun. Shawn McKinlay asked for clarification for why the town is implementing the policy through a bylaw and wanted to know if there were any concerns from staff about a slight delay in approving the policy to address the concerns raised by the delegates.
Adam Smith, the town’s director of planning and development services, said implementing the policy through a bylaw gave the town “a degree of enforceability.” Smith added that he didn’t see any major concerns with delaying the approval of the new policy to seek more information. If approved by council, the policy would come into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
Council voted to delay approval of the policy until after the next committee of the whole cycle. It should return to council for a decision on Oct. 21.
