WHITEWATER REGION — Whitewater Region Terry Millar, who has been the township’s rep at the Renfrew County council table for the past four years, brought an issue to the township’s council table during Wednesday evening’s council meeting.
He wanted to ensure council was aware of a situation that took place at last week’s county council meeting regarding the Renfrew County Official Plan Amendment 25, OPA 25.
The county began a five-year review of this plan in 2003 – and still is not yet approved by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Reeve Millar said.
Two weeks ago, ministry staff met with county planning staff, he said. The proposal brought back by the ministry to county staff was “no where close to what the county had hoped for when they put in their proposal in the spring, I mean no where close.
“The mapping all came back with extensive additions to agriculture and extensive additions to heritage land in Killaloe, Hagarty, for wintering property,” he said explaining “for someone who wants to develop, they will need more studies to get development up there.”
In the agriculture area, “Horton Township and North, Algona Wilberforce Township got hit extremely bad.”
He noted Karst topography will be a problem and cost a lot of money, Reeve Millar said.
“We’re under the Champlain sea here from 15,000 years ago or however long ago it was, and that is going to cost money for development before this is over,” he said.
Last week’s property and development committee held prior to the county council meeting was heated and many members were “quite angry at times,” Reeve Millar said.
He read aloud the original recommendation from the committee, and then the recommendation that was passed by county council, which was drastically changed. The original recommendation was that county staff continue discussions with the ministry regarding any changes and “communicate the strongly-held position of the County of Renfrew that it’s official plan be considered within the realm of local context.”
The recommendation that was passed unanimously by county council stated, “The council of the County of Renfrew, through a recorded vote, formerly requests an immediate meeting with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to discuss the draft official plan amendment #25, OPA 25, as we remain concerned the discussion is rushed and prejudicial to the interests of the future of communities in the County of Renfrew, and further to that, County of Renfrew staff should no longer continue dialogue with the ministry staff until such time as a meeting takes place.”
Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MPP John Yakabuski was contacted by the county and within 24 hours, he received commitment that MMAH Minister Steve Clark would not sign off on OPA 25 as is, he told council.
“I don’t know what that means, but you should all be aware, and I would suggest that, everybody study up on that, because this is a pretty big issue what they are doing here,” Reeve Millar said.
He further noted that county staff were told that this OPA 25 had to be signed by December 24. The necessitation for this signing was because after that there would be no room for appeals, he said, adding, even if the OPA 25 wasn’t signed by the county, MMAH staff would just sign off on it.
“This stinks of dictatorship, and every municipality, every municipal councillor, reeve, mayor, should be screaming about this and talking about this and reading about this.
“I don’t think there’s very many more important issues than this right now.”
Reeve Millar said this is the first time in four years that county council was “so united on one issue,” noting the vote was 170 to zero (tabulating in weighted votes).
“I just believe … should fight it and should fight it hard,” Reeve Millar said, adding, “It’s going to get out of hand and it’s going to be a dirty snowball, that’s what you are looking at.”
He then presented the OPA 25 to Councillor Cathy Regier, who takes over as reeve on December 1, and wished her good luck.
