This comment is authorized…

This comment is authorized by the Council of the Town of Amherstburg per Council Resolution 20230711-010.

The proposed policy changes appear to be applying a one-size-fits-all approach to planning policy at the provincial level while leaving the details about implementation to municipal Official Plans.

The adaptation of policies from the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Provincial Policy Statement (2020) to form a new provincial planning policy instrument appear to be more appropriate for large cities such as those in the Greater Golden Horseshoe rather than smaller towns such as Amherstburg.

A topic that is worthy of additional discussion is that the proposed changes to the PPS focus on continued growth and intensification – what should occur in a scenario where a town is exploring the possibility of a maximum sustainable population based on criteria such as operational and maintenance costs and replacement costs for municipal infrastructure and facilities? The question has validity in the Amherstburg context for the following reasons:

1) Costs associated with legacy infrastructure is demonstrated through many annual budget cycles to be considerable;

2) How much growth can be sustained on existing and planned infrastructure bearing in mind that the Town is currently undergoing an Official Plan Update and recognizing that all vacant designated residential lands in the Town’s settlement area have draft plans;

3) Amherstburg has considerable lands that are Prime Agricultural Lands abutting our existing settlement area boundaries. How much of these lands should be considered for addition to our settlement area boundary to satisfy development pressures?

In order to maintain Amherstburg’s high quality of living it would be very desirable to have provincial planning policies that will protect our community from growing beyond our means. The Town is striving to identify what the maximum sustainable population for the 25-year planning period is as part of an Official Plan Update that is currently underway.

Amherstburg is part of a regional gateway with connections by road, railroad and sea for finished goods, partially finished goods and commodities being imported and exported to and from Canada with much of this associated with the automotive and agricultural sectors. While an international gateway is provincially acknowledged in the Niagara Region, the international gateway in the Windsor-Essex Region has not been acknowledge as of yet in planning policy.