Re: Proposed Provincial…

Re: Proposed Provincial Policy Statement 2024, Submission from the County of Elgin

Dear Minister Calandra,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed 2024 Provincial Policy Statement (PPS). The County of Elgin and its Council have had the opportunity to review the proposed policy statement and are pleased to see a number of modifications incorporated into the draft policy statement from earlier versions. Particularly the removal of proposed agricultural lot creation policies that we believe would have strongly undermined county’s vital agricultural industry.

With respect to the proposed PPS, the County welcomes some of the proposed changes to urban boundary expansion requirements of the Province as these have often been challenging to implement in our rural context. Notwithstanding this, our Council remains concerned that the County and its local municipalities will be faced with increased pressures to expand our urban boundaries by development interests while our local municipalities continue to struggle providing servicing for our existing urban land base. To that end, we would encourage the Province to strengthen policy wording in these sections to ensure that the urban boundary expansions cannot take place without required servicing in place and to further encourage the Province, outside of the PPS process, to expand the funding of municipal servicing in order to accommodate the growth that the Province expects our respective municipalities to accommodate.

Thank you again for the opportunity to provide comments on the proposed PPS. I remain available to speak to you or your staff directly on this matter.

Sincerely,
Warden Ed Ketchabaw
warden@elgin.ca
519-619-8432