The Township does however…

The Township does however remain very concerned with the proposal to essentially eliminate the right to appeal official plan and zoning bylaw amendments as this has been a fundamental part of the process that the majority of the public are not aware is being proposed to be taken away from them. A 30 day comment period is not enough to make all those aware who may have significant concerns with these very serious consequential changes, aware and able to offer comment to the province on their opinions on this significant change in how planning works in ontario. Further consultation should be provided on this specific issue and a better approach would be a streamlining of the types of issues that can form the basis of an appeal to reduce nimby.

While the Township applauds the removal of the fee refund provision, the Township is concerned with the proposed loss of the ability to require preconsultation as this ability assists in streamlining the approval process and avoids delays by ensuring all necessary information is provided with an application.

As there are different circumstances from both geography, weather, lack of transit and situational issues, communities need to be able to have some ability to set minimum parking or maximum lot coverage to deal with the realities in communities where residents own and rely heavily on cars and where significant snow is received and that snow is plowed onto yards and not hauled away. Lack of sidewalks and these aforementioned factors all contribute to parking and safety issues in some areas which could be addressed by allowing the rural and small urban municipalities to be able to recognize their unique circumstances. The township has embraced allowing secondary dwelling units as a right in 2016 including areas on municipal services and private services with some limited general provisions that apply and have successfully been issuing permits for apartments in houses and coach houses in a variety of situations. The removal of the ability to control some situations where it would not be appropriate unduly subjects our area to big city controls creating problems when we have very different realities.