County of Dufferin - Approval to amend a municipality’s official plan

A decision was made on July 31, 2025, to approve with 39 modifications, Official Plan Amendment 4 to the County of Dufferin Official Plan adopted pursuant to section 17 and 26 of the Planning Act by By-law 2024-14. Notice of this Decision was issued on August 1, 2025, to the County of Dufferin.

Official Plan Amendment 4 is the third and final stage of the County of Dufferin official plan review exercise, and updates the detailed land use policies of the county. The scope of OPA 4 include updates to the county’s settlement area policies, employment lands policies, natural heritage policies, servicing strategy and servicing hierarchy, housing, infrastructure, cultural heritage and archaeology policies, public consultation policies, in addition to other policy areas. The updated land use policies in Official Plan Amendment 4 will facilitate the implementation of the county's revised growth projections, land use schedules, and natural heritage schedules outlined in the approved Official Plan Amendments 2 and 3 under the County of Dufferin official plan review program. Official Plan Amendment 4 applies to all lands within the County of Dufferin.

The adopted Official Plan Amendment was reviewed for consistency with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS) and have regards for matters of provincial interests set out in the Planning Act.

There are 39 modifications to Official Plan Amendment 4. The modifications:

• Apply updated PPS, 2024 terminologies and definitions to applicable official plan policies
• Revise the requirements for identifying and expanding settlement areas to remove the need for a municipal comprehensive review. Outlining that the planning requirements for creating new or expanding existing settlement areas must be “considered” as opposed to “demonstrated” as required under the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020
• Update the county’s housing policies to ensure that the local area municipalities provide for an appropriate range and mix of housing options and densities to meet current and projected needs
• Strengthen the protection of employment lands from sensitive land uses, and update the policies around employment land conversion
• Provide clarification on the servicing strategy and servicing hierarchy of the county to better align with PPS, 2024
• Strengthen the counties policies regarding the management of natural heritage resources, identification and management of hazards, and watershed planning
• Align the public consultation policies in the county’s Official Plan with Bill 185 Planning Act changes which prohibits mandatory pre-application consultation for development applications