Town of Innisfil staff continue to try and find alignment between the municipality, the County of Simcoe and the Province of Ontario as the county moves through its Municipal Comprehensive Review (MCR).
The report before council at its Jan. 12 meeting dealt primarily with agricultural lands and natural heritage systems (NHS).
There are “a number of differences” between what the province, the county and the town identify as prime agricultural area within the municipality’s boundaries, with refinements needed to the province’s agricultural land base.
That’s the conclusion of AgPlan Limited, which the town retained to review the provincial mapping and the revisions already proposed by Simcoe County in its Municipal Comprehensive Review (MCR). Their report found a total difference of 6,162 hectares in prime agricultural area between the three tiers of government.
AgPlan’s report calls for 1,177.72 hectares to be excluded from the provincial prime agricultural area in Innisfil, 85 per cent of which is designated as rural, rural commercial or rural industrial, and has been identified as such since before 2017. As well, an additional 117.91 hectares that the town and the county consider prime agricultural area should be added to the provincial mapping, the report states.
Coun. Ken Eisses hoped for greater comments from both staff and residents about agriculture, as he considered that to be the primary concern of this update. He had concerns with the accuracy of the mapping used and the data contained.
The provincial mapping has its own criteria, but it includes soil capability, explained Mary Nordstrom, Planning Manager for the town, who added additional groundwork has been done at the town level as it developed agricultural designations in its 2006 Official Plan and 2018 update. The differences, she continued, were highlighted in the AgPlan report.
Eisess feels that farmers and landowners in Innisfil need to be aware of what these differences could mean for them.
“If a farmer’s land is mapped a certain way and there are some regulations… that could affect how a farmer farms,” he said. “(If) they have a disagreement with the mapping… is there an opportunity to appeal the mapping from a landowner or farmer in those circumstances?”
That’s essentially what the MCR process is, Nordstrom said.
“The opportunity to refine agricultural mapping is through this process,” she said. “Outside of this process, there are policies that are put in place and tests that need to be met to determine if lands can be removed from prime agricultural. In terms of the mapping, it’s only through the county MCR process that refinements can be made.
Mayor Lynn Dollin suggested AgPLan could be invited to a council meeting to provide more information and a further explanation about their report and the mapping. Nordstrom agreed that could take place but suggested not until the latest mapping adjustments have been made.
The removal of NHS designation from registered plans of subdivision remains top of mind for residents and councillors.
Another resident delegation to council lamented decades-old, unfinished plans of subdivision being included as areas for removal from the NHS. As the Ontario Planning Act allows for plans of subdivision to be reviewed every eight years, Coun. Alex Waters wondered if the town should be proactive in making sure this isn’t an issue for the future.
“Would it be worthwhile if that every eight years these things have to be reviewed, instead of still having on the books planned subdivisions for 60 years ago?” Waters asked.
Waters was hopeful a such a process could be automated, but Nordstrom didn’t think it could be done so simply.
“In terms of regularly reviewing, there is the ability to do that when circumstances like this arise and we have the opportunity to take a closer look at them,” Nordstrom said. “But in other cases, you have various plans of subdivision that have been developed and so to un-register them wouldn’t make sense, because you’d be putting various ownerships under one.”
R.J. Burnside & Associates Limited was retained to help staff determine just what it should recommend being kept as NHS, compared to the county’s recommendation. Burnside’s review found that most of the county’s proposed refinements are feasible and town staff mostly agree.
Discrepancies in the northern portion of Alcona were noted. The county extended the settlement area into a woodland and accordingly removed that portion from the NHS. If the town’s mapping is correct, that portion would remain in the NHS.
As well, a draft plan of subdivision north of Gilford, first approved in 1988, was determined to have no lapsing date. The recommendation is to keep NHS mapping to align with the county’s Greenland and town’s Key Natural Heritage Features and Key Hydrologic Features designations.
