CENTRAL MANITOULIN—A provincially mandated update to the municipality’s zoning came under fire at a proposed third reading before Central Manitoulin’s November 28 council meeting.
A significant group of property owners attended the public meeting held prior to the council meeting to voice their concerns over their properties being removed from an agricultural zoning and redesignated as rural. At odds are the restriction on property uses that come under the rural rubric.
One particularly egregious issue was that a map of the zoning changes being proposed that was posted online on the town’s website was incorrect. That map, originally proposed by a consultancy firm hired to help the municipality navigate the changes, had been sent back to the firm for revision after it was realized that many of the agricultural to rural designations were inaccurate according to council members.
Attendee Patricia Meehan, a lawyer, offered that the entire process had been tainted by the inaccurate information and that council should “go back to square one.” That was a position that council was not prepared to follow, citing that the process of three public meetings, ongoing for several years, was intended to iron out such issues.
Among the specific issues outlined by Ms. Meehan was that the plan originally published on the town’s website, since corrected, did not provide for parking at Wagg’s Wood Park limiting public access. Ms. Meehan also pointed out that the provincial Planning Act “specifically delineates that notices on municipal websites was not sufficient notice to the public of a proposed zoning bylaw change.
Council agreed that the situation warranted a step back, although balking at a return to the absolute beginning of the process.
It was pointed out that getting a change made to a property on the zoning map was anything but easy and required considerable effort.
Following the public meeting, council moved the bylaw motion to the beginning of the council meeting.
“There’s been a lot of talk here tonight and I understand the frustrations—somewhat,” said Councillor Bisaillon. “Communications is key and everything, but I don’t know where that goes to. What I’m not prepared to do is to start this process from the beginning. This process has been going on since before I started council about two years ago—there have been other meetings. They were attended, maybe not as well as they should have been. I remember the first one over here and first in council and the map got changed. I remember that. It was such an uproar from the people that were there.” In the end things were “pretty much put back to where they were.”
“I want to see all the agriculture land protected after seeing what happened down around Barrie,” he continued. “I found it was very disheartening there were some prime agricultural land down here just ripped up and used for subdivisions. I found that very, very disheartening every time I went down there.”
“I was under the impression that pretty well everything got put back to agriculture,” said Councillor Bisaillon. He was adamant that the process not go all the way back to the beginning. “I’m prepared to say, ‘let’s hold it,’ hold it for another 60 or another 90 days. Let everybody put their input again have another public meeting and we go from there.”
It was pointed out that 60 days would not accommodate summer residents and further, that with the current mail strike at Canada Post, informing property owners by mail was itself problematic.
“I think that’s one of the prime reasons why I always say we shouldn’t give something three readings and pump it through,” noted Councillor Derek Stephens, who had pointed out the inconsistencies in the previous map that resulted in it being returned to the consultant for a second look. “This has been a long process—there’s two councils that have worked on it now and there were a fair amount of people at the meetings. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve got a lot more people coming to a meeting. All because a couple colours were wrong on the map, one, you’re facing those problems. You put the actual thrust of the wording of the official bylaw—nothing’s changed in it yet—just colours on the map. I am quite content to give it another 90 days and we can look at this again. I don’t have a problem.”
Ms. Meehan pointed out that the Planning Act requires that everyone attending a public meeting be given the opportunity to be heard—something she alleged had not taken place. Mayor Richard Stephens suggested that was not accurate and that everyone who indicated they wished to speak had been given the opportunity to do so.
It was suggested that sending a notice with the municipal tax bill would be a good option.
Following more discussion and debate from the floor, council passed a motion to hold off on the third reading of the zoning bylaw changes until 90 days after letters could be sent out in the mail.
Mayor Richard Stephens suggested that, at that time, council could determine if there had been enough time for everyone to ensure their property was zoned accurately.
In Ontario, rural land is defined as being located outside of settlement areas and prime agricultural areas, while agricultural land is primarily used for agriculture and farm-related activities: being located outside of urban communities, rural settlement areas and areas designated for urban growth. Agricultural land includes productive farmland, woodlots and other natural features.
The Ontario Planning Act requires that land use decisions made by municipal councils and other bodies be consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement. The Provincial Policy Statement provides guidance on protecting and designating prime agricultural areas and establishing criteria for non-agricultural land uses in prime agricultural areas.
The Canada Land Inventory (CLI) system classifies areas with mineral soils based on their ability to grow common field crops. Prime agricultural areas are large, contiguous blocks of land that include: specialty crop areas, CLI Classes 1–3 lands, CLI Classes 4–7 lands, areas with a local concentration of farms and agricultural areas with organic soil.
The crux of the issue came about when the land inventory classification of the properties in question did not match with the current or planned future use of the properties that were proposed to be rezoned as rural from agricultural.
