Planner will help township realize 'made in Springwater' vision
Like a slow moving caravan, you saw Springwater Township Coun. Phil Fisher’s question coming long before he actually asked it.
“Why do we need to do this now?,” the councillor asked Doug Herron, the township’s director of planning and development, after the director’s request to hire a senior planner came before council last week.
“Why pre-budget?”
The answer was surprising.
“I realized that in assessing the capabilities of the planning department there is an entire key function that we’re not fulfilling to council and to the public,” Herron said. “We’re actually not planning, we’re not coming up with policies to guide us into the future.”
According to Herron’s report to council, with the onset of major planning policy work required to fulfill the development and growth needs of the township, it needs to hire a permanent full-time senior planner for the role of policy planner.
“Creating planning policy is arguably the primary role of a planning department,” Herron wrote in his report.
“Policy entails ensuring the Corporation is compliant with Provincial legislation and Provincial Policy, and creates a locally created vision for rational and controlled growth within the municipality. The vision is important as a guide to both citizens and investors in terms of where, and what type of growth will occur in various areas of the Township.
“Locally created growth policies will also dedicate lands for employment and various densities of housing leading to the long-term establishment of ‘complete community’,” he added.
Herron noted a major concern in his report.
“The current Official Plan update, which was commenced in 2016, is not yet completed and has had, despite best efforts, no attention for at least 6 months,” he wrote. “The current Official Plan would establish growth policies to the year 2031.”
Herron said that over the course of his career, he has never seen a more glaring example of a role that needs to be filled — immediately.
“We are going to be under a lot of growth pressure,” Herron told council. “The market is telling us that the Township of Springwater, and in particular, the settlement areas in Springwater, is a place to develop, it’s a place to invest and there will be a return on that investment.
“This is an opportunity for the township to take control of its own future and create complete community,” he added.
To do that, Herron said, the township needs an experienced senior planner who can pull together the studies and give council the opportunity to look at what a complete community looks like.
For clarity, he illustrated what’s lacking in the development of Centre Vespra.
“It’s almost all single detached homes,” Herron said. “There are no employment lands in that project, there are no commercial lands, no medical lands. Those are elements of a complete community.”
Centre Vespra is not unique.
Most developments in Springwater are relatively the same — single detached homes that become primarily bedroom communities for workers who commute.
According to Herron, much of the township’s current development has been directed by “lawyers and developers” who may not have had the township’s big picture interests at heart.
Hiring a senior planner would put the onus of development on the township, right where it belongs, Herron said.
“There’s a big hole and an immediate need to fill it,” Herron said. “That position is needed so we can come forward to council with those future directions and grasp and create complete community.”
Council voted in favour of hiring a senior planner and that position should be posted by the end of this week.
The increase in staffing costs will be offset by unbudgeted revenue resulting from the recently approved changes to the Planning fees in the 2024 Fees and Charges By-law.
The financial implications for the 2025 Budget are approximately $150,000 in increased staffing costs. The majority of those costs are anticipated to be offset by the recognition of increased planning revenue as a result of the 2024 Fees and Charges By-law update, which will also be further amended in 2025.
Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, BarrieToday.com
