Since urban residents here apparently do not want to be hooked in to municipal water, Mayor Lou Maieron sees little point in continuing the town’s Settlement Servicing Master Plan (SSMP) – or in having council deal with planning or growth in the town.
Under notices of motion at council on Nov. 15, he said, “I have a doozy.”
Maieron moved to terminate the master plan study now and pass over matters related to planning and growth of Erin and Hillsburgh directly to the Ontario Municipal Board.
He said council’s recent decision not to proceed with mandatory municipal water hook-up for town residents within 100 feet of existing water mains “does not comply with the town or county official plans with regard to servicing, nor the provincial policy statements.”
As he continued to read the resolution, councillor Barb Tocher interjected that since the motion was already written out, the notice of motion needed only to announce the notice was coming.
Maieron, however, felt he should read it in its entirety so everyone would have it.
It stated, “… that since Erin council has demonstrated a lack of adherence to the official plan, town and county, and the provincial policy statements promoting municipal servicing – water and sewage – and given that since mandatory water hook-up did not advance, it is likely that mandatory sewage hook-up would not be advanced either.”
Therefore, Maieron questioned the need for the SSMP, which he said is only partially completed, with costs as of Sept. 30 at $308,150.
Maieron said to prevent the frivolous spending of property tax dollars, he recommends “the SSMP study be terminated immediately.”
Further, he stated, “Since it is the provincial policies which have placed the Town of Erin in an untenable position to provide at reasonable cost, municipal sewage services – these policies being the Greater Golden Horseshoe Plan, the Greenbelt Act and the Places to Grow requirements of increased density – and whereas there is very little funding from the province of Ontario for the development of new sewage treatment facilities to meet the required growth densities in small Greenbelted villages which cannot expand their boundaries to spread out the financial burden of such sewage facilities, be it resolved that the Town of Erin having terminated its SSMP study, now refer its planning and growth related matters for the two greenbelted communities of Erin and Hillsburgh to the Ontario Municipal Board.”
He said council should consider the motion carefully.
“You put me in a box that I can’t get out of,” Maieron said of council’s decision to refuse to enforce mandatory water connections.
CLARIFICATION
In the Nov. 25 story regarding Lou Maieron recommending dropping Erin’s Settlement Servicing Master Plan. He was quoted as saying he was put in a box he couldn’t get out of – but he was referring to dealings with the province, and not his council.
