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HomeMy WebLinkAbout74-70X 7 0 REPORT NO.1 INTERIM OFFICIAL PLAN Although I believe good progress is continuing to be made by our Consultants on the production of our District Official Plan, we are still struggling along with increasing difficulty in making the day to day decisions which are necessary in the meantime. I would currently estimate that the District Plan should be finished sometime in December, if no changes are made in the Consultants' work program. Following completion of the first draft of the District Plan there will have to be consultation with the public, discussion with the Region (in addition to normal continuous con- sultation) and revisions where they are considered necessary. Following this there will be formal review by the Region and ultim- ately by Queen's Park. Even if all parties proceed as expeditously as possible, it is likely to be at least another year before any District Plan is formally in effect. While this process is going on, the former Township of Clarke and the former Village of Newcastle remain without any approved Official Plan coverage and the former Township of Darlington is covered by a very old Official Plan which is now quite out of date. Only Bow - manville has an approved Official Plan of recent vintage and even that plan has some weaknesses, being hastily put together after the original consultants abandoned the project. We do use the existing draft Official Plans in our day to day dec- isions, but they are difficult to work with because their policies 2 are not consistant over the whole municipality and they contain a number of proposals which should be reexamined during the prod- uction of the District Plan. In order to provide us with a basis for making day to day decisions until such time as the final District Plan is approved, and to avoid premature commitments in advance of the necessary studies, our consultants have drawn up an Interim District Plan based on the following principles: 1. It provides a consistant policy for dealing with the rural area (severence applications etc.) . 2, It recognizes existing development commitments for which servicing capacity is available. 3. It permits minor infilling within developed areas. 4. It defers until the final District Plan, any extensive new development, or developments which would require new or expanded municipal services. (It is thus temporarily more restrictive even than the present Draft Official Plans). Because the proposed Interim Plan does not involve any long term or extensive commitments at this time, it should be possible to obtain quick approval of it from both the Region and the Province. I have already explained the purposes of the proposed Interim Plan to Ministry Officials and received an assurance of their co-operation in expediting its processing, Mr. Barber of Municipal Planning Consultants will be present at the Committee meeting to explain the p 3 proposed Interim Plan further. A copy of the text of the proposed plan is enclosed with this report, and the accompanying maps will be presented and discussed at the meeting. I would recommend that since this Interim Plan does not contain any substantial proposals for future development, particularly develop- ment of an urban character, the Committee should deal with it as expeditiously as possible and recommend the plan with any desired modifications as quickly as possible. I believe that the approval of an Interim District Plan will be particularly valuable in one important respect. I think that by approving an Interim Plan we can satisfy the need to'get something on the books' to meet day to day needs. This will provide us with a little more time to involve the members of this Committee, and more particularly the general public in the production of the final plan. It will relieve the pressure to push the final plan through with undue haste when the consultants first draft is laid before us. Respectfully submitted, /l Y George F. Howden, Planning Director.