Huron County's Manager of Planning Says The Changes Made To The Revised Draft Of The Provincial Planning Statement Address Many Of The County's Concerns

by Bob Montgomery

Huron County's Manager of Planning says the changes the Province has made to the Revised Draft of the Provincial Planning Statement have addressed some of the county's concerns.

Denise Van Amersfoort says the county's chief concern was the policy that would allow three residential lots on every farm. That has been removed from consideration by the Province and that's a welcome change as far as Huron County is concerned. “The farms groups were very clear in their consultations with the Province last summer that this was not a policy they could support, so we're glad to see that that was heard by the Province and that change has been removed.”

Van Amersfoort says there are also a number of changes within the Draft Provincial Planning Statement to expedite housing approvals, and in Huron County many of those changes have already been made. “The county has been very proactive in making changes to local official plans and local zoning bylaws to do just that, to expedite and create more flexibility for new housing growth.”

Van Amersfoort also points out, Huron County needs more housing but we also need different types of housing units so they're trying to promote additional residential units. That could include adding additional units on to an existing home, apartment units, row house units. The purpose of this is to try to diversify the housing portfolio so that we can meet different needs and different budgets. She points out Huron County has already shown leadership in successfully pursuing grants from upper levels of government to build things like the twenty-unit affordable housing build on Sanders Street East in Exeter, as well as a forty unit apartment building underway on Gibbons Street in Goderich.

What the county would really like to see is more diversified housing permitted as of right. What that means is there's no planning approvals required. Somebody looking to build, let's say a four-plex, would be able to go straight through to the building permit process and that saves time and money.

Van Amersfoort says generally, Huron County was happy with the changes to this point.