More Than Fifty People Attended Public Meeting On Central Huron Official Plan Review

by Bob Montgomery

Over fifty people attended this week's public meeting to review Central Huron's Official Plan.

Mayor Jim Ginn says the issue that attracted most of the attention was people wanting to live year-round in homes that were not meant to be lived in year-round, but were meant to be seasonal dwellings. Ginn concedes there are people who have been living year-round in lake shore areas and camp grounds that were not meant to be year-round residences but it hasn't been enforced because they don't want to send someone out to check out every person's house every day to see if they're there or not.

Ginn says they'll look a little further into the situation and look at how other municipalities are dealing with it. Most of the people at this week's public meeting wanted to make year-round residency an option but Ginn says if they zone it as residential then everyone would have to build their cottage to meet residential specifications that would include standard insulation, plumbing and electrical work and people that really just wanted a cottage for a few months in the summer would have to build to meet normal house standards and wouldn't have the option to just build a cottage.

Ginn says they'll gather as much information as they can but he expects it will be about a year before they make a decision.