An Official Plan (OP) review is underway in the Town of Innisfil and municipal staff are hopeful the process can be completed before the end of the year.
An open house to introduce the public to the process was held recently at Innisfil Town Hall. Dozens of residents attended the session, which also featured information on changes to the municipality’s community planning permit system (CPPS).
“An Official Plan is a broad, strategic document that sets out the policy direction for 25 to 30 years in the future,” said Justin Giancola, partner with Dillon Consulting, the lead consultant for the town’s OP review, which is also partnering with SGL Planning and Design on the CPPS changes.
Municipalities are required to review their OPs every five years. Innisfil’s current OP was drafted in 2018 and adopted in 2019, putting the town slightly off the five-year guideline. That delay was purposeful, as the County of Simcoe needed to complete its OP process before it would be prudent for the town to make its potential revisions.
The ever-changing regulations at the provincial level also played a factor. The town initiated the review process once the new Provincial Policy Statement was enacted in the fall.
Planning and growth director Andria Leigh doesn’t see the various changes at a provincial level impacting the process of the review.
“The process will be very similar,” she said. “It’s really about what’s the vision for the town moving forward. Where are the growth opportunities in terms of settlement boundary expansion?”
The changes in direction at the county and provincial level will likely have an impact on what the OP looks like at the end of this process, particularly as Innisfil looks to reach its targeted 2051 population of about 85,000.
“What we’re trying to do through this process is a plan for those additional populations and employments that have been identified through the county process,” Leigh said. “Where does the growth happen? Where do the jobs happen? And really try to work through this vision.”
Giancola said Ontario's legislative changes have provided municipalities with guidelines on what they can and can’t do regarding growth and development and how to structure OPs.
The exercise in Innisfil isn’t meant to tear up what was adopted six years ago.
“This is an update; it will build off of the 2019 version. It is not a fundamental repositioning,” Giancola said. “This is looking at what’s working well from the last (OP). There are opportunities to make improvements based on what we know today and the provincial policy.”
The March 5 open house was the public’s first opportunity to speak to the OP since its adoption and let staff and consultants know what they thought was working well and what needs to be tweaked.
Several members of council were also on hand to review the information compiled to date by consultants and speak with their constituents.
“This is sort of the kick-off: learning what the (OP) is, starting to get feedback on the vision and where they’d like the see Innisfil grow,” Leigh said.
“This first phase is to kind of reaffirm the vision statement for Innisfil, identify and reaffirm the goals as they relate to growth and to help identify the key issues and opportunities that will help inform what policy changes we’re going to be looking at,” Giancola added.
Residents who couldn’t attend the March 5 open house can visit the OP page on Innisfil’s Get Involved website to review the material presented and complete a survey.
Staff's timeline for completing the review may be ambitious, but it won’t be at the expense of resident or developer feedback. Consultants will attend the March 26 council meeting to update councillors on the early stages of the process. From there, the next stage of the project will explore growth scenarios and examine the areas of the current OP that need to be updated, either to conform to provincial legislation or address community concerns.
Additional consultation will happen through the late spring before a statutory public meeting in the fall.
“Through that process, the public will see the criteria of how we’re going to consider settlement boundary expansions, where we might see additional employment areas,” Leigh said. “All of that will be opportunities for input.”