| Mar 16, 2016


Municipal councils set policy; they set budgets; and they provide oversight to ensure that everything is running well. It is not their job to run the township; that is the job of township staff.

There is indeed a grey area in all this. Councilors are elected, and the people who elect them expect them to make sure everything is done right; that the garbage is picked up on time; the dumps are safe; the roads are cleared; property values will be protected; environmental regulations will be adhered to; etc.

They need to sometimes poke their noses in operations to make sure everything is being done right, but they also need to be careful that they are not just getting in the way, slowing things down and making the township less efficient.

So, when Council starts to interfere directly in township operations on a routine basis, there is a problem. And that is what is happening at South Frontenac as far as planning is concerned.

Council meetings these days are dominated by discussions among councilors on planning issues. Reports and recommendations by the planning department, technical reports by engineering companies and environmental authorities, and legal opinions from township lawyers - all are routinely dismissed by members of council, who have no formal expertise in any of these areas.

In the most contentious case before Council currently - a 13-lot subdivision in Hartington - there is a well-organized opposition that has made use of all the resources at their disposal: making presentations to council, writing to council, and hiring their own technical consultants.

These are all legitimate parts of the prescribed planning process, and eventually the reports prepared for the applicants, the County of Frontenac (which is the ultimate deciding body) and opponents, will all be put to the Ontario Municipal Board for a decision. No matter what Council had done in this case the matter was headed that way from the start. If Council recommended approval, and it was rubber-stamped by the County, the opposition would have appealed, and if they said no the proponents would have appealed.

However, what they have done is delay, and that has led to an appeal based on the delay, not an appeal based on a decision.

Even two weeks ago, after the appeal was launched, council delayed their decision once again. There was a crowd of opponents in the room saying they should vote no, and a township planner recommending they vote yes, based on 35 conditions. Council did neither. They ordered a report to look at all of the other reports.

For one thing, township money will be spent on this new, unnecessary report. Whether Council supports this project or opposes it will likely have little impact on the OMB decision. The OMB will look at all the technical reports, the opinions of planners, lawyers, etc.

They will measure this application against all the other decisions that have been made elsewhere and on the rules that have been set out locally and provincially.

What Council's delays will do, however, is affect who pays for all of this.

The applicant will be seeking legal costs, and council's dithering, their refusal to trust their own planners and the peer reviews by engineering companies, will all be cited as grounds for the township to reimburse the costs of the applicants.

This will cost the ratepayers and will also be a deterrent for developers who are attracted to South Frontenac.

There are reasons for residents, and councils, to be cautious about development. That's why rules need to be in place and enforced.

In South Frontenac, those rules are in place and being enforced, and Council is helping no one by meddling in areas where they do not have any expertise.

I don't have any idea if the Hartington subdivision is a good thing or an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and I've read most of the reports and letters.

The point is, I don't think South Frontenac Council knows any better than I do. Planning needs to be a process based on clear rules. Once it becomes political it is going to be slow, contentious, and expensive for all involved.

That is what happened here, and it is time that South Frontenac did things differently.

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