County accepts Destination Development Plan, but defer decision on funding

Jeff Green | Apr 27, 2022

Consultant Greg Oates, from NextFActor, has been working on the Frontenac County Destination Development Plan for about a year, with members of the Economic Development Department and a steering committee made up of entrepreneurs from around the County.

He presented the final plan to Frontenac County at their meeting last week, after making a presentation based upon the key elements of the plan.

Among the 4 primary goals that the plan identifies, he said that the first goal is the linchpin upon which all of the rest will depend.

It is also the one item that members of Frontenac County Council was most interested in making sure they were not approving just by accepting and endorsing the plan. The reason is that it is the one item that, if approved, will have budgetary implications for the county.

Primary goal number one is: “Establish a dedicated resource to promote local small businesses and optimise the visitor experience.”

A dedicated resource is a person or persons to keep the development plan from being what Oates’ called a “side of the desk enterprise” meaning that it will sit at the side of someones desk waiting for them to finish working on their main, front of the desk, job.

“You need a person or persons to e to take this head on. Right now you have Economic Development people to oversee this, in addition to their regular work. The idea is to bring in dedicated tourism industry personnel whose expertise will make the other goals that the report identifies attainable in a reasonable timeframe.

The other three goals of the plan are to: “develop a trail-based, sustainable outdoor recreation ecosystem to help locals and visitors navigate the county, to support local organisations and communities that promote the county’s diverse identity, arts, culture and heritage, and to develop a county-wide culinary experience and educational road map that celebrated local producers and sustainable supply chains.

To illustrate how these goals can be accomplished, Oates pointed to the BC trails website and the Prince Edward Island cultural industries web-based map as examples.

“It was important to us to recognise that the needs of local residents need to be balanced against the interest of tourism industry stakeholders,” he said, “a number of people who we consulted with talked about how some neighbouring municipalities had ‘gone too far’ in promoting tourism, making them less attractive as places to live.”

In the implementation portion of the Development Plan, county staff propose to “phase in the various initiatives outlined in the plan as part of the 2023-2027 Economic Development Business Plan, including the establishment of a tourism resource in 2023.”

Staff are also proposing to apply for a $100,000 Tourism Relief Fund grant from the Province of Ontario in order begin implementing the Destination Development Plan this year.

For their part, Council seem to want to slow down.

“It seems the report is very comprehensive but wide ranging. It should be referred to the Community Development Advisory Committee [CDAC] to flesh it out before is adopted by county council,” said Councillor Alan Revill.

South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal was concerned that by approving the plan and sending it to the advisory committee, council would not have the option of deciding whether to fund its implementation or not.

CDAC could say it is a wonderful plan, but the plan still needs to come back to us, I assume. I don’t think CDAC would have the approval authority to approve implementation.

County Clerk Janette Amini said that as an advisory committee, CDAC’s only role is to report back to Council, which approves all spending and implementation plans.

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins said “I believe we thought this would be a self supported group, with private sector involvement in financing it. It we commit to this plan today, is council committed to hiring a resource?”

The motion in front of council did not include any financial commitment except to apply for a provincial grant of $100,000.

Council then accepted the plan and sent it off to committee.