Springwater, Oro-Medonte agree to keep border talks going with Barrie

The township councils in Oro-Medonte and Springwater had similar yet different reactions to the same news Wednesday afternoon and into the evening.

In Oro-Medonte, the council chambers were filled to capacity as Hemson Consulting's Stefan Krzeczunowicz presented the Joint Lands Needs Analysis and Study - Stage 2 summary, which evaluated land requirements for the City of Barrie and the townships of Oro-Medonte and Springwater to accommodate growth up to 2051, focusing on employment and community areas.

Community areas are defined as being centred around housing and the supporting infrastructure, services and local retail employment necessary to sustain residential communities.

At the end of his presentation, Krzeczunowicz fielded a number of questions from Oro-Medonte councillors about the study, which concluded the case for additional land for Barrie being relatively weak for only employment areas, but relatively strong for community area and for comprehensive community/employment area uses.

Oro-Medonte Mayor Randy Greenlaw tried to get some clarity on the numbers and asked Krzeczunowicz specifically about Barrie’s land stock.

“We think on the employment area side of things they’re probably going to run short before 2051, but after 2041,” Krzeczunowicz said. “On the housing needs front, it’s a little bit more short term. I would say they have enough to get them to 2031."

Greenlaw tried again.

“My understanding was they had enough industrial land to 2051, but they do not have enough shovel-ready land, but they were addressing it within their own city plan,” the mayor said.

“There are several targets here,” Krzeczunowicz said. “On the employment side, the key target is 2051 employment/job target. We think there’s just about enough employment land to get them to that target, but they might run a bit short before 2051.

“On community area side of things, there are two targets — 2031 provincial housing pledge target, and the other is 2051 population target. We think they can probably hit the 2031 target, but will fall short of hitting the 2051 target.”

An hour and a half later, Krzeczunowicz made the exact same presentation for Springwater council, where about a half-dozen folks gathered in council chambers to hear the findings.

When Krzeczunowicz finished, he was asked to clarify a couple of numbers and the difference between a boundary adjustment and annexation — “there isn’t any,” he said — and if there were any other study areas that were identified that weren’t included on any of the maps council had seen.

“I saw one other that included proposed lands that are larger than what you see here,” Krzeczunowicz said.

Jeff Schmidt, chief administrative officer for Springwater, addressed the study area question a few moments later.

“Through discussions tonight, you see what City of Barrie did propose to Springwater back in September of last year,” he told council. “Those are the lands that were provided and presented to members of council.

“As for other mapping, yes, we’re familiar that there are other reiterations of that map that were submitted by the City of Barrie to the minister of municipal affairs back in December of last year as part of their Official Plan amendment.” 

Schmidt told council those lands were not presented to Springwater council, but staff are very familiar with those lands.

“They don’t form part of tonight’s presentation,” the CAO said. “That said, again, I think we need to make sure that everybody’s aware and it's clarified, that although those lands were lands that Barrie has identified, should council agree and all parties agree to move to the next stage, additional lands will likely be identified through that process and will be brought forward for council consideration as to how you would like to proceed.

“We just need to qualify, the study area includes the borders between Barrie/Springwater and Barrie/Oro-Medonte. It’s not just specific to what Barrie has presented or previously presented to council," Schmidt said. “It’s the study area and it includes the full boundary between Barrie/Oro-Medonte and Barrie/Springwater.”

Both township councils voted to receive the report and both voted to continue to engage with each other, the Office of the Provincial Land and Development facilitator, Hemson Consulting, the City of Barrie and the County of Simcoe to develop a work plan for the analysis of options identified in the Joint Land Needs Analysis and Study, as well as the costs to complete the proposed scope of work. 

Staff for both townships will report back to their respective councils regarding the contents of a proposed work plan in January 2025.

Barrie city council also met later on Wednesday night to discuss the same report and hear a similar presentation.