Mayor Randy Greenlaw is apparently correct when he says “everyone wants to be in Oro-Medonte.”
The municipalities on two sides of its borders have come calling in their respective quests for land.
At the township’s recent council meeting, George Vadeboncoeur, Oro-Medonte’s interim director of development services, presented a report that addressed the City of Orillia’s desire to “expand its boundaries,” including two parcels of land in Oro-Medonte.
Parcel A is located west of Line 15 North, south of the Bass Lake Sideroad, north of Old Barrie Road and halfway across the concession. It consists of 125 hectares (308.8 acres) of community area and 35.5 hectares (86.4 acres) of employment area.
Parcel B is located south of Memorial Avenue, west of Woodland Drive, east of the Forest Home industrial park and Highway 11 and about halfway down Woodland Drive across from the industrial park to the west. It consists of 28.2 hectares (69.6 acres) of employment area.
While nothing will be decided until next year, how two local cities — Barrie and Orillia — have approached their respective boundary expansion plans with their neighbours appears to be markedly different.
Last week, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall announced the city’s plan for a boundary expansion at the provincial standing committee on heritage, infrastructure and cultural policy, regional governance and Bill 234. While Nuttall didn’t name Oro-Medonte and Springwater townships at the time, it soon came to light that Barrie was eyeing land on its borders with those municipalities for industrial development and job creation.
The mayors of Oro-Medonte and Springwater say they were unaware Nuttall was making the announcement. Nor could either comment at the time because both had learned of Barrie’s plans during closed sessions of council. That means mayors, deputy mayors and councillors are not allowed to discuss the details of closed sessions in public.
The day after Nuttall’s announcement, Greenlaw, in an emailed statement, chronicled the conversations and meetings he said he had with Nuttall. He said Barrie’s mayor requested a meeting in early 2023 to discuss a potential partnership regarding a “mutually beneficial project that would provide benefit and value to the residents of both municipalities.”
Greenlaw described that project as a “solo project” that would be built on Oro-Medonte land and be tied into the City of Barrie’s water and wastewater system.
Greenlaw says it seemed like a win-win opportunity, and Oro-Medonte council provided the appropriate permission to continue the discussions and report back.
“Supplemental confidential discussions morphed significantly into something much different than what was initially discussed,” he said. “I suggested that Mayor Nuttall come to the Oro-Medonte council to make a public deputation regarding the partnership he is proposing.”
Nuttall appeared before Oro-Medonte council last week to pitch his ‘Proposed Servicing Land Options Oro-Medonte/Barrie’ presentation. It did not receive the support Barrie had wanted. After the meeting, Greenlaw said he was “not comfortable” with what was being suggested.
Orillia’s approach has followed a different path.
According to Jill Lewis, Orillia’s senior planner, the city has been working on completing studies regarding growth management with a 30-year outlook since 2018.
She said the province has given Orillia growth targets of 49,000 people and 26,000 jobs by 2051.
“The first step in this process was determining if the city had enough land within its current municipal boundary to accommodate the projected growth,” Lewis said. “This was completed through a land-needs assessment, which determined the city would exhaust its existing land supply by the 2030s without further expanding its municipal boundaries.”
At that point, she added, the city determined it would need an additional 365 hectares of land from the neighbouring townships of Severn and Oro-Medonte.
“Since 2021, the city has been having conversations with the mayor, chief administrative officer and director of planning in both the townships of Severn and Oro-Medonte to keep them informed of this planning process,” Lewis said.
Three meetings have been held so far, she noted.
In his report to Oro-Medonte council, Vadeboncoeur recommended the township retain Parcel A, but Parcel B could be ceded to Orillia, if council wishes.
“Township staff do not support a settlement area boundary expansion on the Parcel A lands, as these lands could be used by the township through an inter-municipal services agreement to provide much-needed affordable and medium-density housing,” Vadeboncoeur wrote.
“If council desired, it could indicate that it would have no objection to Parcel B lands being included for possible expansion. A small portion of employment lands surrounded by greenlands may address the City of Orillia’s need for additional lands for employment and institutional uses and would have minimal impact on the Township of Oro-Medonte due to its location.”
According to Lewis, Orillia is in the process of assembling all of the comments it has received, and those comments will be taken into consideration by the consulting team evaluating the land for a future boundary expansion.
Oro-Medonte council passed a motion directing the township’s chief administrative officer to prepare a letter to the City of Orillia with the Township of Oro-Medonte’s comments.
