Oro-Medonte Township councillors voted unanimously to sell the municipality's 20 per cent share in the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport to Simcoe County on Wednesday, paving the way for further expansion at the Line 7 facility.
At Wednesday's council meeting, township staff was directed to pursue a share-purchase agreement with the county.
The sale still requires ratification by Simcoe County council, but Oro-Medonte's director of corporate services, Donna Hewitt, said the township's work is mostly over now as they await word back.
At a rate of $74,100 per share, the township would receive just under $1.5 million for its 20 shares.
“The County of Simcoe will need to make that decision at their appropriate council meeting, but we have made ours and now the ball is in their court whether they want to acquire at that rate or not," Hewitt told BarrieToday.
Simcoe County is also interested in acquiring a significant portion of the City of Barrie's share, which would see the city's ownership decrease from 60 to 10 per cent. The City of Barrie would then see a reduction in its maintenance, operating, capital and borrowing costs. For more on the city's plan to sell its airport shares, click here.
“The county would then have our 20 per cent in addition to what Barrie is looking to divest as well,” Hewitt said.
Should a sale of the township's shares to the county proceed, Oro-Medonte would show an overall loss on its future financial statements of approximately $2.65 million.
However, Mayor Harry Hughes told BarrieToday it was important to get out of the airport business and let airport expansion happen.
A $66-million phased expansion is needed to create more business and employment opportunities at Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, which is located between Barrie and Orillia off Highway 11.
“Really, what we did today was we closed the loop on the airport,” Hughes said. “The County of Simcoe will have majority ownership and the City of Barrie will have some, but it doesn’t change our position really at all, in terms of any leverage.
"All it is doing is allowing the airport to develop, whereas we would have been holding them back, because we just don’t have the resources to put in it," the mayor added.
Hughes says the airport provides significant economic development opportunities for the area, and particularly with the pressures that are occurring at the airports in the Toronto area.
“We see this as a boon to the potential economic development and this is just our way of enhancing it without the Township of Oro-Medonte really losing anything,” he said.
“We have one person on the board now and that wouldn’t change our voice at the table," Hughes added. "Truthfully, we don’t have a majority vote now, so zero per cent at the table gets you just as much as 20 per cent does.”
