Essex council pauses rollout of Master Plan for Land Use

Before the Town of Essex adopts it's new Master Plan for Land Use, staff will work to identify best proper use for future developments across the municipality.

The pause comes after a group of Colchester residents expressed concern about a major development in their small community.

The group, called “Colchester Matters”, has been raising concerns about what they call a potential tourism mecca in the Colchester area, pointing to proposals that would see several beaches redeveloped, along with a plan that would add more than 400 homes and dwellings on the west side of Colchester, near County Road 50. The group is worried the infrastructure cannot support the increase in population.

"Before we adopt our Official Plan, which also has embedded in it the Secondary Plan for Colchester, we're looking to see if that's where we really want a lot of future development," said Mayor Sherry Bondy.

"So, what we're doing is a local comprehensive review, which will have our administration with consultants and council in the community look at where our land use is in our town and where do we really want to focus development and more importantly, the intensification of development."

The Official Plan is a long-range planning document containing goals, objectives and policies to guide land use, development and growth in the town.

It was originally adopted in 2009 and updated in 2015 and is required to be reviewed and updated regularly under the Planning Act to ensure it is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement and conforms with the County of Essex's Official Plan.

"We want to study the agricultural soil in the southern half of our municipality to make sure we're not developing on precious farmland, that once it's developed, we'll never get back," Bondy explained.

"It's not saying no to development. It's saying where the smartest development is going to be."

Bondy continued, "Colchester folks are really passionate about their community and many of them moved to Colchester for the serenity, for the culture that it is. So, we really want to give our residents in our municipality some say what they want the future of Colchester to look like.”

"Is intensifying Colchester, right by the lake, the smartest thing from a climate perspective, from a farmland perspective, from an infrastructure perspective? Colchester is a settlement area, but it's more of a secondary settlement area,” said Bondy.

“So, we need to look at good growth management and say, does this make common sense or is it better to have more development attached to Essex Center right by Highway 3 where you're closer to jobs, you're closer to health."

Bondy said Essex County is unique in the sense that it has four wards, consisting of Essex, McGregor, Colchester and Harrow. It is looking to target development to the capacities, rather than asking current residents to pay for capacity expansion.

"If it comes through to fruition, it will be a huge change for a little area of the size of us," said Nettie Ridley of Colchester Matters.

Speaking on The Morning Drive with Mike and Meg on AM800 CKLW, Ridley expressed relief the municipality reviewing the land-use master plan.

"It's huge,” she said. “We're very, very pleased that we can take a breather and look at that and maybe work with the town to ensure that everybody comes out on top of this thing and that we stop looking at our shoreline as a reason to turn us into a major tourist mecca. And as we had mentioned like a Grand Bend.”

Ridley said Colchester Matters is very concerned about flooding for developments in the beach areas.

"In all fairness, the first developer that has come forward is discussing major mitigation issues and what he might be able to do and is planning to do from an engineering perspective. So, we're hopeful on that. But we're still concerned for the residents who exist there now, who have already flooded many times. And the idea of putting more concrete in there is not something that they want to see."

Ridley said there’s already overcrowding on the weekends, so trying to attract more tourists isn’t the best thing for the small area.

"Our concern is that our land use, our specialty crop areas, our soil, we have some of the best soil in the entire province here in Essex County,” Ridley added.

“So, every time we rezone a farm from agricultural to residential, we're removing an opportunity to grow our own food."

-- With files from AM800.