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Penetanguishene creates new policy to foster faster development

‘It was a surprise to learn there was nothing quite like this’ in county, said planning director on proposed subdivision streamlining agreement
2020-04-01-Penetanguishene(1)
Penetanguishene Town Hall.

What seemed a means to eliminate duplicated efforts and become more efficient, instead revealed a new approach to getting subdivisions in Penetanguishene built faster.

A pre-servicing agreement policy report from staff was presented to the committee of the whole at a recent meeting, hot on the heels of a record year in 2022 for registered subdivisions in town. Planning staff had found that once draft approval for those developments were given, a policy to clarify further steps was necessary to avoid duplication in the planning process.

Planning and community development director Andrea Betty provided an overview of the pre-servicing agreement policy for the committee. 

She explained that its main benefit would be in enabling a developer to proceed with underground servicing works at the reduced cost of financial security – an estimated cost of 15% of the works or a maximum of $25,000 – while remaining conditions of draft approval would be satisfied.

“(It would assist a) development in moving forward faster through the approval process once most of the work has been done, and allow for the finalized details through subdivision agreement to continue through the process,” said Betty. “It also would enable a lower financial impact to developers in posting a security within the municipality, so that it really does help development happen faster… and get homes built faster.”

Within their own discussions, Betty told the committee that staff had reached out to planners at Simcoe County along with other external professionals “...to try and identify if there was something out there that we could build upon. And it was kind of a surprise to learn there was nothing quite like this that we were able to find, so we were starting from scratch.”

The draft policy presented an outline of qualifying requirements from developers as well as the procedures needed to conclude a pre-servicing agreement by the municipality, prior to subdivision registration.

Coun. George Vadeboncoeur supported the principle of the policy calling it “a great idea” with great incentive, but had concerns on any delays the policy would initiate.

“The only issue I had with respect to the policy,” said Vadeboncoeur, “is that if a developer chooses to go with a pre-servicing agreement, they cannot ask for a subdivision agreement process to start until all the underground works have been certified and accepted by the town – so that’s all the water and sewer, stormwater, et cetera. It takes time to put a subdivision agreement together.”

Betty responded, “What we don’t want to have happen (is) duplicating our efforts like we were quite a lot this summer. We want to at least get a subdivision or pre-servicing to a certain phase before starting work on the next part of their development agreement.” She added that staff would look into locating the “trigger point” of moving into subdivision agreement as a possible change to the policy.

Coun. Doug Leroux praised the policy, giving it his support.

“I think it’s a win-win situation all around,” said Leroux. “It’s beneficial to the municipality, but at the same time it will also be beneficial to developers.”

The policy was approved by the committee of the whole, and will appear for further decision at the next regular meeting of council.

The pre-servicing policy and report can be located on the agenda page of the Town of Penetanguishene website.

Meetings of Penetanguishene council are held on the second Wednesday of each month, and can be watched live on Rogers TV cable 53, or on the Rogers TV website.

Archives of council meetings are located on the Town of Penetanguishene YouTube channel.


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Derek Howard, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Derek Howard, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Derek Howard covers Midland and Penetanguishene area civic issues under the Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the Government of Canada.
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