The Town of The Blue Mountains still has not enacted a new allocation policy for water and sewage services.
The policy was once again on the agenda for a special council meeting held on Dec. 6 (the meeting was held to complete the agenda from the Dec. 2 council meeting).
The allocation policy has been on council’s radar for quite some time, but has been delayed and deferred on numerous occasions after representatives from the development community raised concerns and legal questions about the proposed policy.
If approved, the policy would create new guidelines for handing out water and wastewater service reservations to new development. An evaluation criteria would be used to rank projects and each proposed development would be judged by a committee of town staff. Committee decisions could be appealed directly to council.
During the public comments portion of the Dec. 2 meeting, Ken Hale of the Georgian Triangle Development Institute made another brief presentation about the proposed policy. Hale has made a number of presentations to council on the topic at various meetings.
Hale called for the policy to include language and provisions that would protect developers who front end the expansion of services to allow their development to move forward.
“We are quite frustrated,” said Hale. “Firms that front end should have assurances capacity is there when they need it.”
In response, Coun. Paula Hope - who has previously expressed frustration about the continued delays on the implementation of the allocation policy - said she is concerned the front ending language request from Hale would lead to a situation where developers “could automatically buy a place in the allocation line.”
“Equity is very important here,” said Hope.
Hale said he disagreed with the suggestion that front ending language would lead to the line being cut by certain developers.
“It’s not a bypass of the system,” he said.
When council returned to the issue at the Dec. 6 meeting, Adam Smith, the town’s director of planning and development services, recommended a further deferral of the policy.
“I would like to refine the framework,” he said.
Smith said he would bring a follow up report about the matter at council’s committee of the whole meeting on Jan. 14, 2025.
Smith said his report would include a review of the language about front-ending of services and credit agreements.
Council voted unanimously to accept the deferral recommendation.
