New wording for Official Plan could usher in cross-border servicing
Peterborough’s Official Plan may soon have new wording to keep open the possibility of extending municipal water, sewer and utility services into neighbouring townships.
The idea is to attract new industrial employers to the area.
Peterborough lacks available land for such an employer, yet has capacity to extend its services into adjacent townships (where there is land but no servicing).
There’s a snag, however: Peterborough’s Official Plan has a clause — 6.1.7 — that prohibits the extension of municipal services beyond the city boundary except to serve city-owned facilities (such as the Peterborough Airport, which is owned by the city but sits on land in Cavan Monaghan Township).
Now city council may soon remove that snag.
Council voted unanimously at a meeting Feb. 6 to have staff come up with new wording to leave open the possibility of cross-border servicing — and now that rewrite is done.
At a committee meeting Monday night, councillors will review the proposed new wording and consider approving it.
Under the rewrite, clause 6.1.7 would remain in the Official Plan — but with a new proviso attached.
The proviso would allow the city to potentially extend services beyond its own boundaries “if it is demonstrated that a mutually beneficial development opportunity exists to support the economic development of both the city and a neighbouring municipality.”
This is a plus for us, that if we wanted to talk to our neighbours, we’d supply services ... It gives us the option of having these employment lands.
At the meeting Feb. 6 where council asked staff to come up with a rewording, Coun. Keith Riel called it “a watershed moment.”
“This is a plus for us, that if we wanted to talk to our neighbours, we’d supply services ... It gives us the option of having these employment lands,” Riel said at that meeting.
For at least 20 years, the city has lacked available land to accommodate any large employer who might want to set up shop.
Over those two decades, successive Peterborough city councils have failed to negotiate
a boundary extension into neighbouring townships.
Mayor Jeff Leal has taken a new approach, saying he’s interested in extending municipal services into neighbouring townships, if it will yield a business opportunity.
The mayor put it this way, in remarks he made to a business crowd at a November meeting of the Peterborough & Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce: “The city of Peterborough — in co-operation, in conversation, in collaboration with our neighbours — is prepared to look at cross-border servicing for the mutual benefit for everybody in this region,” Leal said.
The committee meeting starts at 6 p.m. Monday.