Ford’s comments make Wilmot land assembly even harder to understand
The Wilmot situation keeps getting stranger.
Premier Doug Ford was in Kitchener on Thursday to deliver a $14million cheque to the City of Kitchener for meeting its housing targets.
Of course, he was asked by reporters about the controversial and aggressive attempt by the Region of Waterloo to assemble a large parcel of prime agricultural land in Wilmot for industrial use.
Ford is usually a master of explaining complex issues in simple terms. But on Thursday, his words made everything harder to understand than it already is. Something just isn’t lining up. Ford said there was no company waiting in the background to build an industrial plant on the 770 acres bordered by Highway 7 and 8, Nafziger Road, Wilmot Centre Road, and Bleams Road.
He also said the province wants municipalities to assemble land for industry, because companies need the land. When they locate here, they will provide jobs, wealth and growth for the community.
But, he added, municipalities aren’t being forced to make land available.
“We’re trying to do it across the province,” he said.
“If you want to assemble land, we’ll be there for you, and if you don’t, I understand that,” he said.
But if that’s really the case, then the behaviour of the regional government does not make sense.
After all, there wasn’t much urgency in the air last December, when regional council decided not to take $5 million from the tax base to buy up industrial land so it would be ready when businesses wanted it.
Staff had recommended going ahead with the $5 million, but councillors didn’t want to add to the tax burden of residents.
At that time, the councillors accepted that this would slow down
the process of creating shovelready sites.
They agreed to wait until summer to see if there would be some reserve funds they could use instead.
Now, just a few months later, the stakes seems to be a lot higher and there seems to be a huge rush to get a big piece of land lined up.
A company that has been hired by the region is pushing hard to buy the land at the very low price of $35,000 an acre, and threatening expropriation if the owner says no.
Ford said Thursday that he doesn’t personally approve of these tactics and they don’t sit well with him. But it’s happening anyway.
Something has obviously changed.
And also, where is the region finding the $27 million to pay the farmers, if it didn’t even think it could spend $5 million in December?
Notwithstanding the assurances by Ford that municipalities have freedom of choice on this issue, the behaviour of the region seems to indicate that the province is very much driving the bus on this file.
There is another development to add into the mix as well.
The province has also announced it will be dismantling the planning responsibilities for the Region of Waterloo, among other upper-tier municipalities such as Peel, Niagara and Halton.
“Once in effect, planning policy and approval responsibilities of the regional municipality will be removed and the lower-tier municipalities will assume primary responsibility for all planning in their geographies, except for matters requiring provincial approval,” the release says.
On Thursday, Ford said this happened in order to prevent duplication.
But it was the Region of Waterloo that created an official plan with a distinctive countryside line, which specifically protected farmland and natural areas.
Cities and townships had to abide by those rules when they allowed development.
If the regional planning function is gone, and if that countryside line dies with it, taking more farmland for industry will soon become even easier than it is now.