Lambton County politicians say all the land north of Lakeshore Road should be homes in the future.
A group reviewing Lambton County’s draft official plan has agreed with Plympton-Wyoming Council to designate the entire area – hundreds of acres of what is now homes and farm land – as urban settlement instead of agriculture.
Plympton-Wyoming has had several legal battles with developers in 2016 over the use of the land. The Ontario Municipal Board sided with the developers each time saying the county saw the area as future residential use.
So, this fall, Plympton-Wyoming passed a motion saying all the land in that area should be designated residential instead of agricultural. Council is worried a livestock operation could be built in the area which would make it less desirable for homes.
But in the first draft, the county still had it listed as agricultural land. Plympton-Wyoming Mayor Lonny Napper told a committee reviewing the draft plan Jan 4, it needed to be changed.
“All we want to do is make sure that is where the growth is going to go and protect our farm land… so there are no loopholes,” says Napper. “Our future is that area.”
But planners say the area is more residential development land than Plympton-Wyoming will need in more than one hundred years. Allowing developers the option of building wherever they wanted in that area could be costly. County Planner Rob Nesbitt says saying things like school bus runs would be longer and cost more money and new roads and sewers would have to be installed if development is spread out over the area.
Sarnia City/County Councillor Bev MacDougall agreed. “You can have open season on your growth… but then you’re going to have to come up with the money for servicing it, too,” says MacDougall.
Enniskillen Mayor Kevin Marriott, who is a farmer, says it is difficult to consider all that farm land could be covered in houses. “We want to see land protected but we have to try (to encourage growth),” says Marriott. “We have to try or we’ll be sitting here 20 years from now with no growth.”
Petrolia Mayor John McCharles agreed saying the land which is now farmed will continue to be farmed, changing the designation in the official plan to urban settlement will simply stop livestock operations from setting up shop there.
And he says the growth could still be planned. “If we designate it urban settlement as a county… Plympton-Wyoming could still design it as they want. They could put holding areas for future development and can restrict development with septic tanks… Let the township do what it wants,” says McCharles.
The review committee agreed to declare the whole area north of Lakeshore as urban settlement. The move will still need to be approved by all of county council.
And Plympton-Wyoming has some footwork to do as well. Planning officials say the town has a public meeting scheduled for Jan. 24 in Camlachie to explain the idea and to get public input before making the idea official through the town’s official plan.