The warden of Huron County believes proposed changes to the Ontario Municipal Board will be good for Huron County and all of rural Ontario.
The province is proposing to scrap the Ontario Municipal Board and replace it with a Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. The powers of the tribunal would be reduced considerable from the current OMB, and decisions would hinge primarily on whether the municipality followed its own official plan.
Warden Jim Ginn points out that rural municipalities have been complaining for some time about decisions made in Toronto having no relevance to rural Ontario. He believes the proposed changes would address that concern.
Ginn adds it would also put more pressure on municipalities to make sure their official plan reflects the wishes of the people.
He says official plan reviews in the past have often been a matter of simply reviewing the existing plan, but they would now require more public consultation, and that would be good.
Ginn also points out that rural communities want to make sure agriculture is protected under the official plan, but if we want to have tourism and manufacturing, an effort has to be made to make sure they can all share the same place.
Ginn says he sees a big future for agri-tourism involving things like wineries and breweries as well as agri-food tourism, so an effort has to be made to make sure that they fit into the official plan.