A Bruce County Official Plan amendment that proposed removal of protection for certain wetlands will not be moving forward.
Bruce County council voted to abandon an amendment that would have removed "locally significant wetlands" from the county's official plan, potentially opening the way for those lands to be developed.
The proposal generated widespread concern from environmental groups, as well as local councils and Saugeen Ojibway Nation, all who asked council to keep wetlands protection in place.
Brockton Mayor David Inglis is the chair of the Agriculture, Tourism and Planning Committee, and he says the feedback from the public did help to identify the need to update wetland mapping on the Bruce Peninsula, which will help council better determine which areas meet the criteria for wetlands protection.
A staff report on moving forward with a mapping update is expected to be tabled at the next committee meetings in January.
"They're older maps that the county has for those areas in Northern Bruce Peninsula, so those need to be brought up-to-date. We need to do that in order to put the [wetlands] criteria together, so they'll work hand-in-hand," says Inglis.