Prince Edward County council has started public consultation on the upcoming community plan.
The consultation began with a town hall meeting at Highline Hall in Wellington on Tuesday night.
About 50 people gathered in the hall from around the community to make their voices heard about the future for Prince Edward County.
Mayor Steve Ferguson said this is the first time the municipality held a meeting like this to help determine plans for Prince Edward County’s future.
“We’ve never undertaken a visioning exercise to what people want the community to be a decade from now, five years from now, and the purpose of this was just to find out what people feel is how Prince Edward County should be allowed to develop over a 10-year period,” said Mayor Ferguson.
Aiden Grove-White, a presenter from strategy corp, hosted the meeting. While a few councillors and Mayor Steve Ferguson were in attendance, they did not speak during the public engagement portion of the meeting.
The main purpose of this meeting was to get public feedback on a 10-year community plan. This plan will be used as the broad vision to help create council’s more specific strategic plan, which in turn dictates the municipal operating plan and budget.
Discussion was centred around five topics;
1: Strengthening government engagement with public.
2: Diversifying the county’s economy while preserving historic character.
3: Aligning infrastructure investments and fiscal policy.
4: Harnessing benefits of tourism to improve residents life.
5: Responding to the climate emergency.
There was also an open period at the end for any recommendations or opinions that didn’t fit within the previous categories.
Discussion around the first topic, strengthening government engagement with the public, was spirited. Local residents chimed in with anecdotes and stories of how the Prince Edward County government wasn’t communicating well with the local residents. Some residents said they received little to no notice or chance to comment on development projects near them. Others said it was hard to find information on municipal meetings and hearings, with one resident complaining she was barely able to figure out where the town hall meeting was being held at all. Complaints pointed out that the county’s website was hard to navigate for some users, and that calling the county’s phone line usually resulted in being transferred to an answering machine if anyone picked up at all.
Discussion around the fourth topic, tourism, was also fierce. Many residents spoke out about short term accommodations such as Airbnbs sitting empty most days while the region suffers from a lack of affordable housing. Residents raised concerns that younger people would have to leave the region to be able to own a home while short term rental properties take up potentially affordable housing the community needs. The recurring complaint was that short term renters were taking up houses to house tourists while local residents struggle to afford a place to live.
Those who want to add their own comments but were unable to attend the meeting can still do so, using either a form that was mailed to every home in Prince Edward County, or a form on the county’s web page here.
