Hastings County’s Planning and Development Committee has made recommendations to county council regarding the Investment Attraction Plan.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the committee heard a presentation from Director of Planning and Development Justin Harrow outlining the Economic Development Working Group’s steps toward creating and implementing its findings into the plan.
Harrow says there are three main sectors the group looked at when it comes attracting investments:
- Renewable energy and biomass
- Retirement and senior housing
- Resort and hotel development
Each of the sector’s opportunities were outlined in the report.
When it comes to renewable energy and biomass, the report states that there are 302 acres of vacant land already assessed as industrial that could be further explored for renewable energy projects.
For retirement and senior housing, the working group looked at creating smaller homes and condominiums while developing “aging in place” communities.
Finally, for resort and hotel development, the report says Hastings County should partner with any interested member municipality and together share the cost and staff time for a feasibility study on what is deemed a suitable property.
When asked about incentives to achieve these objectives, Harrow says that is something that was discussed with the group and is being explored.
“There’s also some other things we can look through in terms of helping apply for certain funds … and we’ll be looking at doing that as a package I think,” Harrow explained to the committee.
“We’re certainly thinking about that, but we’re not quite at that stage.”
The committee recommended to county council that they receive and approve the Investment Attraction Plan.
You can read the full Investment Attraction Plan here.
