Hastings County Council has discussed some potential changes to municipal planning as part of provincial Bill 98.
The discussion came as part of Tuesday’s meeting of the Planning and Development Committee. Councillors were presented with a list of the proposed changes for review.
Several changes are proposed as part of Bill 98, which was introduced in March. Some notable changes include removal of minimum lot sizes, removing “sustainable design” from site-plan requirements, and clarifying regulations regarding parkland.
Deputy Warden Tony Fitzgerald raised concerns that implementing the changes might result in giving up too much control.
“It’s just a trend that we’re following, that we’re turning over control more to the developer side. To me, that’s a little bit like putting the fox in charge of the hen house,” said Deputy Warden Fitzgerald. “We have to be careful that we don’t go too far down this road, that we lose the ability not to stop development, but to control development. That is our job.”
County council accepted the report for information, with no other action taken.
