With the calendar having flipped to 2008, suddenly June 2008 doesn’t seem too far away.

And this deadline should force Barrie, Innisfil and Simcoe County to make a resolution to get serious about boundary talks and growth.

By June, single and upper-tier municipalities throughout Ontario must update their Official Plans to conform with Ontario’s Places to Grow legislation, which sets out a vision for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

To encourage the economic engine of Ontario, the province envisions strengthening the smaller engines in the GGHS. To do that, Ontario laid out policies and employment and population targets to stop sprawl, protect prime agricultural land, enhance the quality of life for residents, and attract innovative industries to the province.

In Simcoe County, Barrie is the designated urban growth centre. That means the city is to be the economic hub of the region, as it offers jobs and an increased array of services.

With an additional 227,000 people coming to the area, Simcoe County has yet to “dis-aggregate” that number, as planners like to say; in real terms, that means spreading out the population among the area’s municipalities. Of particular interest is the potential 76,900 new residents for Barrie - South Simcoe.

Population is the critical determinant of municipal Official Plans (OPs). These consist of the guiding planning document, which designates what kinds of housing and what kinds of employment will locate where, and the municipality’s long-term vision statement, with tools such as secondary plans for smaller areas and recreation plans and fire master plans all supporting that visionary document.

Updating an Official Plan takes time. It is a process that cannot, and should not, be hastily done. So a June deadline truly forces a single-tier or upper-tier municipality (Barrie, Simcoe County) to have its guiding policies by March to allow planning staff to implement and refine the OP document. (Lower-tier municipalities like Innisfil have until June 2009 to comply).

The challenge is we are now well into January. There are no Barrie-Innisfil Negotiation (BIN) talks scheduled, nor are there any Simcoe County growth process steering committee meetings – yet politicians need to be hammering out where and how the region will accommodate an additional 227,000 people over the next 25 years.

Where will these new residents live, work and play? How does the growth affect roads, highway bridges and local transit? How will we ensure police and fire protection standards are maintained? And how will we pay for the upgraded services?

These are critical questions, and they require thoughtful, public deliberation. The clock is ticking.