Simcoe County’s growth plan fails not Ontario’s Places to Grow policy, but it fails Barrie and it fails Simcoe County residents who want to work close to home, Barrie says.

Monday night – just before Simcoe County was poised to discuss and approve its strategy Tuesday morning – Barrie called on the county to reconsider the document that focuses employment growth on an unserviced strip beside Highway 400 in Innisfil and Bradford West Gwillimbury.

That key policy directive, says Barrie, guarantees more county residents will be commuting to work, while severely limiting Barrie’s ability to achieve the province’s expectations of an urban growth centre.

“The county’s Growth Plan compromises the long-term economic prosperity of the entire Central Ontario region by failing to adequately provide for employment growth opportunities in Barrie. The county’s own growth consultants have commented that a healthy Barrie is good for the entire region. We agree that a healthy region is also good for Barrie,” Coun. Barry Ward, the chairperson of the city’s Simcoe Area Growth Plan Review Committee, said in a letter, unanimously endorsed by city politicians.

The county’s plan is to be a local response to Ontario’s 25-year vision for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Places to Grow; using provincial population and employment forecasts, local governments are to allocate these numbers in a manner that restricts sprawl, protects the environment, preserves agricultural land and which fosters the creation of live-work-play communities.

Ontario has capped the population – of Barrie, Orillia and Simcoe County – at 667,000 people in 2031. Because of the province’s greenbelt, developers are looking north to Simcoe County, and unhampered demand could push the population to 920,000, the county forecasts.

The county fails to strategically manage that pressure for the benefit of its residents, Barrie argues.

“The county plan ignores past trends and fails to adequately address the urgency of Barrie’s situation regarding available land supply", the letter states. "The vision for the Greater Golden Horseshoe as set out in Places to Grow is grounded in the principle of planning and managing growth to support a strong and competitive economy. In doing so, it is important to ensure that municipalities have an adequate supply of land for employment areas and other employment uses.

“Barrie’s share of the county’s population has grown from 24 per cent in 1996 to 30.5 per cent today and the city has historically accounted for about 50 per cent of the annual population growth and 40 per cent of the annual employment growth in Simcoe County. However, Barrie’s residential (land) inventory is limited to a two to three year supply and the city’s employment land base must be expanded to support a strong and competitive economy.”

Barrie argues the city - as the only designated urban growth centre in the region – has not only the will to lead, but the ability to lead by building on its existing water and sewer services, its roads and its transit system, not to mention strategically-placed recreational facilities.

By contrast, the county plan designates much residential growth to largely rural townships such as Adjala-Tosorontio (3,100 people), Essa (5,300), Clearview (11,400), Springwater (8,400), Oro-Medonte (7,300), Ramara (5,700), Severn (7,700) and Tiny (2,700) – which combined equal as much growth as is projected for Barrie.

In addition, the county allocates more people for Bradford West Gwillimbury (24,700), Innisfil (32,600) and New Tecumseth (20,200), “where there is no guarantee the growth will be directed to the more urban areas. None of these places could be called complete communities (and) many are not fully serviced by municipal water or wastewater and none has transit service.”

Intensifying for several years, Barrie has focused on more apartments, condos and townhouse developments – all which help the city achieve the province’s intensification and density targets – from which Simcoe County seeks relief, Ward noted.