Wellesley council approves discussion papers ahead of policy drafting for new official plan

Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Planning consultants with Nethery Planning are now hard at work drafting policies and drawing maps for the Township of Wellesley’s new official plan after Wellesley council approved six discussion papers that will set the direction for how the township will grow and develop over the next 30 years.

Professional planners Joe Nethery and Emily Stanley presented the discussion papers to township council at its regular meeting Dec. 9. The papers, Nethery explained, were based on engagement with township residents over the last several months since the process to develop a new official plan was launched in August.

“These discussion papers were part of the original project scope, the general point being to provide some background, some context, do a little bit of research as we’re going through these updates to the plan itself to make sure the policies, the vision and content in this document are up to date, remains relevant, and it remains applicable and overall good planning and in the public interest for the township,” Nethery said.

“We’ve walked through some of the legislative and policy changes, including the removal of upper-tier planning responsibilities down to the township – you are in the driver’s seat in terms of driving some of this content, recognizing the approval of the updated official plan will now reside with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Each of these discussion papers contain some policy directions … all of which we are going to use to inform the writing of the draft policies themselves.”

Presented to council by Stanley, the discussion papers that will inform the draft policies in the new official plan are as follows:

• Residential growth, housing and intensification: Provides recommendations for managing population growth based on examination of current housing trends.

• Employment lands: Provides guidance for meeting employment land needs in the township.

• Commercial needs: Provides an overview of township commercial space and considerations for the future.

• Settlement area boundary expansion criteria: Provides suggested criteria for expanding the township’s settlement area boundaries.

• Scoped secondary plan: Provides a foundation for scoped secondary planning for designated growth areas.

• Land use policies: Includes several foundational themes for policy development for the new official plan, including agriculture and climate-change mitigation, among others.

Each discussion paper includes a number of policy directions that will inform the work done by Nethery Planning consultants as they begin drafting policies in the project’s next phase. Before the discussion papers were approved, however, councillors had an opportunity to ask questions and seek clarification on those policy directions.

Speaking specifically to the settlement area boundary expansion criteria discussion paper, Mayor Joe Nowak asked for a breakdown of the expansion requests that will be considered by council as part of the new official plan process.

“We as a project team have been fairly consistent since day one of this project that we would be making this call-out, we would be soliciting that information,” Nethery said. “I know that (township) staff have done a great job of facilitating that long before my team showed up here. We have put that call out, we have messaged that through the Engagement Wellesley (website), setting the deadline for those submissions (for Dec. 12) because quite frankly, we need adequate time to assess and consider any of those requests.

“That doesn’t stop anyone from coming in and making requests at any point during this project, except we’re asking for that deadline now so we can make a full and complete assessment of those requests in and amongst the suite of considerations that have been made over a number of years.”

According to Wellesley director of development services Tim Van Hinte, there were a series of boundary expansion requests that were made for Wellesley Township when the Region of Waterloo, which held planning responsibilities for the township at the time, was considering an amendment to the regional official plan in 2023. From that exercise, Van Hinte said there are between 10 and 12 outstanding requests for boundary expansions to the township, most of which involve employment lands.

“Some were for the Wellesley urban area, some were for rural settlement areas; not all were implemented during that process because … a number of different changes started happening at the provincial level in terms of provincial policy and legislation and that was set on pause,” Van Hinte said. “ … For the purpose of what we’re doing now, the process is kind of twofold. One, it’s reaching back out to those landowners to reconfirm their interest in a settlement area boundary expansion, and I would say of those previous ones, there’s probably 10 or 12 requests.

“ … And then (there’s) the additional requests we’ve had since then. There have been probably about four additional residential requests – not large pieces of residential land, but residential land nonetheless.”

As part of this process, Nethery Planning consultants will work with township staff to make recommendations to council as to whether boundary expansion requests should be granted.

Now that council has approved the six discussion papers, the consultants from Nethery Planning are working to draft the policies and maps and complete a first draft of the new official plan for feedback from both council and the public early next year.