Wilmot looking for public input on new official plan

Lee Griffi, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Wilmot Township is preparing a new official plan and the public has an opportunity to get educated and provide input.

The township said the new plan will build on a long-term vision for growth with a renewed focus on complete communities.

“This will include a range and mix of housing, employment opportunities, schools, recreational amenities, options for servicing, roads and active transportation while protecting natural heritage features and farmland,” a post on the township’s website states.

A public workshop is being held on Oct. 22 on the second floor of the Wilmot Recreation Complex, and it will kick off with a presentation to summarize several key areas of focus.

Andrew Martin is the township’s manager of planning and economic development, and explained there have been multiple opportunities for early engagement and there will continue to be opportunities as Wilmot moves through the phases of developing the plan.

“Engagement opportunities include open public engagement, specific engagement with Indigenous communities, specific sector and local group/organization engagement, and council engagement. Council is involved in all stages of the development of the plan and is responsible for adopting the plan before its delivery to the province for final approval. The target for council adoption is June of 2026.”

The Region of Waterloo and each lower-tier municipality had their own official plan that was required to comply with provincial law. As of Jan. 1 of this year, the region became an upper-tier municipality without planning authority. As a result, Wilmot was forced to develop a new plan.

One local activist planning on making his views known is Kevin Thomason.

“The Wilmot official plan is the most important document that most citizens will never read. It determines everything about the future of our communities – where we will grow, how we will grow, what we will protect, what we will destroy, what sort of homes people will have to choose from, how we will travel, what the priorities are for our community and so many other things that will determine our quality of life for decades to come.”

Thomason’s biggest concern with the plan being downloaded onto the township is a lack of expertise among employees.

“Wilmot has an incredible challenge ahead of it. The Region of Waterloo had dozens of planning staff, demographers, population experts, cartographers and others focused on planning. Wilmot is now responsible for all this work … and all sorts of long-term planning, but it has none of the staff, none of the expertise and was given no additional funding from the province when all of this was downloaded on Wilmot.”

He added council foolishly asked for the responsibility and is now wondering how to pay for it.

“Part of our massive tax increase this year was to pay for another full-time planner, but that still doesn’t come anywhere close to the skillsets and manpower needed. A consultant was hired to help with the Wilmot official plan, and that is costing over $400,000 for just a few months of work.”

Thomason has been one of the most outspoken critics of the region’s plan to acquire over 700 acres of prime farmland to be ready for a potential development. He explained preserving the township’s agricultural land is one of his top priorities as the official plan is developed.

“We have one chance to come up with the plan for the next 30 years. Every developer and land speculator wants as much farmland development as they can get, yet our farmland destruction of 319 acres per day is unsustainable. People don’t want distant, urban-sprawl homes. They want complete, walkable communities and to live close to all the amenities needed.”  

He added good planning looks like Baden, having a main street like St. Jacobs with thriving shops on the ground level and apartments above, a park, a town square, a seniors’ home and a community centre residents could walk to.

“We already had the visionary plan that we needed for the future in the 2022 regional official plan that was unanimously approved here by Wilmot council and overwhelmingly approved by regional council. It focused on complete, compact, walkable communities with housing choice and housing affordability, public transportation, active transportation/trails, farmland protection and greenspace preservation. We have to make sure that everything that was in that regional official plan is in the new Wilmot official plan.”

Thomason explained Wilmot is at a crossroads, with the majority of citizens wanting it to remain a small community with modest growth.

“Remaining a rural, agricultural community or becoming the fourth major urban city in Waterloo Region are dramatically different plans for the future with far-reaching consequences for water, traffic, land-use and environmental degradation. Now is the time for people to demand the future they want.”

Registration and more information are available at www.engagewr.ca/new-wilmot-official-plan/background-studies-public-workshop. Two sessions are available, one from 3-5 p.m. and the other from 6:30-8:30 p.m.