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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, January 20, 2011
Volume 27 No. 3
SPORTS - Pg. 8Saugeen Maitland Lightningwin gold at Guelph tourney AGRICULTURE - Pg. 11 Local beef producers holdannual meetingRETIREMENT- Pg. 6Long-time fire chief saysgoodbye to departmentPublications Mail Agreement No. 4005014 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
A tabled motion from last
September returned to Huron
County Council on Jan. 12 and it got
to the heart of an issue that has been
a contentious one in the area for a
long time.
The issue of farmland severances
that would allow a house to be built
have divided Huron County
Councillors for the last term and
now into the current term. There are
councillors who say that the
agriculturally-based way of life in
Huron County needs to be
preserved, while there are others
who say that the area population can
be expected to continue to decline if
people are “discouraged” from
living in the country.
While the issue may seem to come
up on a severance-to-severance
basis, it gets at much larger issues in
Huron County such as economic
development, declining population,
school closures and business
retention and expansion.
While the base discussion is often
centred around a family that wants to
build a house, or pass a house down
to a son or daughter from the family
farm, the issue scratches the surface
of some of the largest questions that
have faced Huron County for
decades.
“The Vodden Consent” as it has
been dubbed, was originally brought
to a Committee of the Whole
meeting on Sept. 8 and head of
planning and development for Huron
County Scott Tousaw prepared a
report to explain the multitude of
problems council would face if the
application was approved.
At the time, Tousaw said that he
rarely prepares reports such as the
one he prepared, but he felt it was
important to illustrate the magnitude
of the seemingly-innocent
application and what it could mean
for Huron County going forward. He
also explained in September that
there could be severe legal
implications to a decision to approve
the application.
At the time, the motion was tabled
pending a report from the Huron
County Planning Department that
would further investigate the
implications of the application.
Tousaw had prepared the report in
the subsequent months and
presented it to Huron County
Council at its Jan. 12 meeting.
The application, for a property
which sits in the Hullett Ward of
Central Huron, proposes the
severance of a corner lot of a farm.
The severance would violate
several planning clauses, including
Minimum Distance Separation
(MDS) and Tousaw said that as a
registered planner, he was legally
bound to recommend denial of the
application due to the provisions of
the Provincial Policy Statement
(PPS).
In September, Tousaw said that
Huron County hadn’t allowed such a
severance in 40 years and that if the
application was approved that Huron
County Council would likely see
“hundreds” of similar applications
flood in, as council would have been
seen as “opening the door” to this
type of situation.
It turns out that Tousaw’s
predictions were quite low,
according to his report. Tousaw said
his estimate, which was
conservative, found over 9,500
properties in Huron County that
would be in a similar situation to the
property in question.
Tousaw said that in order to be
conservative, several other
properties that could fall into the
same category were not included for
one reason or another, meaning that
the number of similar properties
could be even higher than he
anticipated.
The 9,500 lots, which aren’t even
affected by MDS restrictions, are
comprised of 120,000 acres of land,
roughly 17 per cent of Huron
County.
Should a similar application be
approved on all of those lots, Tousaw
said, acknowledging that it would be
highly unlikely, those 120,000 acres
of “prime farmland” would be
sterilized due to planning restrictions
and MDS regulations.
Again, if all those aforementioned
lots had similar severances applied,
Tousaw said, that area wouldn’t have
a new lot for 70 years. Tousaw
admitted that would likely never
happen, but that the research he had
done was conducted to help illustrate
the magnitude that the decision
could have.
If former agriculture lots began to
be severed and developed, Tousaw
said, it could also have a significant
effect on property prices. He said
that the changes may lead to a
feeding frenzy situation where the
competition to sell the lots becomes
high and prices are driven down.
Tousaw concluded his
presentation by saying that while
allowing one such severance may
seem harmless, 1,000 or 2,000
severances could be devastating to
the tax base of Huron County?
Similarly, however, councillors
turned the question back on Tousaw
saying that having one lot
abandoned because no one can (or
wants to) live there may seem
insignificant, but if 1,000 or 2,000
lots are abandoned, then Huron
County has a very serious problem
on its hands.
Huron East Mayor Bernie
MacLellan had a problem with
Tousaw’s report in that he felt as if
he and the rest of Huron County
Council were being preached to. He
said that he asked for a report on the
possible implications of a decision,
not a further recommendation to
deny the application. This is a
stance, he said, that he already
knows the planning department has
to take. Using discretion on these
issues, however, he said, is why
Huron County Council exists.
“This isn’t a question of applying
the rules; you have to let council
make this decision,” MacLellan said.
“I didn’t appreciate the report for
that reason.”
MacLellan’s initial suggestion was
that the Huron County official plan
be changed to perhaps allow some
severances such as this one, rather
than constantly making exceptions
to their own rules.
Tousaw also said that there is
Hockey parents from Brussels and
Blyth made their voices heard on
Jan. 11, and the message was that
they wanted to amalgamate.
More than 80 per cent of Brussels
Minor Hockey Association members
cast ballots, with 99 per cent voting
in favour of the amalgamation. The
Blyth Minor Hockey Association
had approximately 75 per cent of its
membership out to vote, with 78 per
cent being in favour of the
amalgamation.
Blyth Minor Hockey president
Paul Coultes stated that this was the
response that both groups were
looking for.
“We were hoping for the
amalgamation to go through,”
Coultes said.
Nearly one in four voters in Blyth
were against the amalgamation, and
reasons can’t be known, however
Coultes guesses that some were
concerned about driving distances,
while others suffered from a fear of
change.
“We heard some concerns about
driving to Brussels,” he said. “But
once we get the organization going,
teams will play out of both arenas
equally.
“Some people were just scared of
change, I think,” Coultes said.
“Moving forward is the best though,
for both associations.”
Brussels enthusiasm comes from
their understanding of the dilemma
they were facing due to declining
enrollment, according to John van
Vliet, president of Brussels Minor
Hockey.
“I think our parents voted the way
they did because we’ve been
discussing it longer,” he said. “We’re
further down the road, and we’re a
smaller centre.”
Blyth could have gone awhile
without needing to amalgamate,
according to van Vliet, but Brussels
was starting to feel the pinch from
having fewer players.
“It makes it difficult having
players not playing at the level they
should,” he said. “Some kids want to
play, but won’t have fun playing at a
rep level, and we don’t have the
numbers for local league teams as
well.”
Due to low enrollment, players
would sometimes have to sit spend
more time sitting on the bench and
less time playing due to there being
18 to 20 kids per team; just enough
to make things difficult, but not
enough to create a second team
according to van Vliet.
“Our parents saw these events,”
Severance causes stir at Huron County Council
Amalgamation for
hockey associations
Making progress
Blyth’s Emergency Services Training Centre’s new technology centre is starting to look a lot
like a building with roof trusses being installed on Tuesday morning, despite the snow and
freezing rain. The building is set to be completed by the end of March, with a grand opening
in May, says North Huron Fire Chief John Black. While the project is slightly behind, the centre
is still slated to open before the training season begins. The new centre will provide additional
training opportunities, on-site hygiene for the crews in training and will also function as a fire
hall for the North Huron Fire Department. (Denny Scott photo)
C e l e b r a t i n g 25 YearsTheCitizen1985-2010
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 10
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 10