[All] Wilmot MZO Withdrawn by Cachet Developments!!!

[Kevin Thomason]

Good Evening GREN Members,

Some good news for your Friday evening.  We have just learned late this afternoon that Cachet Developments has withdrawn their absurd Christmas Eve Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) request to Wilmot Township and is now saying that they will work within the proper Regional Official Plan Land Needs Assessment Process.

The Press Release from Wilmot Township announcing our victory against this MZO is attached below.  

As you may recall this MZO would have forced an awful development resembling a prison camp for commuters with thousands of residents in multiple 6 storey apartment buildings, 6 storey office buildings, 4 storey townhomes, and an industrial complex packed into a distant leapfrog development on pristine Wilmot farmland.  It was also an unprecedented direct attack on our upper-tier Regional government by the developer using Wilmot Township to get what they wanted that would have had repercussions across the entire province.  While other MZO’s have been focussed on a specific development, Cachet Developments admitted this MZO was to attack a planning process to get what they desired, pitting one level of government against another.

It would have likely set off a chain reaction of similar MZO’s from every other developer and lower-tier municipality in the region as they all would have raced to bypass upper-tier Regional growth and infrastructure planning to get as much growth as they could from the Minister irregardless of the ultimate cost.  The implications of Waterloo Region no longer being able to manage growth and properly plan infrastructure along with our seven previously collaborative municipalities combatting each other for as much sprawl as possible would have been devastating.  

Congratulations to all the GREN members, other citizens, community groups, and organizations from across the province who worked so hard to defeat this MZO and who spoke up for our community with so many e-mails and letters.  The developer has cited the tremendous pushback from the public and the number of concerns raised by community groups as the primary reason for abandoning their MZO approach.

Unfortunately, 6 other MZO’s in Kawartha Lakes, Oro Medonte, Toronto, Richmond Hill, Brampton and Innisfil were announced today.  Hopefully our victory here helps to inspire citizens in these other communities to speak out and stand up against these undemocratic attempts by our provincial government to appease developer buddies by bypassing all proper planning processes.

The Regional Staff Report on MZO’s is still expected to be presented at Tuesday’s Regional Council meeting and we still have the entire Regional Official Plan Review to complete before Doug Ford’s July 1st deadline.  We need to ensure all sorts of progressive planning and ideas get built into this 30 year plan for our community.  There should be public consultations happening in the next few weeks and I will keep you posted on anything that I learn about the ROP update.

Please share any questions or ideas and kudo's again to everyone for such amazing work to defeat this MZO!

Cheers,
Kevin.

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Kevin Thomason

1115 Cedar Grove Road
Waterloo, Ontario Canada  N2J 3Z4

Phone: (519) 888-0519
Mobile Phone/WhatsApp: (519) 240-1648
Twitter: @kthomason
E-mail: kevinthomason at mac.com

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