Mat Vaughan, Director of Planning and Development, County of Elgin Planning Department, provided Council with an update on the proposed centralized planning services. Mr. Vaughan reviewed the efficiencies experienced with the current partnering lower-tier municipalities, and cost restructuring that has occurred since the initial proposal. Cost structure includes time-tracking by the quarter hours, tracking metrics and monthly reports and invoices for budget tracking purposes. There has been lower costs that anticipated from the introduction of pay-per-use services than initially presented.
The process includes pre-consultation processes, which is strongly advised to review any challenges and consistencies across all lower-tiers. Due to legislated time-requirements under the Planning Act, all applications will be treated equally, and consultants will be on-call until the need for more planners and a Senior Planner is required.
The future plan is to provide a consistent county-wide Official Plan for all municipal partners, that will include policies and schedules to keep consistencies, however also introduce individual schedules for uniqueness to each partnering municipality.
A follow-up report from West Elgin's Chief Administrative Officer will be forth coming, with recommended options.