Town of the Blue Mountains Senior Policy Planner Cindy Welsh presented the town's response to the Grey County Official Plan Five-Year Review at last week's council meeting, announcing planning staff's support of many of the proposed changes.

The Grey County Official Plan serves five principal purposes: to guide development in the county until 2016, to provide broad policy framework for local municipal official plans, to guide future economic, social and land use changes, to provide the policy framework  to encourage growth and prosperity, and to interpret and apply the intent of Provincial legislation in a way that reflects regional interest.

Under the Planning Act, the Official Plan is to be reviewed after five years to adapt to any major social or economic changes.

The review offered only minor changes of wording in most areas but there were some larger changes worth noting.

The first change supported by the town is a land designation that would officially recognize recreational resort areas in Grey County and would help to enhance recreational and tourism activities. The change would also facilitate the creation of new recreational resort areas as well as guide their growth.

Another change in Special Agricultural Land Designation would recognize wineries as long as they complied with the development criteria found in the applicable local plan.

One significant change would see the County remove the "Hamlet" designation from the Official Plan. If this were to be accepted, Banks, Redwing, Gibraltar and Slabtown would not be identified in the County Plan, even though the Town's Official Plan designates the areas as Village Centres. Welsh said that staff was in the process of reviewing the impact of this potential change.

One final significant addition to the Official Plan would be new renewable energy policies to help facilitate the construction of new wind power generators in Grey County. Welsh did not comment on these policies but rather told council that the Town was seeking clarification on a number of these policies.

Following Welsh's presentation, council voted to send the official response to the County Planning and Development Committee. The Committee will be meeting over the next few months to continue work on the review until it is brought before County Council in October.