As the peaker plant that is planned for the Holland Marsh draws closer to reality, King council may look for possible ways to prevent a situation like this to ever happen again.

Pristine Power Inc. was awarded a 20- year contract with the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and is working to develop a power plant, which would go on the east side of Dufferin Street, on a roughly 33-acre property. It is to be run by York Energy Centre.

Few in the township are happy about this, especially council.

At last Monday’s council meeting, the Butler Group Consultants Inc., Keir Corp. and Steven Rowe Environmental Planners presented a draft plan in response to the Township’s request for a study to review the existing Official Plan and Zoning controls and recommend changes to regulate power generation facilities, where necessary.

The staff report was received as information and sent back to staff with council comments to be accepted at a future date.

In January, council asked staff to review the location of power generation facilities. A week later, councillors passed an Interim Control Bylaw and asked staff to retain qualified consultants to undertake the subject land use planning study for the review of policies and provisions relating to power generation facilities in King, and make recommendations for council’s review and consideration, to be implemented through amendments to the Official Plan and zoning bylaws, and through bylaws under other legislation and other protocols, as appropriate.

Township planners got the Butler Group, Keir Corp. and Steven Rowe Environmental Planners to undertake the review.

However, the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure announced in May that the government, through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, was going to use a provision in the Planning Act to exempt an undertaking related to energy from the requirements of the Act. This, in effect, deprived King of the main tool it had been using to fight the proposed facility before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).

According to the staff report, the study identified information and recommendations relating to location considerations, potential impacts, other municipal approaches, policy and regulatory frameworks, proposed definitions, study requirements, and proposed Official Plan and zoning bylaw amendments.

The recommendations set out in this report will be subject to an extensive community and stakeholder consultation process prior to council’s consideration of any proposed Official Plan or zoning bylaw amendments.

Council requested staff in January to review the location of public and private power generation facilities in response to the staff’s concerns regarding the lack of municipal policies and regulations, the approvals process, and environmental and other impacts of proposals for the Northern York Region Generation Plant Project proposed by OPA and the York Energy Centre that emerged through that process.

Present at the meeting last week was David Butler from the Butler Group to answer questions councillors had regarding the planning act.

Councillor Jack Rupke asked if this draft plan have been useful prior to the proposal of the peaker plant.

“Had this been in place prior, yes it would have helped,” Butler commented. “Though it’s good to put in this place now because we don’t know what’s around the corner.”

Councillor Jeff Laidlaw asked Butler if the Planning Act could look at possible financial impacts.

“In this case, it would be good to look at the impact the peaker plant would have when place in the Holland Marsh,” Laidlaw said.

Councillor Bill Cober said though the Planning Act is constructive, this information would have been useful Jan. 8, when council decided to go forward with the interim control bylaw to try and stop the plant.

“I am just trying to see what we can do with this now,” Cober commented.

Township CAO Scott Somerville said this would show King is not ready to give and more importantly, echoing Butler’s comments, it would prevent it from happening again.