It might not lead to a Dufferin County Official Plan, but a committee of council will recommend budgeting about $180,000 to add a planning function to the county's Public Works department.

The budget would be to cover a full-time planner plus an administrative assistant, but the service would be shared on a part-time basis with Amaranth, East Garafraxa and East Luther Grand Valley to reduce the county's cost by about half.

In a report to the Community Development Committee Tuesday, CAO Linda Dean outlined a number of meetings with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs in which it appeared the province is pushing to have the upper-tier take a leading role in planning.

Dufferin has the dubious distinction of being among the smallest and possibly the only unrestructured county in Ontario. While he was warden, East Luther Grand Valley mayor John Oosterhof tried unsuccessfully to bring about a county-wide Official Plan. In the meantime, plans to marry the municipalities in whole or in part failed to achieve the required triple majority vote.

Enter "Places to Grow" and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, in which the province envisioned significant development for Dufferin County.

Earlier this year, said Ms. Dean, "staff (of the county) was in conversation with MMA staff who expressed surprise that Dufferin was not engaging in the development of an Official Plan."

And then, she says, Warden Earl Lennox met with David Caplan, minister of Public Infrastructure and Renewal, who came short of directing the county to formulate a plan but "said it would be up to the county to show leadership in regards to the issues identified in the GGH Growth Plan and to play a co- ordinating/facilitating role."

And finally, she said, the assistant deputy minister said the province would be willing to assist the county with seed money, "to prime the pump," if a study or consultant were required in those respects.

If the proposal should lead to establishment of a county-wide Official Plan, Mr. Oosterhof said it wouldn't mean the end of planning autonomy for the lower-tier municipalities.

In terms of OP items, "you can go anywhere from one to 10, or one to 100," he said, adding that many counties have official plans covering only a few items, leaving the rest to the lower tier.

The planning recommendation is expected to be adopted at council's Nov. 9 meeting.