HAVE PITY FOR PLANNERS when it comes to the drafting of Official Plans.

A case in point is Melancthon’s Jerry Jorden, who probably doesn’t agree with the Provincial Policy Statement on aggregates but has no choice but to include provincially mandated resource designations.

It must be difficult for planners to explain, and much more difficult for an affected public to accept, that local municipal governments have virtually no control over such things.

The Melancthon situation is complex. Residents in the aggregate-designated areas cannot be faulted for feeling abandoned in their opposition to a proposed bedrock quarry along with the perceived problems of irreparable damage to the water resources. Yet the purchasers of about 7,500 acres of farmland at a reported price of $8,000 an acre must be eyeing a combination of the quarry’s potential value, their investment in the land, and the expectations of the Province.

The planner is caught somewhere between the two sides. The township council in this case, as would all municipal councils, is forced to accept an Official Plan that complies with provincial requirements.

Otherwise, the plan would not be approved at Queen’s Park.

Adoption of the Plan does not include zoning. That is a long way down the road, and an Ontario Municipal Board ultimately is likely to rule one way or the other on that.

It is convenient, but wrong, to fault planners and local councils for enforcing rules imposed by the Province, irrespective of our political stripes.