That sound you hear coming from the Kincardine area is a sigh of relief.
The controversial amendment to the municipality’s Official Plan has been dumped.
Kincardine council chambers were filled to overflowing as council considered a Natural Heritage study as part of the official plan that would have effectively handcuffed many landowners on what they could do with and on their own land.
Everyone attending the meeting was against the plan including Jackie Mann, who with her brother and sisters own a plot of land left by their late father.
She came from Toronto to make her presentation saying they were planning to sub-divide the estate land so each could build a summer cottage or retirement home.
If the amendment had passed, they wouldn’t be allowed to develop the land.
Seasonal resident John Bondy says the proposed legislation was draconian and he’s thankful council saw through it and did the right thing.
Most of council agreed the study was going nowhere and killed it, so in effect everything in the Official Plan prior to the amendment remains status quo.
Mayor Larry Kraemer says they’ve spent about 50 thousand dollars on the study but in the end, it just wasn’t going to work.
Although the issue is now dead, Kraemer says it could return in some form with a new council but he advises against it.
