Provincial development facilitator Alan Wells will call Barrie and Innisfil back to the table as soon as possible to get to reach some resolution about boundaries and servicing.

“The first week of February, I will be convening a meeting to carry on our negotiations,” said Wells, who added he had been talking with Barrie, Innisfil and Simcoe County individually last week after the province set population targets for Barrie, Orillia and Simcoe County.

“It’s helpful now we have positive numbers to target towards.”

Until those numbers were released, Simcoe County was working with a tentative number of 76,900 unallocated for Barrie South Simcoe, as it awaited more specific numbers known as Schedule 3 of Places to Grow.

As part of Places to Grow, the county’s 2031 population is set at 667,000, up approximately 227,000 from today’s population of 438,700. During its growth planning process, Simcoe County pegged Orillia at 41,000 in 2031, which is exactly what Brad Graham, the assistant deputy minister of Ontario Growth Secretariat sees.

However, in releasing projections Jan. 16, Graham pegged Barrie’s population at 180,000, provided borders do not change, and narrowed the unallocated 76,900 to 40,000.

Barrie has said it needs a population of approximately 220,000 – or 40,000 more than the 180,000 it can accommodate in its current boundaries – to make upgrades to its sewage treatment plant (which would drastically reduce phosphorous emissions into Lake Simcoe) more affordable.

Innisfil, too, has visions of reaching 105,000, up from its 2006 population of 32,400. The county had pegged Innisfil’s 2031 population at 47,900, and Innisfil continues to eye that unallocated county allocation for South Simcoe.

Wells said the new smaller number will focus discussions, which have been going on intermittently for about a year.

“I’m very encouraged that the parties want to conclude these discussions,” he said.