The pressure is on Simcoe County municipalities to get their act together on regional growth issues.

Deadlines have a wonderful way of focusing attention and county partners are facing a big one.

By June, single and upper-tier municipalities throughout Ontario must update their Official Plans to conform with Ontario’s Places to Grow legislation, which sets out a vision for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

To encourage the economic engine of Ontario, the province envisions strengthening the smaller engines in the GGHS. To do that, Ontario laid out policies and employment and population targets to stop sprawl, protect prime agricultural land, enhance the quality of life for residents, and attract innovative industries to the province.

The county’s growth management steering committee is working to implement the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Action Plan (IGAP), which not only laid the foundations for allocating where new residents will settle in Simcoe County, but how local government should respond as demands for service increase.

With an additional 227,000 people coming to the area, Simcoe County has yet to ‘dis-aggregate’ that number, as planners like to say; in real terms, that means spreading out the population among the area’s municipalities.

Population is the critical determinant of municipal Official Plans (OPs). These consist of the guiding planning document, which designates what kinds of housing and what kinds of employment will locate where, and the municipality’s long-term vision statement, with tools such as secondary plans for smaller areas and recreation plans and fire master plans all supporting that visionary document.

Updating an Official Plan takes time. It is a process that cannot, and should not, be hastily done. So a June deadline truly forces a single-tier or upper-tier municipality to have its guiding policies by March to allow planning staff to implement and refine the OP document. (Lower-tier municipalities have until June 2009 to comply).

The challenge is we are now well into January and June is fast approaching. Resolution remains elusive. Barrie, for instance, is not even a full partner in the county’s growth committee, although Orillia and Midland are.

These are critical questions, and they require thoughtful, public deliberation. The clock is ticking.