What does the Department of Planning and Development do?
The role of planning is to help build healthy inclusive communities, balance population growth and the environment, and to ensure our land use choices now reflect the needs of future generations. Coordinated long term planning through policy is needed across governments to ensure public interests and strategic goals are met and natural resources are protected. The importance of planning can be seen from Provincial policy direction to by-law implementation. 
The Perth County Planning Department provides planning services, information and guidance to county council, local municipal councils and to the public in the areas of land-use planning as well as oversees matters of how we approach our relationship with land and how it is used.
What is a Complete Community?
One role of the Planner is to figure out how to best organize and develop towns, villages and cities that reflect and meet the needs of all members of a community. You might see the term complete community used in planning documents. A complete community is one where the development reflects the residential, commercial, institutional, social and cultural needs of the population. This term often coincides with the term Smart Growth. Smart Growth is a planning principle that focuses on creating healthy and compact communities, notably through using mixed use zoning, ensuring active transportation, and basing growth on sustainable development.
Planning for farmland preservation; why is it important in Perth County?
Most of Perth County is comprised of farmland and more than 90% of land in the County is considered Prime Agricultural lands, meaning they hold class 1-3 soils which are the top classification for agricultural use. The preservation of farmland is important not only for our ability to produce food for generations to come but also as both an important economic driver and as part of what supports Perth County’s unique identity. Creating and implementing policies to support farmland and farming communities is one important consideration in planning. Some of the ways in which we can do this is by driving development away from agricultural lands as much as possible, ensuring farmland does not become fragmented and by supporting our Perth County farming communities. Did you know that Perth County has a Discover More Flavour Farm Gate Map where you can find local farms that sell their products directly to you.
Population change and land use planning; how do they relate?
The population of Perth County is growing, especially with outward pressure from larger cities outside our County. The role of the Planning Department is to figure out how best to manage this growth while balancing the protection of agricultural communities, resource assets and the natural environment. As more growth occurs there is additional pressure on agricultural lands so building cities, towns and villages through intensification and higher density development becomes an important goal when planning for the future and maintaining healthy communities and environments. Re-development of already built areas and filling in vacant or under-used space helps to use land efficiently. While increasing density in urban areas is important, the expansion of urban centers is also sometimes necessary to provide for future population growth. At the Planning Department we are currently reviewing how population expansion will affect the shape and size of our urban centres - in our Official Plan we call urban centers 'Settlement Areas'.
Why do we have public meetings?
A public meeting is an important tool to ensure the public is involved in the decision making processes when it comes to land-use planning. The way in which land is used affects us all, and so a public meeting provides an opportunity for all community members to voice their opinions, ask questions, identify concerns or support changes in how a piece of land will be used. This includes the creation of new properties by dividing land parcels and new types of development too. A public meeting allows the decision makers to hear directly from the community. It is a requirement of the Planning Act that 20 days of notice is given before a public meeting and it is mailed to landowners near a proposed development or put in the newspaper for developments that are county wide.
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