Springwater council does about-face, throws cold water on MZO support
By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Jul 03, 2025
SPRINGWATER — What was once unanimously supported has now been overwhelmingly rejected.
Springwater Coun. Phil Fisher’s motion to have township council revoke its support for two minister’s zoning orders (MZOs) for developments just north of the Barrie city limits unless they are serviced through the Midhurst water and wastewater treatment facilities was passed in a recorded 4-3 vote at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
Deputy Mayor George Cabral and Councillors Danielle Alexander, Anita Moore and Fisher voted in favour of the motion, while Mayor Jennifer Coughlin and Councillors Matt Garwood and Brad Thompson voted against.
According to Cabral, council’s support of the proposals — one from the Remington Group for a seniors-related medical campus at 727 Bayfield St. N., and another from Innovative Planning Solutions representing Paul Sadlon Communities at 742 Bayfield St. N., directly across from the Remington Group’s proposal — allow the developers to “have their cake and eat it, too.”
“You have your cake by getting cross-border servicing, but you also benefit from the reduction in development charges and the reduction in taxes,” he said of the proposed developments being built in the township. “It doesn’t seem quite fair to me.”
Earlier in the meeting, Cabral said the municipality provided support of the MZOs to circumvent the township’s planning policies. He said council did that in order to take control of the Bayfield Street corridor.
Unanimously supported in December 2023, both developments, when they came before council seeking MZO support, indicated that their preferred water and wastewater solution was to connect to the City of Barrie’s infrastructure.
“It seems to me that this has come back to become a bargaining chip,” he said. “It’s kind of like having a gun put up, you know, the side of your head in order to do something. A term I would use in my previous life in law enforcement would be extortion, but that’s a very, very strong word.”
Cabral said the township ended up having to enter into a boundary adjustment, which may still happen regardless of how the servicing works out.
“We had to enter into a boundary adjustment and this is the bargaining chip,” he said.
That initial MZO support has vanished as the township has gotten deeper into talks with the City of Barrie and its boundary expansion proposal.
A month before Springwater council endorsed the two MZOs, on Nov. 6, 2023, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall presented to the standing committee on heritage, infrastructure and cultural policy during a meeting in Barrie. He provided the committee with an update on Barrie’s housing targets and highlighted why the city requires additional employment land so more residents can have jobs closer to home.
According to Nuttall, the City of Barrie is in dire need of land that would be suitable for large-scale manufacturing and industrial development. He said Barrie needs space to grow as a community and it needs space to bring in jobs from outside the region.
Nuttall also said the city was eyeing industrial land outside its municipal borders in Springwater and Oro-Medonte townships for the purpose of job creation.
On Nov. 15, 2023, Springwater council voted unanimously to “terminate discussions” with Barrie “regarding the city’s proposal for boundary adjustments and cross-border servicing.”
A few months later, on March 7, 2024, Springwater decided to reverse the Nov. 15, 2023 council decision to “terminate discussions” with Barrie regarding the city’s proposal for municipal boundary adjustments and cross-border servicing.
Springwater council voted to hold talks with the Barrie officials, but only regarding cross-border servicing. There was to be no talk of boundary adjustments.
Those talks weren’t very fruitful.
“It was made very clear that we have nothing to offer if not land,” Springwater’s mayor said in March 2024.
Coughlin also said at the time that Barrie was “not looking for a fee-for-service or ‘a la carte’ service to their pipes.”
According to council members Wednesday night, supporting the MZOs has put the township in a bit of a jackpot. In essence, they argued, their support of the MZOs and the developments hooking up to Barrie infrastructure has committed the township into providing land to Barrie, as Barrie won’t negotiate one without the other.
“I’m firmly opposed to allowing them (the developers) to have a foot in both camps,” Fisher said. “Receiving services from the City of Barrie while we hand over 4,300 acres or whatever it ends up being. Our taxpayers should not be writing a cheque for their services, particularly when we have partners that can facilitate that here within Springwater.
“I’m staunchly opposed to this and I think we should revoke it for the time being,” he added.
Coughlin said she refused to support the motion for a couple of reasons.
First, she found value in the development proposals, and second, she wasn’t a fan of the message revoking the MZOs would send.
“I think that this signals to the province that, again, we can’t figure things out,” Coughlin said. “I don’t want to signal to the province to say, please just come in and do it for us.
“We said to them that we fully endorse these projects and we will determine what the best avenue of servicing is and we’re getting there,” she added.