County Council Highlights for September 17, 2025

Warden praises ‘informative, educational and inspiring’ Outdoor Accessibility Fest-for-All in Amherstburg

Warden Hilda MacDonald in her opening remarks to Council praised organizers and volunteers for making the 2nd Annual Outdoor Accessibility Fest-for-All such a success. This year’s event took place last Friday at the Libro Credit Union Centre in Amherstburg.

Free to the public, the Fest-for-All is organized by the Essex County Accessibility Advisory Committee. It’s an event designed to promote inclusion and accessibility for people of all ages and abilities. This year, the committee presented a powerful lineup of accessible programming, entertainment and awareness-building activities.

“It was an informative, educational and inspiring day!” the Warden said. “What an amazing experience it was to watch those all-stars playing baseball on Canada’s first Miracle League Diamond, and what a thrill it was to witness Tyler McGregor – the captain of Team Canada’s Sledge Hockey team – take to the ice at the Libro Centre with the Windsor Ice Bullets.”

The Warden also praised Rebecca Belanger, the County’s Manager of Planning Services, after she and her team won a prestigious provincial award for the County’s new Official Plan. Belanger’s team will receive the 2025 Plan Ontario Vision Award of Excellence at a ceremony Thursday night in Kitchener. The County’s Official Plan, called One Land, One Climate, One Future, Together, was one of only six projects across Ontario to be honoured this year with the coveted award.

As well, the Warden reminded everyone that Truth and Reconciliation Week in Canada begins Monday. It’s a time to reflect and resolve to do better ahead of Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30. Events are planned throughout the County, and the Warden urged the public to take part.

Affordable Rental Housing Property Tax Subclass approved

Council approved a By-law to comply with new, optional provincial regulations under the Ontario Assessment and Municipal Acts, to create a new property-tax subclass for affordable rental housing within the Multi-Residential and New Multi-Residential property classes.

The regulations aim to improve affordability for rental households in Ontario. While similar programs exist in larger cities, such as Toronto, this optional subclass provides a uniform mechanism for municipalities across the province to encourage affordable rental housing in both existing and new developments. The new property-tax subclass applies to both existing and newly built units that meet the definition of affordable rental housing, meaning rents for qualifying units do not exceed 30% of gross income for households at the 60th percentile of all renters in a municipality.

For now, adopting the By-law simply provides the option for County Council to offer this type of incentive in the future, and signals an openness to supporting affordable rental housing through the County’s tax policy framework. Once more information becomes available, County Administration will be able to provide a clearer assessment of the impacts, which will be brought forward for discussion as part of the Tax Policy By-law presentation in February 2026.

Read the report!

County Amends Room Booking Policy

County Council voted to amend the 2025 User Fee Schedule to reflect availability restrictions contained in the County’s new Administrative Policy regarding meeting-room bookings.

Since the pandemic,  the rental of meeting rooms at the County Administration Building has become a rare occurrence, the County’s Director of Financial Services and Treasurer, Melissa Ryan, said in a report to Council. As a result, no revenue from meeting room bookings was included in the approved 2025 Budget. Amendments to the User Fee Schedule, passed Wednesday night by Council, remove fees for meeting rooms located in the County Administration Building in Essex, and will have no impact on the 2025 Budget. Four new conference and meeting rooms have been constructed at the building.

By providing free access for local municipal partners when these rooms are available, the County is fostering collaboration, supporting regional partnerships, and creating a flexible and transparent system that maximizes the use of County facilities while benefiting both County operations and municipal partners, said the report.

While the new policy itself did not require Council approval, Council’s authorization was needed to remove fees associated with room bookings from the County user fee schedule. Meeting- room use now will be restricted to eligible users as defined in the policy, namely: County departments, tenants, and local municipal partners. The latter may use the rooms at no cost, contingent on availability. External public bookings will no longer be permitted, thus ensuring rooms are available when needed for operational priorities.

Employment and Hiring Policy revisions

County Council voted to approve and adopt revisions to the County’s Employment and Hiring Policy, which include the incorporation of the following County in-practice policies into the official Policy: Hiring and Employment of Family Members Policy; Student Hiring Policy; Probationary Periods for Non- Union Employees Policy. As background, during budget deliberations in 2023 for the 2024 budget year, Council requested that going forward, requests for staff positions be presented to Council in advance of the budget deliberation process, for approval in principle. That process has been implemented, but this change necessitated revisions to the Policy to reflect this new process.

Read the report!

Large Scale Industrial Grant Matching Program

County Council voted to receive a Supplementary Report on the Large Scale Industrial Grant Matching Program (LSI-GMP), whose goal is to diversify the tax base and target significant job creation in the County.

The LSI-GMP aims to work in collaboration with the forthcoming Regional Employment Land Strategy (RELS) as an important tool to further encourage and enable large scale industrial development, and help the County achieve the economic development goals of the County’s Strategic Plan.

County Council also voted to direct County Administration to undertake a public consultation process relating to the LSI-GMP, and afterward to prepare a report for Council summarizing comments received and related actions and updates taken.

Read the report!

Province Issues Notice of Decision Approving Official Plan

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has reviewed and issued a Notice of Decision approving the County’s Official Plan subject to revisions catalogued in a report to Council by Rebecca Belanger, Manager of Planning Services.

“The Official Plan lays the foundation for future land use and growth management, including planning for housing, jobs, agriculture, environmental protection, and climate resilience,” said Belanger.

Council Approves Hybrid Road Rationalization Model

Council approved the Hybrid Road Rationalization model outlined in a report to Council by Allan Botham, Director of Infrastructure and Planning Services, and directed Administration to continue working on the project with the local municipalities. The initiative will ultimately determine which roads should be classified as County roads and which roads should be classified as local roads.

The roads that could be affected under the Hybrid Road Rationalization model were presented as an appendix to the report.  

Department of Legislative and Legal Services Update

David Sundin, the Director of Legislative and Legal Services/County Solicitor, provided Council with an update of the department’s activities and accomplishments over the past year.