The Town of Midland is seeking proposals from qualified and accredited consulting firms consisting of planners, engineers, project managers, and consultation specialists to lead the development of a new secondary plan. This secondary plan, along with the required supporting Official Plan policy updates, will be implemented by way of an amendment to the Town’s Official Plan.

At present, Schedule A – Growth Areas to the Town of Midland Official Plan (‘Town’s OP’) currently identifies two secondary plan areas along the County Road 93 Corridor. These two secondary plan areas abut each other, with Balm Beach Road/Yonge Street being the boundary road. The secondary plan to the north of Balm Beach Road/Yonge Street is referred to as the County Road 93 North Secondary Plan area (‘CR93NSP’). Conversely, the secondary plan area south of Balm Beach Road/Yonge Street is referred to as the County Road 93 South Secondary Plan area (‘CR93SSP’). This RFP pertains to the CR93SSP. 

The Town expects that the CR93SSP will accommodate a significant amount of new greenfield area development due to environmental and servicing constraints in the CR93NSP. As such, the boundaries of the CR93SSP area need to be confirmed and, if appropriate, revised; this is a core deliverable of this project. The Town has identified, in Appendix “B” - Attachment 2 to this RFP, the anticipated project area; this map identifies lands which are to be considered to be included in the new CR93SSP should boundaries of the existing CR93SSP area need to be revised. While this project area map only identifies lands south of Balm Beach Road as being part of the new CR93SSP, the Town is open to a ‘hybrid approach’, one in which the two County Road 93 secondary plan areas are blended together as to capture areas currently experiencing growth, areas currently planned to accommodate growth, and any additional new areas required to accommodate future growth. This would result in one, consolidated County Road 93 Secondary Plan. While this hybrid approach would blend the two County Road 92 secondary plan areas, it is expected that the majority of future growth will be directed to CR93SSP area due to known environmental constraints in the CR93NSP area.

The Town understands that establishing the boundaries of the new CR93SSP requires an update to the growth management strategy in the Town’s OP as its current planning horizon is 2031. This planning horizon needs to be brought into conformity with the growth management strategy of the County of Simcoe Official Plan (‘SCOP’), which itself has a planning horizon of 2051. This growth management conformity exercise, which is to be completed by the successful bidder, is anticipated to clarify how many people and jobs are to be accommodated within the CR93SSP vs. other areas in the Town. The findings of the updated growth management strategy are anticipated to inform how much additional land, if any, must be added to the new CR93SSP to accommodate future growth. At this stage the Town will work with the successful bidder to identify and confirm areas that are to be included within the boundaries of the new CR93SSP area. 

While much of the work in developing the CR93SSP is technical in nature, the Town is keen in ensuring that Midland’s residents, businesses, property owners, and indigenous treaty rights holders are informed and have an opportunity to shape their community through meaningful and targeted consultation. As such, the successful bidder must develop and implement a robust public consultation strategy, one rooted in IAP2 public consultation principles and practices. The Town is also interested in working with the community to establish a set of principles that will guide the CR93SSP. The Town sees residents and businesses as ‘co-authors’ that have a vested interest in the success of the secondary plan, and as such their input needs to shape the project from the outset. 

The CR93SSP must also achieve a set of inter-related community development goals. Specifically, the CR93SSP must address the community’s current and anticipated housing needs by planning for a broad range of housing types. Further, any new population growth must be supported by appropriate public service facilities, particularly schools, parks, and community spaces/centre(s). Infrastructure must also be appropriately planned. Both public service facilities and infrastructure must also be planned to be resilient to the effects of climate change, particularly flooding and forest fires. Finally, the CR93SSP is envisioned to be designed in a way that promotes a mix of complementary uses to ensure residents and visitors have convenient access to services that meet their daily needs. The successful bidder will be required to develop a plan that achieves these goals all while being consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, conforming to the SCOP, and reflecting best practices in contemporary community planning. 

Excluded from the scope of the project is the natural heritage system review. That is, the Town has retained a consultant to conduct a review of the entire natural heritage system as shown in the Town’s OP, including lands within the CR93SSP project area. The successful bidder will need to incorporate the findings of the natural heritage system review into the CR93SSP. The natural heritage system review was underway at the time this RFP was prepared.