The following letter was sent to Stratford City Council. Council begins the Official Plan review Thursday at 6 p.m. at city hall. Get Concerned Stratford asks that the Xinyi annexation be reversed, and that the review process be used to honestly determine whether annexing farmland is necessary.
Re: Letter of Agreement Between Xinyi Glass and City of Stratford
Your Worship and members of council,
Enclosed please find a copy of a binding letter of agreement (LOA) between the City of Stratford and Xinyi Canada Glass Limited (Xinyi) dated Nov. 12, 2019. This LOA was released to Mike Sullivan on behalf of Get Concerned Stratford, following a two and a half year Freedom of Information process. Some of you were on council at the time this LOA was entered into and so were part of the approval process, but others are likely seeing it for the first time.
The LOA outlines the financial benefits accruing to Xinyi in exchange for its construction of the glass plant. It also commits Council to annexing the land on which the plant was proposed to be built from Perth County/Township of Perth South.
The LOA was signed by Acting Chief Administrative Officer Joan Thomson on behalf of the City of Stratford. Clause 13 on page 6 of the LOA states:
“The City is committed to working cooperatively with the Township of Perth South and the [sic]. Perth County for the annexation of the lands [the lands on which the Xinyi glass plant was to be located] and surrounding area by the City of Stratford. ...”
This LOA predates any public process associated with the annexation.
For those of you on council at the time, you may recall that the public was told that the reason for the annexation was a shortage of industrial land generally. However, the LOA clearly shows that council had already agreed with Xinyi to annex the land to facilitate construction of a glass plant.
As part of the annexation process, the various municipal councils were required to hold a public meeting. This public meeting occurred on Jan. 16, 2020. There was no mention of a glass plant in any of the materials made public prior to or at the public meeting, and in response to questions asked at the public meeting, municipal representatives failed to disclose the existence of the LOA despite being specifically asked about it.
As noted in the Proposed Municipal Boundary Adjustment Joint Public Meeting questions and answers document released by the municipalities following the meeting:
“Question: Has an agreement been signed with the glass manufacturer?
Answer: Discussions have occurred amongst the parties, but the first step is for the municipalities to confirm that the boundary adjustment is appropriate.”
The LOA was executed between the City of Stratford and Xinyi Glass over two months before the public was informed at the public meeting that no such agreement existed.
The end result, as all of you know, was that the land was annexed, plans were put in place to service it at a significant cost, and yet the real reason for annexation was kept hidden from the public until later in 2020. The annexation process was neither transparent nor honest.
The annexation process focused on bringing in the lands associated with the proposed Xinyi glass plant at the expense of a proper review of the need for additional industrial lands and investigation of viable alternatives for the location of such lands if required.
Recent events surrounding the province’s decisions around the Greenbelt have shown that these types of secretive processes are a significant cause for concern. Like the Greenbelt take-outs, this annexation needs to be rolled back, with the land being returned to the County of Perth and the Township of Perth South.
The upcoming Official Plan review will determine if there is a need for additional land to accommodate residential and employment uses. Should additional land be required, all viable options need to be investigated in order to comply with the Provincial Policy Statement. The process of determining where growth should go should not be pre-determined based on a flawed annexation process. We are therefore asking you, the new council, to return the land to Perth County and the Township of South Perth. This action will right the last wrong of the Xinyi episode and allow the Official Plan Review to proceed unencumbered by the Xinyi legacy.
It is only through such action that this council can re-establish the level of trust required to govern properly.
Jamie Gibb, Melissa Verspeeten, Doug Tripp, Susan McSherry, Sharon Collingwood, Mike Sullivan
GET CONCERNED STRATFORD
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