Report says Springwater’s wards not serving township well
By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Dec 10, 2024
When Springwater Township council reviews the results of the just completed ward boundary review on Wednesday afternoon, it will have two paths to consider.
It can adopt one of the two recommended final options, or it can do nothing at all.
Either option would be open for challenge at the Ontario Land Tribunal. “If it declines to act, council must clearly understand that such a decision essentially indicates to the township’s residents that it believes retaining the existing ward system still serves Springwater well,” states the report from Watson and Associates Economists. That would not be the conclusion the report’s authors reached.
Within the report, Watson and Associates highlighted some deficiencies in the current ward boundary system in relation to the guiding principles, which were identified as:
- representation by population
- population and electoral trends
- means of communication and accessibility
- geographical and topographical features as boundaries
- community or diversity of interests.
“Taken together, these principles will contribute to achieving the over-arching principle of effective representation,” the report stated. “These deficiencies have led the consultant team to conclude that there are alternative ward boundary systems that can better serve the residents of Springwater well and council should consider changes. “The public engagement efforts throughout this review have been largely consistent with this view,” it added.
In 1997, an internal review led to a reduction in the number of Springwater councillors and wards from seven to five. Although modifications to ward boundaries were considered but not adopted in 2002, 2005 and 2009, a subsequent review in 2012 led to the boundaries currently in place.
Today, Springwater council consists of a seven-member body, including a mayor and deputy mayor who are elected at large, and five councillors who are elected in five wards. As the present wards were adopted more than 10 years ago through a boundary review and the township has experienced significant population growth and intensification within Midhurst and the surrounding settlement area, a ward boundary review was deemed necessary. If council’s decision is to endorse one of the final options, a bylaw to implement the preferred direction would be expected to occur as soon as possible. The bylaw would describe the boundaries associated with the approved wards and assign numbers (or names) to them.
In the preliminary options report, prepared in October, three alternatives were presented to the public for further feedback. Two of those options are being presented as the final recommended options for council’s consideration.
According to Watson and Associates, Final Option No. 1 (which is preliminary option No. 3) is considered a “population parity” option since it places a priority on providing representation for both the existing and future populations over three election cycles. “The objective of population parity (every councillor generally representing an equal number of constituents within their respective ward) is the primary goal of an electoral redistribution with some degree of variation acceptable considering population densities and demographic factors across the township,” the report stated. “The indicator of success in a ward design is the extent to which all the individual wards approach an ‘optimal’ size,” it added.
According to the report, optimal size can be understood as a mid-point on a scale where the term “optimal” describes a ward with a population within five per cent on either side of the calculated optimal size. The classification “below/above optimal” is applied to a ward with a population between six per cent and 25 per cent on either side of the optimal size and is considered an acceptable variation.
A ward that is labelled “outside the range” indicates that its population is greater than 25 per cent above or below the optimal ward size. (The adoption of a 25 per cent maximum variation is based on federal redistribution legislation and is widely applied in municipalities like Springwater that include both urban and rural areas.)
Data confirms that four of the five current wards in Springwater vary by more than five per cent from the optimal point in 2024, and all five fall outside the optimal range of variation by 2034, but with significant variances projected, since the Ward 4 population is 12,820 and the Ward 5 population is 11,480, while the remaining three wards are projected to include less than 6,000 people. “Analysis of the current and future population trends, along with feedback received during the public consultation and other features of Springwater in 2024, leads to a recommendation that the present wards fall short of achieving effective representation across the township,” the report stated. “When compared to the existing system, only minor changes have been proposed to the northern two wards (Ward 1 and Ward 2) while larger changes to the remaining three wards are proposed, to maximize future population distributions around the Midhurst and surrounding areas,” the report noted.
According to the report, one consequence of emphasizing both current and future population growth is the proposed division of the Midhurst community into two wards: one east of Wilson Drive and the other west of Wilson Drive (with the area south of Snow Valley Road between Wilson Drive and Bayfield Street captured within the western Midhurst ward). “This Final Option 1 successfully meets most of the guiding principles being considered in this (review) and has received the largely successful evaluation of effective representation,” the report said.
Final Option 2 (which is Preliminary Option 1) is considered a “minimal disruption” option since it preserves (and in some cases improves) the groupings of the main settlement areas found in the existing wards, while moving to more identifiable lines between wards. “Significant changes between the existing configuration and the proposed alternative are visible around the proposed Wards 4 and 5 as the consultant team strived to achieve better parity between the Midhurst ward and other wards,” the report stated. “This proposed configuration utilizes a dividing line along Wilson Drive between the proposed wards 4 and 5, optimizing current population parity between the two southern wards.”
Final Option No. 2 looks to maintain similarities to the existing configuration while seeking and achieving current population parity. “As growth continues to develop across the southern region of the township, four of the five wards are expected to fall outside of the ±25 per cent acceptable range by 2034,” the report stated.
This option addresses some of the more significant issues with the existing system, but recognizes some of the uncertainty surrounding future residential and population growth. This option could mean the township would have to review boundaries again after two elections, depending on growth. “The practice of reviewing boundaries after every two or three elections, should be a recommended practice,” the report stated. “With the growth expected to be largely concentrated in Ward 5 in this option, future ward population imbalances could be fixed in the future with tweaks to this proposed system or changes to composition.”
Springwater Township council will consider the boundary review report Wednesday afternoon during a special session of council.