WELLINGTON NORTH – In Wellington North, mayor Andy Lennox saw 2021 as a two-part story.
The first is obvious and not unique to the township, or to anyone for that matter.
“Living through and managing around the changing needs that the pandemic thrust upon us I think challenged everybody,” Lennox said in an interview.
While the pandemic is running its course in the background, the other big story in the township is growth through subdivision approvals and other housing developments moving along through the municipal process.
Lennox said the speed at which it is happening over the past year and moving forward is unprecedented in recent memory. The township’s population is expected to grow from 12,000 to 20,000 over 20 years.
“We’ve seen the pressures coming but the speed with which it’s taken off is quite remarkable,” Lennox said, adding it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
The mayor said the municipality has the critical mass to accommodate this kind of with established and well-functioning water and wastewater systems but they are going through upgrades.
“Early 2021 we completed the first stage of upgrades to the Arthur wastewater plant and we’re just getting that new construction online throughout the year,” Lennox said.
“We have some things in place but as the growth ramps up it of course puts even more pressure on some of those types of infrastructure and certainly water and wastewater are the big ticket items to accommodate growth. Of course, you don’t just flip the switch and have it in place overnight.”
In the forecast for water and wastewater in Wellington North are new water towers in both Arthur and Mount Forest as well as additional added capacity to the Arthur wastewater plant. Funding this can be tricky to plan in line with growth projections.
“You don’t want to invest the money to soon if the growth isn’t going to match it, so it’s a bit of a balancing act to try to balance the need to invest in new infrastructure with the way that the growth is going to actually happen,” Lennox said.
But the mayor said growth can’t overwhelm everything the township does and he stressed they are making sure existing infrastructure is looked after for existing residents.
At the county-level as chair of the roads committee, Lennox said it was a remarkably good year as they undertook the roads master action plan, which looks at the long-term needs for the county’s road network.
Again, this comes back to growth in the county — Lennox said Wellington County may be the fastest growing upper-tier municipality in the Greater Golden Horseshoe — which makes having appropriate roads and infrastructure in place more critical than ever.
“We don’t have mass transit systems across the county so our roads network is absolutely critical to everything in everybody’s daily lives,” Lennox said.
It’s a large project that has taken an entire year of reports and debate among councillors on the best course of action to take in regards to the study but Lennox said the study should be finalized early next year.
He said he expects some of the recommendations on county road improvements in the roads master action plan to begin to come forward next year.
Overall, the mayor commended the citizens of Wellington North for stepping up during another challenging year.
“Continuing to do volunteer things, continuing to try to build the social and cultural aspects of our community in very difficult times and my hat’s off to all the residents of Wellington North,” Lennox said.