To Mayor McLaughlin and Council:
As Chair of the Mississippi Mills Heritage Committee, I wanted to make sure (the new) Council was well aware of prior advice given by the Heritage Committee on the subject of the Heritage Conservation study area by-law 14-86. Specifically, that we supported the study area by-law in addition to the interim control measures, the latter of which was to “protect the integrity of the area while the study is underway.” You can see the references in our minutes below.
We have not discussed this by-law since October, and therefore our position has not changed. The Notice of Motion drafted by Councillor Edwards and the proposed amendment re By-law 15-04, both of which were heritage-related, were not brought to us for our advice or comments, nor did Councillor Edwards (who now sits on our committee) mention that this proposal was going to be brought to Council when we had our Heritage Committee meeting on January 28th, 2015.
So, as you prepare for your final decision at Council on February 17th, keep in mind the issues mentioned above and further described below:
1) Our Committee fully supports the interim control measure in order to protect the integrity of the area while the study is underway;
2) our position on that has not changed;
3) our advice was not sought for any proposed amendments to this heritage-related by-law;
4) we were not informed at our January 28th meeting that this notice of motion and by-law amendment to a heritage-related issue were to be proposed to COW on February 3rd.
If any of you would like further advice leading up to February 17th, I encourage you to contact me so we can engage in a meaningful discussion on this matter.
Thank you for your time,