Osprey Media. - Brantford Expositor

Osprey Media. - Brantford Expositor: "Finally, it's a deal
City, county ink tentative pact on boundaries

By Michael-Allan Marion
Local News - Friday, February 23, 2007 Updated @ 10:45:16 PM

At long last, Brantford and Brant County have an agreement in principle on boundary changes and long-term growth that will change the future of more than 4,000 acres of rural land.

Negotiating teams for the two councils, aided by a provincial facilitator, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing officials and staff from both municipalities, spent Thursday morning at the Best Western Brant Park Inn haggling over the final wording to resolve their remaining differences.

Then, after the negotiating team members finished nodding their heads through one final reading of the text, Brantford Mayor Mike Hancock and Brant Mayor Ron Eddy pulled out their pens.

They signed an agreement in principle that, if approved, would transfer more than 3,000 acres of county land to the north and east of Brantford into the city effective Jan. 1, 2008. That would handle the city's industrial and residential development needs for the next 30 years.

The vast majority of what has long been mostly agricultural land is now in the hands of development companies that have bought major tracts, particularly over the past four years, in anticipation of the deal.

The tentative pact also would allow the county to create new industrial and urban settlement in two areas of about 1,000 acres in its jurisdiction-- a parcel south of Paris and an expanded one in Cainsville -- which now is excluded from development.

And the pact gives the county a special deal under which the city would supply more water to Cainsville a"