OFA understands and agrees with the desire to see consistent interpretation and implementation of the Provincial Planning Statement (PPS) through municipal official plans. While our organization supports the broad goal of this undertaking, OFA emphasizes that local municipalities have a critical role, and the adjustment of their powers must be addressed with downstream policy outcomes in mind. Our feedback below is summarized as follows:

• Consistent, standardized official plans across municipalities would save farmers time and reduce interpretation costs.
• Provincial agricultural policies should be applied consistently, with flexibility for local agricultural differences.
• Standardized plans must still allow special local policies (e.g., specialty crop areas).
• Upper-tier planning is supported to ensure regional consistency, especially for minimum distance separation and prime agricultural area policies.
• Moving development standards into zoning by-laws is concerning because zoning is easier to amend than official plans.
• Setting a universal or population-based limit on official plan length is problematic.
• Official plans could be shorter if external documents were not appended.
• A standard agricultural land-use designation should protect prime agricultural land from urban encroachment.
• OFA continues to advocate for fixed urban boundaries.