January 2017 | Business View Magazine

144 145 urban centers are the Vil- lage of Erin, which is rough- ly 2,500 people and the Village of Hillsburgh, which is about 1,500 people,” says Mayor Allan Alls. “There is a lot of growth land around both communities – future development land–but we haven’t been able to devel- op it because we don’t have waste water treatment. So that’s the major initiative that’s under development at this stage of our growth.” ERIN, ONTARIO According to Alls, Erin is the largest community in south- ern Ontario that has no municipally operated waste water treatment, and because developers are “chomping at the bit” to come to Erin, and the town is interested in attract- ing new businesses, getting a waste water treatment plant is high on its list of priorities. “So, we have launched an environmental assessment which has five steps,”Alls continues. “We’re at step three: determining how we can do waste water, how much development will come from it, and how we can service our existing population.” “At the present time, the community is on septics and the question is how many of them can we absorb into any system we consider,” says Derek McCaughan, Erin’s Interim Chief Administrative Officer. “That’s going to be an interesting ques- tion given the demographics of our community, having two urban areas that are separate from one another.” Alls adds that the public will continue to be able to voice its opinion through the upcoming Of- ficial Plan Amendment, as well as when the consulting engineering company that the town is using completes its study, which should be sometime in early 2018. “We’ll have a public consultation process and along with the Town Coun- cil making decisions. We have a control management team and a public liaison committee which is made up of about 24 citizens from AT A GLANCE ERIN, ONTARIO WHAT: A town of 12,000 WHERE: In Wellington County, approximately 50 miles northwest of Toronto WEBSITE: www.erin.ca