Chatham-Kent council could possibly make a decision on how to move forward on a woodlot preservation bylaw during Monday’s online council meeting.
Council has been working on establishing a woodlot preservation bylaw for over a year. However, they have been on a pause for the past three months, when they decided to hire a consultant to prepare a woodlot preservation framework recommendation, as well as determine what further information council needed to make their decision as well what stakeholder engagement was still needed.
However, no consultant put in a qualified bid to provide those services.
The topic of forests and woodlots has historically been, and continues to be a political hot potato in Chatham-Kent.
In April of 2021 council passed a motion introducing a temporary clear-cutting bylaw and moved ahead on a public engagement process to obtain input from the community on options to support the preservation of woodlots located on private properties. Since then, Chatham-Kent staff has gathered feedback from residents and prepared reports for council to make their decision. In March, council decided to bring in a facilitator to help with the process and put out a request-for-proposal, which was done due to lobbying to do so by the Kent Federation of Agriculture, which felt that rural landowners voices weren’t being heard regarding a proposed woodlot preservation solution.
