[rdaner]

Greenbelt grade: Pretty good, but...
Environmental group rates province a `B'

But developers worry house prices will soar
Feb. 28, 2006. 01:00 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
STAFF REPORTER


Ontario's efforts to build an urban backyard full of rich farmland, pristine natural features and wide-open countryside on the edge of Greater Toronto and Niagara rate a solid "B" from environmentalists.

But provincial plans to expand and build new highways through the area must stop, says a report card to be released today by the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance on the first anniversary of the Greenbelt Act.

In addition, key areas not included in the greenbelt last year must be added to ensure safe drinking water and to protect endangered species and natural features, says the alliance, a coalition of more than 75 organizations that wants to preserve and expand the Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt.

"This is a report card that any student would be proud to bring home to their parents," said alliance member Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence. "But there's still plenty of room for improvement."

The Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, an independent body set up by Queen's Park last June, is ready to hand out grants of up to $500,000 to non-profit groups with plans to promote and preserve the 728,000-hectare arc of rolling green space that extends from Niagara to Peterborough. The foundation expects to grant about $25 million over the next five years. Grant guidelines are available on the foundation's website at www.ourgreenbelt.ca

"We have spent the past couple of months meeting with stakeholders on the greenbelt and we are quite excited about some of the possibilities," said Burkhard Mausberg, of the foundation.

One of the foundation's top priorities will be to help preserve agriculture in the greenbelt by raising the profile of farmers' markets, he said.

About 40 farmers' markets operate in Greater Toronto and demand for fresh local fruits and vegetables is high, said Bob Chorney, executive director of Farmers' Markets Ontario. Chorney would like to use the foundation's money to promote the markets more aggressively.

The development industry is still wary of the greenbelt and worries that limiting urban expansion without a growth plan for the area will send housing prices through the roof.

"One year later, we are still waiting for (the provincial growth) plan, and more importantly, the infrastructure funding that needs to go with it," said Desi Auciello, president of the Greater Toronto Homebuilders Association.

"Land prices have escalated, driving up low-rise housing prices, resulting in a 10 per cent decline in sales last year," said Auciello, head of Cachet Estate Homes. "We fail to see how higher housing prices and less consumer choice is a good thing."

In its report, the Greenbelt Alliance notes several big "wins" for the environment in the past year. Just this month, the province blocked a plan by the city of Vaughan to extend Pine Valley Dr. through Boyd Park. The move protects a sensitive old-growth forest in the area. Last fall, the province passed legislation to protect the Duffins-Rouge Agricultural preserve in Pickering where the local council was pushing for residential development.

However, there have been some failures, the report says. Although Queen's Park has protected the northern tributaries of the Rouge River from development in the North Leslie area of Richmond Hill, a proposal to build 7,800 homes currently before the Ontario Municipal Board would have grave environmental consequences, the alliance says. And a planned sewer pipe expansion in the King City area continues to threaten local streams and water sources.

 

[rdaner]

Farmers fume over land-use rules
Landowners group formed to fight move that would restrict building near wetlands
JAMES RUSK

With a report from Oliver Moore

A rising rural rebellion against provincial land-use rules is coming to the Greater Toronto Area.

A group of property owners met last night at a farm in Caledon to talk about what farmers and rural landowners see as the erosion of their rights through provincial legislation and regulation, according to David Lynn, a Caledon farmer.

Leivan Gavaert, a farmer, said after the meeting that roughly 60 people had joined a newly minted Halton-Peel landowners association. Twelve directors have stepped forward and the first directors meeting should come within three weeks.

The new association joins a growing movement that started in Eastern Ontario's Lanark County in 2004. Since then, at least a dozen groups have sprung up across the province to fight what rural landowners see as intolerable government interference.Mr. Lynn said they are responding to a wave of changes -- greenbelt and Oak Ridges Moraine legislation, laws on watershed management and fertilizer use -- that affect what they can do with their land.

The next wave is expected May 1, the deadline for Ontario's 36 conservation authorities to begin operating under new rules that give them greater power to control land use around watercourses, shorelines and wetlands.

The new regulatory regime, known as the generic regulation, brings thousands of acres of land under conservation-authority control, most of it in buffer areas around wetlands.

"It scares the hell out of a lot of people," said Mr. Lynn, a councillor in Caledon, where 5,000 landowners are affected by the regulation.

Under the rules, conservation authorities will have to give their approval if a property owner wants to erect a building, increase the size of an existing building, grade a site or move material such as soil around on a site.

Before the rule change, the authorities' power over land use was limited to hazardous areas, such as water channels, adjacent valleys and flood plains. That power dates back more than half a century, and was intended as a measure to protect the public from losing life and property in floods.

Those rules, which are part of the new regulation, are "one of the most prudent regulations for human safety . . . in the world," said Ian Sinclair, a former Caledon councillor who is one of the more trenchant critics of the new rules.

What has Mr. Sinclair upset is the way the new rule deals with wetlands. Under the old rules, certain wetlands were considered to be provincially significant, and under the Provincial Planning Act, a municipality could not allow development within 120 metres of a such a designated site unless the developer made an environmental impact assessment first.

Municipalities did not have to put a 120-metre buffer zone for planning purposes around low-category wetlands that were not provincially significant, a status that required an environmental evaluation by provincial authorities.

The new regulation puts a buffer around all wetlands, although municipalities will have the option of a 30-metre buffer around those that are not provincially significant, said Russ Powell, the chief administrative officer of Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority.

To Mr. Sinclair, extending the conservation authorities' power over all wetlands and into buffer zones of up to 120 metres around them is "an out-and-out piece of empire-building."

The regulated zone around all wetlands means that, for the first time, thousands of property owners will have to deal with conservation authorities to get approval on all regulated activity inside the buffer.

And the buffer has a bigger impact than most landowners realize: a 120-metre buffer around a one-acre wetland gives a conservation authority jurisdiction over 23.5 acres of land, said R. A. Fowler, secretary of the Ontario Property and Environmental Rights Alliance.

When the generic regulation comes into force, "there'll be a real storm then. It'll be eyebrow high, because this is land control with vengeance. Think of somebody with a wetland in a greenbelt area. How many permits is he going to have to get to build a barn?" Mr. Fowler said.

And it will cost property owners. "Even if it is something . . . that is entirely reasonable, you will have to get permission from the CA. Our experience is that permits start to cost money."

Mr. Powell, who chairs a Conservation Ontario committee that reviews the draft regulation from each conservation authority, says he does not think the new rules are as much of a burden as critics say, but he agrees they come at a bad time. "I think there's a little bit of fatigue out there in rural Ontario over the number of initiatives, and then we're sort of caught up in that process and that concern," he said.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Star:

Durham wants less greenbelt
Votes to exclude 1,400 hectares
Province unlikely to bow to request
May 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
STAN JOSEY
STAFF REPORTER

Durham Region will ask the province to remove about 1,400 hectares from the Golden Horseshoe greenbelt.

The move was approved by a 16 to 8 vote by councillors yesterday despite pleas from environmentalists to leave the greenbelt alone and admissions by some political leaders that the request has little chance of succeeding.

The land in question, contained in four parcels — one each in Ajax and Whitby and two sites in Clarington — would eventually be used to expand urban borders.

Land in the Cherrywood community in Pickering is also recommended for removal, but regional planning commissioner Alex Georgieff told council there are so many existing restrictions on the land that the likelihood of it ever being developed is slim.

The most significant proposed greenbelt exclusion would be a strip of land in Ajax next to the Whitby border that now contains five large working farms, and has been designated as green space on local and regional official plans for more than 20 years.

Several delegations spoke against the plan to change the greenbelt boundaries, some claiming politicians have caved in to pressure from developers and large landholders wanting to profit from their land.

Ajax Mayor Steve Parish, who strongly opposes the proposed exclusions, said: "Those who support these greenbelt exclusions should be known as the `sultans of sprawl.'"

Parish has expressed concern that if the province bows to Durham, it would open the floodgates to more changes that could ultimately sink the province's goal of curbing sprawl and protecting sensitive areas.

"Death by a thousand cuts is what will kill the greenbelt," he said last month.

"If the greenbelt is going to survive, the province must hold firm."

Durham region politicians have been grumbling about the greenbelt since it became law in February 2005.

Durham is the only GTA region where local politicians are still opposing greenbelt boundaries, a provincial official has said.

AoD

 

[bizorky]

Durham is the only GTA region where local politicians are still opposing greenbelt boundaries, a provincial official has said.

I am surprised! I think the last sentence is good news. I would have thought there would still be more opposition to the greenbelt from building-fee hungry pols.

 

[Encyclical]

Hopefully it IS just Durham that is still battling it. I remember hearing (hmm slanted?) news that the opposition (AKA Mr. Tory) wanted to fight this etc. and had a good chance at ripping it up. Guess I was misinformed...

 

[bizorky]

Now that you mention it, I think Tory did make some remarks about the Greenbelt. I guess he shut up when he noted that the plan was actually not so bad, and actually made good sense in the long term.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Globe:

Tightening the greenbelt a couple of notches

JOHN BARBER

Anybody who doubts the wisdom of strict paternalism in planning should look to Durham Region, the Wild East, where some local politicians continue to plumb new lows at the behest of the developers whose dollars helped put them in office.

The good news is that Big Daddy is no longer letting them get away with it: The province has already taken over planning in sprawl-happy Pickering, forcibly imposing stricter development controls, and it is currently lowering the boom on the Durham regional government, which is conniving to sprawl into lands protected by brand-new provincial legislation.

The bad news is their amazing persistence. No matter how often they are told the new greenbelt is permanent, local politicians in Durham continue to invent foxy new ways to carve it up.

Earlier this week, they tried one of their sneakiest tricks yet. Unwilling to revise their official plan to reflect new restrictions imposed by the greenbelt, the mayors and councillors torqued the document to include "new growth areas" on greenbelt lands.

To understand how they did it would require immersion in the most dissembling, incomprehensible planning report in the history of that so-called profession, but the upshot is simple. Yes, we will grudgingly change our plan to conform with provincial law, the Durhams said. But as soon as they get rid of the Liberals, they plan to sprawl like mad once again -- as per their attached map.

The expensively dressed developers and their agents who packed the most recent meeting of the Durham planning committee were sincerely grateful for such explicit aid, according to Bonnie Littley of Pickering, who is hoping to unseat long-term councillor Maurice Brenner in the upcoming election. "They gave them a map, for God's sake," she exclaims.

Even though their own planners had previously told the Durhams that there was no need to expand existing urban boundaries before 2031, the councillors still voted to designate 20,000 acres of greenbelt land for future growth. That's 30 square miles of farmland, equivalent to all Toronto south of Bloor Street and the Danforth.

"Once they designate these greenbelt areas they want to roll back, they put a big bull's eye on them," says Ajax Mayor Steve Parish, the only committee member who voted against the dodge -- and the only senior Durham politician who refuses contributions from developers. "Speculation runs rampant. You put something in motion that's really hard to turn back."

Amazingly, Durham's latest sprawl maps include land that the province has already explicitly forbidden it from touching. Even the Mike Harris government struggled to prevent the locals from sprawling onto the Pickering agricultural preserve, just past the Toronto zoo, the last open land bordering the city proper. Faced with continuing fulmination to urbanize the land, the McGuinty government passed a law -- Bill 16, the Duffins-Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act -- to end the game once for all.

Yet in Durham, that protected land is known as the "Cherrywood neighbourhood." As of this week, it is officially slated for sprawl.

They're a colourful bunch, those Durhams. Between now and the election, Pickering Councillor Brenner, Ms. Littley's old-guard opponent, will stand trial for allegedly submitting fraudulent expense claims. Clarington Mayor John Mutton, on the other hand, will have to wait till after the election before defending himself against two charges of assault. Mayor Mutton is currently living with his father under court orders, allowed to venture outdoors only while in "an alcohol-free state." He is promising the citizens of his instant town to lobby for the expansion of the local nuclear reactor.

No, it's not The Simpsons. It's real. As key players in the lucrative sprawl business, these figures make multi-million-dollar decisions that determine the future of the urban region for decades, if not forever.

Why does it still go on?

Mayor Parish and the small band of reformers he is helping to inspire have a ready answer: money.

As in so many suburban municipalities around Toronto that still have green fields, local politicians rely to an astonishing degree on the development industry to finance their campaigns. Take the case of Whitby, just past Pickering. With more than 70,000 eligible voters, only 25 ordinary individuals made contributions of more than $100 to any campaigns in the 2003 election, according to a study of municipal election finance by Robert MacDermid of York University. Four out of every five dollars raised came from corporations -- overwhelmingly those connected with development, according to Prof. MacDermid.

Whitby Mayor Marcel Brunelle raised $17,650 from developers, according to Prof. MacDermid, while his challenger, Judy Griffiths, received nothing. Voter turnout in the Whitby election was an appallingly low 20 per cent.

So once again the province is going to have to crack heads when Mayor Brunelle and his colleagues vote in council to carve up more farmland for their buddies later this month. But the ministers could save themselves a lot of trouble -- now and in the future -- if they simply banned corporations from contributing to municipal election campaigns.

jbarber@globeandmail.com

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

And from the Star:

Durham stands tough on greenbelt
Sole GTA region to defy Queen's Park
Wants major changes to plan
Sep. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
FEATURE WRITER

Durham is poised once again to flout Queen's Park's greenbelt plan.

And one area mayor predicts the move may cost some politicians votes in the upcoming municipal election.

Councillors ignored a pointed letter from Queen's Park last week urging them not to include references to disputed greenbelt land in an appendix to Durham's official plan, a document that sets the rules for urban growth and land use in the region.

Instead, Durham's planning committee is recommending regional council next Wednesday amend the official plan to include supplemental maps and descriptions of some 2,192 hectares of greenbelt land the region wants developed.

It's the second time in two months that Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government has tried to block Durham's attempts to bulldoze a hole through its greenbelt legislation.

Durham remains the only region in Greater Toronto which won't agree to the law that protects a 720,000-hectare arc of green space across the Golden Horseshoe from urban sprawl.

Although not legally part of the region's official plan, the appendix says it signals council's intent "if and when the province makes the necessary amendments to the greenbelt plan."

Ajax Mayor Steve Parish, the only planning committee member who voted against the move, says he's shocked his municipal colleagues continue to defy the province.

"People are concerned about gridlock and the lack of transit-supportive development. They want to preserve green space and agricultural land," Parish said this week. "This flies in the face of everything we should be doing and what the people want us to do."

With scores of developers and their lawyers on hand for the two-day regional planning meeting last week, Parish said "it's obvious" politicians are acting for powerful private interests and not the public.

If council endorses the move — as expected — Parish said he'll request a recorded vote so residents know where their politicians stand. "This is clearly the number one election issue in this region," he said.

Durham has been battling Queen's Park over the greenbelt since it became law in February 2005.

Last spring, it asked Municipal Affairs Minister John Gerretsen and his greenbelt advisory council to reconsider the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve and four other parcels of land declared off-limits to development.

In letters to regional chair Roger Anderson this summer, both Gerretsen and the advisory council said the greenbelt boundaries are final and no changes will be considered until 2015 when the law comes up for its regular 10-year review.

Anderson accepts that, but says this latest move simply puts Queen's Park on notice that Durham disagrees.

"This approach will ensure continued awareness of the changes being sought by the region," he said.

The province increased greenbelt land in Durham by about 4,000 hectares in its final plan without any consultation with local politicians, he added.

Currently, the greenbelt covers more than 80 per cent of the region's land area.

Durham's planning committee did agree to a provincial request to remove references in the plan to "future growth areas." It will be replaced with "specific policy area."

AoD

 

[bizorky]

o matter how often they are told the new greenbelt is permanent, local politicians in Durham continue to invent foxy new ways to carve it up.

The solution is quite simple: the province should legislate parts of those municipalities out of existence. Cities exist at the pleasure of the provincial government; time to invoke displeasure and redraw the lines.

 

[rdaner]

This was posted by Dr. T. on SSC.


Backpedaling on the Greenbelt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knew it. I knew it would not be long for the government to open the Greenbelt to "death by a thousand cuts" and make it very expensive to the taxpayers by restoring "compensation". Crap.
Let's hope this doesn't happen.
From The Star.


Greenbelt's fate could hinge on provincial vote
Tories opposed law that created huge protected area
Feb 24, 2007 04:30 AM
Ian Urquhart

Two years ago today, the Ontario Legislature voted to establish a greenbelt of 728,000 hectares of protected space, stretching around the Golden Horseshoe from Niagara Falls to Peterborough.

The greenbelt has since withstood various assaults, both political (from municipalities) and legal (from developers).

A court ruling last week that indirectly upheld the greenbelt's boundaries brought cheers from environmentalists, as did a decision by Durham Region council not to pursue plans for development of a greenbelt site.

But the cheering may have been premature, for the greenbelt, at least as it is currently configured, may not survive the provincial election in October.

While the greenbelt law was passed with the support of both the governing Liberals and the New Democrats, it was opposed by the Progressive Conservatives.

During debate on the legislation, the Conservatives raised objections about the absence of an appeal process (for property owners who object to being included in the greenbelt) and the lack of compensation (for farmers and municipalities whose land has been devalued because it is no longer available for development).

Environmentalists see an appeal process as opening the door to "death by a thousand cuts," and they view compensation as a ruinously expensive idea that would quickly erode public support for the greenbelt.

But in an address a year ago to a rural audience, Conservative Leader John Tory returned to these two themes.

Tory suggested he would change the law to provide for "a right of appeal, so that anybody who's not happy will be able to get some explanation and also go somewhere and have a day in court to be heard" and "compensation to both farmers and municipalities who are affected by this legislation."

Finally, in by-elections earlier this month, Conservative candidates responded with the same form letter to calls from environmentalists for the party's stand on the greenbelt. The letter noted that the greenbelt legislation was flawed because it denied property owners "a right of appeal" and ignored the needs of farmers and municipalities.

So, would a Conservative government amend the law to provide for an appeal process and compensation?

At least one developer is hoping so: Silvio DeGasperis.

DeGasperis is a major owner of properties within a chunk of the greenbelt known as the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, in north Pickering.

The 1,900-hectare preserve was expropriated by the government in the 1970s in preparation for the planned Pickering airport. With the airport plans dead, however, the government began selling off the Duffins Rouge properties in the late 1990s.

Easements were registered on the sales designating the land as agricultural, but developers – including DeGasperis – began snapping up the properties in the hopes of getting municipal approval for future subdivisions.

When the City of Pickering appeared ready to play ball with the developers, the Conservative government of the day (under Ernie Eves) slapped a ministerial zoning order on Duffins Rouge prohibiting development of the agricultural preserve.

DeGasperis backed the Liberals in the ensuing election.

When the victorious Liberals then came forward with plans for the greenbelt, DeGasperis began a major lobbying campaign to exclude Duffins Rouge from its boundaries. He was unsuccessful.

Now, DeGasperis has switched sides. Elections Ontario records show that his firm, TACC Construction, has become a major financial backer of the provincial Conservatives, with $17,400 in donations in 2005 and another $8,400 in 2006, with only partial returns available.

Asked if he is hoping for a change of government, DeGasperis responds: "Obviously, the answer is yes."

DeGasperis also directs the questioner to what Tory said in his speech a year ago.

That brings us to the present. A question about the Conservatives' plans for the greenbelt elicited this response yesterday from Tory's office: "Full details on how we will build on a long PC record of protecting sensitive lands will be contained in our platform. The platform will see total sensitive land under protection in the province increase."

As for Duffins Rouge, Tory's office said: "It was the PC party which first placed this land under protection and John Tory will keep it that way."

Several hours later, Tory's office issued a more definitive statement: "John Tory will not reopen the greenbelt. The current boundaries for the greenbelt, as imperfect as they are, will be respected."

We shall see.

Tory is being squeezed here between public opinion (the greenbelt is very popular, with the support of 89 per cent of Ontarians in a Toronto Star/Decima Research poll last fall) and right-wing elements in his own party who see the greenbelt as a gross intrusion on property rights.

It will take all Tory's juggling skills to keep both these balls in the air in the months leading up to the election.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

If the government truly want to get this issue off the table once and for all, they should set up a trust for the Greenbelt and transfer the title of the lands to such entity in perpetuity.

AoD

 

[Mike in TO]

^ How can that be done with tens of thousands of land owners?

I highly doubt a PC government would do anything beyond minor tinkering to a very popular greenbelt.

The legislation has provisions for a 10 year review which would take us to 2015 before a comprehensive review exercise.

 

[jayomatic]

If greenbelt protection is removed i think the government can counteract this buy putting density minimum regulations on property made available for development. Forcing developers to use property to its full advantage.

 

[maxy505]

If 89% of Ontarians are in favour of this, surely we'd also be in favour of purchasing the land we wish to dictate the use of?

Or we could just use the tyranny of the majority...

 

[Observer Walt]

I doubt that any new government would make significant changes to the Greenbelt. It has wide popular appeal, and fooling around with it significantly would not be politically wise in the current environment. As for developers, based on feedback I hear, most of them have factored its existence into their plans and are moving on. It actually creates more certainty than there was before, and most businesses actually like certainty.

My fearless prediction: No major change to the Greenbelt, regardless of who forms the government, and increased development "leapfrogging" across the Greenbelt to places like south Simcoe County (Bradford, Innisfil), and areas to the west (Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Brantford). There are actually definite signs of this happening already.