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wyliepoon
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Harper pledges conservation cash
ADRIAN WYLD/CANADIAN PRESS
Mar 14, 2007 12:52 PM
Bruce campion-smith
Ottawa Bureau
The fight to save ecologically sensitive lands got a big boost today with the promise of $225 million in new federal funding to keep tracts of nature safe from encroaching development.
"The great outdoors is at the heart of the Canadian identity," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said as he pledged the new cash this morning.
Harper, joined by federal Environment Minister John Baird, made the announcement in King City, near the Oak Ridges Moraine, a natural feature that could be further protected with today's initiative.
While Canada is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, Canadians have never lost their strong ties to nature, Harper said.
"Most of us live and work in cities far removed from nature. . . . But during our century-long transition from a rural, agrarian society to a mostly urban one, we never lost our profound appreciation for Canada's natural heritage," he said.
Harper's day started at the King City home of Dr. Henry Barnett, whose donation of 79 acres of land in 2001 helped protect York Region's Happy Valley forest, an area that is home to tall trees, 100 types of birds and essentially to ecological health of the moraine.
"The forest cover in this area acts as a natural rain barrel and the source of clean water for 65 rivers and streams," Harper said after his visit.
The Prime Minister held that donation up as an example of how other sensitive lands can be protected in the future.
"The investment I am announcing today will enable us to preserve similar treasures for posterity all across the country," he said.
Environmentalists applauded the move as a big step forward in their efforts to preserve lands with forests, wetlands and other habitats for wildlife.
"It's the best thing to happen in conservation in a long, long time," said John Lounds, president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
His organization will serve as a partner in the initiative. Today's funding — to be matched by private donations — is expected to preserve 500,000 acres of land in southern Canada.
Priority will be given to lands that are nationally or provincially significant, that are home to species at risk or migratory birds or that abut existing protected spaces, like national parks.
"The partners will then approach landowners will proposals to either donate or sell the land outright or sign agreements to ensure it is protected," Harper said.
The announcement builds on a measure outlined in the last year's budget that offers tax incentives to landowners who donate ecologically sensitive lands to ensure their preservation.
Link to article
Harper pledges conservation cash
ADRIAN WYLD/CANADIAN PRESS
Mar 14, 2007 12:52 PM
Bruce campion-smith
Ottawa Bureau
The fight to save ecologically sensitive lands got a big boost today with the promise of $225 million in new federal funding to keep tracts of nature safe from encroaching development.
"The great outdoors is at the heart of the Canadian identity," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said as he pledged the new cash this morning.
Harper, joined by federal Environment Minister John Baird, made the announcement in King City, near the Oak Ridges Moraine, a natural feature that could be further protected with today's initiative.
While Canada is one of the most urbanized countries in the world, Canadians have never lost their strong ties to nature, Harper said.
"Most of us live and work in cities far removed from nature. . . . But during our century-long transition from a rural, agrarian society to a mostly urban one, we never lost our profound appreciation for Canada's natural heritage," he said.
Harper's day started at the King City home of Dr. Henry Barnett, whose donation of 79 acres of land in 2001 helped protect York Region's Happy Valley forest, an area that is home to tall trees, 100 types of birds and essentially to ecological health of the moraine.
"The forest cover in this area acts as a natural rain barrel and the source of clean water for 65 rivers and streams," Harper said after his visit.
The Prime Minister held that donation up as an example of how other sensitive lands can be protected in the future.
"The investment I am announcing today will enable us to preserve similar treasures for posterity all across the country," he said.
Environmentalists applauded the move as a big step forward in their efforts to preserve lands with forests, wetlands and other habitats for wildlife.
"It's the best thing to happen in conservation in a long, long time," said John Lounds, president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
His organization will serve as a partner in the initiative. Today's funding — to be matched by private donations — is expected to preserve 500,000 acres of land in southern Canada.
Priority will be given to lands that are nationally or provincially significant, that are home to species at risk or migratory birds or that abut existing protected spaces, like national parks.
"The partners will then approach landowners will proposals to either donate or sell the land outright or sign agreements to ensure it is protected," Harper said.
The announcement builds on a measure outlined in the last year's budget that offers tax incentives to landowners who donate ecologically sensitive lands to ensure their preservation.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Ontario's greenbelt a model for the world
Toronto-area protected zone earns high marks for its vastness and for the strong government support it has
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
April 10, 2008 at 4:45 AM EDT
The loss of prime agricultural land near cities due to urban sprawl is bemoaned the world over as a modern blight.
But a solution may be at hand, for which Toronto should be recognized as a world leader: greenbelts, or farmland and environmentally sensitive land that has been officially made off limits to developers.
A study being released today says the zone of protected land around Toronto is not only one of the largest greenbelts in the world, but is also superior to ones in North America and Europe.
"Ontario's greenbelt is positioned to be the most successful and most useful greenbelt in the world," concluded the study, compiled by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, a Toronto-based think tank.
In making the assessment, the institute looked in detail at B.C.'s agricultural land reserve, one of the first efforts to curb sprawl in North America; Oregon's urban growth boundary; the unusual greenbelt that Germany is developing in the former no-man's land along the Iron Curtain; and the famed greenbelts around London and near Amsterdam. It dismissed as a "failure" the greenbelt around the Ottawa region assembled by the National Capital Commission, suggesting it has facilitated rather than hindered urban sprawl.
The study will be submitted to the province as part of a consultation process by the ministry of municipal affairs on ways municipalities near Toronto can have some of their remaining rural countryside included in the greenbelt.
Many greenbelts are under threat because of pressure for housing, roads and other urban uses, but the case in Ontario is the opposite. The province has told developers hoping to have the tracts removed from the greenbelt to take a hike, and that its current boundaries are fixed, even if real estate companies are willing to trade land into the greenbelt elsewhere to maintain its size.
"My goal and my mantra that drives me is that we're going to be doing nothing but expanding the greenbelt," Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson said in an interview.
With that goal in mind, the government is embracing municipalities that are interested in having more land covered by the greenbelt, established in 2005 by the Ontario government. It intends to issue a directive by July detailing the steps necessary to have the province agree to expand protected areas.
Guelph and Oakville have said they're interested, and other municipalities have informally approached the government, although Mr. Watson was unwilling to identify them.
The greenbelt includes the world-renowned Niagara Escarpment, a ribbon of limestone cliffs that snakes across Southern Ontario from the Niagara Falls area to Tobermory on Georgian Bay, along with farmland and an expanse of bucolic rolling countryside north of Toronto known locally as the Oak Ridges Moraine, created by debris deposited by glaciers as they melted at the end of the last ice age.
Although urban sprawl and the loss of productive farmland are occurring almost everywhere in the world, greenbelts are a "relatively rare" tool for dealing with the problem, said Maureen Carter-Whitney, a researcher for the institute who conducted the study. It was commissioned by the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, a non-profit organization funded by the province that was established to promote agriculture in the greenbelt and safeguard its ecological features. Ms. Carter-Whitney's comparison gave high marks to Ontario's greenbelt because it has tough legislative protection, strong support from government, and covers a large area.
One concern with greenbelts is that they could promote even greater sprawl if development hops over the protected zone, creating longer commutes and wasting just as much farmland. Those who back greenbelts hope they encourage more efficient and intensive land use within current urban boundaries.
In Toronto's case, such leapfrogging is happening as development moves north to areas of Simcoe County around Barrie, but the trend has been observed frequently enough elsewhere to be viewed as a legitimate threat to this system of land conservation.
"That's been seen to be an issue in the United Kingdom around the London greenbelt," Ms. Carter-Whitney said. "That is one reason people are hoping an expansion of the [Ontario] greenbelt would be useful" by making such leapfrogging more difficult.
The study said B.C.'s agricultural land reserve has had success in saving farmland from development. While the quantity of agricultural land being converted to urban uses in Canada more than doubled from 1971 to 2001, B.C. had no net loss over a roughly comparable period, 1974 to 2003, although some prime cropland was developed and replaced with less productive farmland.
Ms. Carter-Whitney said greenbelts should be considered in other areas of Canada facing sprawl, with Calgary a prime candidate.
Farmers are potential losers from greenbelts because developers won't pay top dollar for tracts that can't be converted to urban uses, yet they have to cover most of the costs of preserving land for society.
The study says farmers should be compensated "financially for implementing environmental stewardship activities that benefit everyone."
As well, governments need to encourage the consumption of food grown in the greenbelt through farmers markets and promoting crops that appeal to Canada's growing visible minority population.
The Netherlands has tried to brand food grown in its greenbelt, known as the Green Heart, and Canada should do likewise, the report said.
"Steps should be taken to ensure that farmland in the greenbelt stays productive so that the area can continue to provide a secure local food source in the future," the study said.
Toronto-area protected zone earns high marks for its vastness and for the strong government support it has
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
April 10, 2008 at 4:45 AM EDT
The loss of prime agricultural land near cities due to urban sprawl is bemoaned the world over as a modern blight.
But a solution may be at hand, for which Toronto should be recognized as a world leader: greenbelts, or farmland and environmentally sensitive land that has been officially made off limits to developers.
A study being released today says the zone of protected land around Toronto is not only one of the largest greenbelts in the world, but is also superior to ones in North America and Europe.
"Ontario's greenbelt is positioned to be the most successful and most useful greenbelt in the world," concluded the study, compiled by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, a Toronto-based think tank.
In making the assessment, the institute looked in detail at B.C.'s agricultural land reserve, one of the first efforts to curb sprawl in North America; Oregon's urban growth boundary; the unusual greenbelt that Germany is developing in the former no-man's land along the Iron Curtain; and the famed greenbelts around London and near Amsterdam. It dismissed as a "failure" the greenbelt around the Ottawa region assembled by the National Capital Commission, suggesting it has facilitated rather than hindered urban sprawl.
The study will be submitted to the province as part of a consultation process by the ministry of municipal affairs on ways municipalities near Toronto can have some of their remaining rural countryside included in the greenbelt.
Many greenbelts are under threat because of pressure for housing, roads and other urban uses, but the case in Ontario is the opposite. The province has told developers hoping to have the tracts removed from the greenbelt to take a hike, and that its current boundaries are fixed, even if real estate companies are willing to trade land into the greenbelt elsewhere to maintain its size.
"My goal and my mantra that drives me is that we're going to be doing nothing but expanding the greenbelt," Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson said in an interview.
With that goal in mind, the government is embracing municipalities that are interested in having more land covered by the greenbelt, established in 2005 by the Ontario government. It intends to issue a directive by July detailing the steps necessary to have the province agree to expand protected areas.
Guelph and Oakville have said they're interested, and other municipalities have informally approached the government, although Mr. Watson was unwilling to identify them.
The greenbelt includes the world-renowned Niagara Escarpment, a ribbon of limestone cliffs that snakes across Southern Ontario from the Niagara Falls area to Tobermory on Georgian Bay, along with farmland and an expanse of bucolic rolling countryside north of Toronto known locally as the Oak Ridges Moraine, created by debris deposited by glaciers as they melted at the end of the last ice age.
Although urban sprawl and the loss of productive farmland are occurring almost everywhere in the world, greenbelts are a "relatively rare" tool for dealing with the problem, said Maureen Carter-Whitney, a researcher for the institute who conducted the study. It was commissioned by the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, a non-profit organization funded by the province that was established to promote agriculture in the greenbelt and safeguard its ecological features. Ms. Carter-Whitney's comparison gave high marks to Ontario's greenbelt because it has tough legislative protection, strong support from government, and covers a large area.
One concern with greenbelts is that they could promote even greater sprawl if development hops over the protected zone, creating longer commutes and wasting just as much farmland. Those who back greenbelts hope they encourage more efficient and intensive land use within current urban boundaries.
In Toronto's case, such leapfrogging is happening as development moves north to areas of Simcoe County around Barrie, but the trend has been observed frequently enough elsewhere to be viewed as a legitimate threat to this system of land conservation.
"That's been seen to be an issue in the United Kingdom around the London greenbelt," Ms. Carter-Whitney said. "That is one reason people are hoping an expansion of the [Ontario] greenbelt would be useful" by making such leapfrogging more difficult.
The study said B.C.'s agricultural land reserve has had success in saving farmland from development. While the quantity of agricultural land being converted to urban uses in Canada more than doubled from 1971 to 2001, B.C. had no net loss over a roughly comparable period, 1974 to 2003, although some prime cropland was developed and replaced with less productive farmland.
Ms. Carter-Whitney said greenbelts should be considered in other areas of Canada facing sprawl, with Calgary a prime candidate.
Farmers are potential losers from greenbelts because developers won't pay top dollar for tracts that can't be converted to urban uses, yet they have to cover most of the costs of preserving land for society.
The study says farmers should be compensated "financially for implementing environmental stewardship activities that benefit everyone."
As well, governments need to encourage the consumption of food grown in the greenbelt through farmers markets and promoting crops that appeal to Canada's growing visible minority population.
The Netherlands has tried to brand food grown in its greenbelt, known as the Green Heart, and Canada should do likewise, the report said.
"Steps should be taken to ensure that farmland in the greenbelt stays productive so that the area can continue to provide a secure local food source in the future," the study said.
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
I'm all for the greenbelt and all but I think the way they present it is very misleading. The language and visuals they use present the "portected" areas to a lay-person as protected natural reserves, which is neither the intention nor the reality of the greenbelt on the ground. In the few years from the inception of the greenbelt and continuing today there has probably been more development in this "protected" area then all development that existed there before since humans first settled this region.
Conrad Black
Senior Member
What kind of development?
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
^For instance prior to the deadline for the greenbelt many city departments rubberstamped the backlog of development proposals on the morraine. I actually used to live in the Northwest corner of Caledon. In that area the amount of road paving and estate lot construction that has occured as a result seems to me to be almost equal to everything that was there before. So the fields and forests and dirt lanes that existed there when I was young have been largely converted into estate lot subdivisions, most of this development has occured over the last 10 years.
Redroom Studios
Senior Member
I agree with Tricky Ricky... the greenbelt is a great idea, but for all the tough legislation they mentioned, I dont see any slowing of development. Its pure politics - creating the perception that something is being done while maintaining business as usual. There isnt the political fortitude to stop the scores of developers and the thousands of workers they employ. Our population just keeps growing and unfortunately there is still a large percentage of the population who want single family homes on the fringes of urban areas.
ShonTron
Moderator
The biggest issue was all those developments approved before the Oak Ridges Moraine bill was passed, and then the Greenbelt, and then all the inactive applications that developers seized upon and running to the OMB. There's also Simcoe County, not in the Greenbelt, and the mother of all leapfrogs could happen in Bradford-West Gwillimbury, New Tecumseh, Innisfill and Essa.
wyliepoon
Senior Member
That map would look more impressive if the greenbelt went all the way to Ottawa (or better yet, if nine-tenth of Ontario was coloured green).
H
Hydrogen
Guest
When you include northern Ontario, it gets pretty close to nine-tenths.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
It is a little early to call it a model for the world. We won't know how effective it is until the land within the belt is fully developed.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Globe:
New greenbelt rules poorly timed, industry says
JAMES RUSK
From Monday's Globe and Mail
August 25, 2008 at 5:00 AM EDT
A move by the province to give municipalities authority to expand the 1.8-million-acre Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt has come at the wrong time, according to the development industry.
Last week, the province published criteria for the expansion of the protected lands at municipal behest. It included a requirement that municipalities could propose changes in the greenbelt boundaries only after public consultation and approval by both local and upper-tier municipalities.
The new rules are unlikely to have an immediate impact on the development pattern in the Golden Horseshoe. However, they have the potential to drive the next generation's development farther away from Toronto, if municipalities close to the city choose to expand the greenbelt.
To get provincial approval, a municipality would have to show that the new boundary meets the same criteria for the protection of land with environmental or agricultural importance that the province used to establish the original greenbelt legislation in 2005.
Unlike the greenbelt land, the use of which cannot be changed in a municipal plan, land designated by an official plan for agriculture or forestry use can be rezoned for urban development in the future.
When the province created the greenbelt, some municipalities, such as Waterloo Region and Wellington County, argued that it should have been larger. The province brought down its new rules in response to this pressure.
What upsets industry is the possibility that the latest change could throw a last-minute curve at municipal efforts to bring official plans in line with the provincial Places To Grow Act, which sets population and density targets for the most populous urban area in Canada.
"This is premature and a potential distraction," Stephen Dupuis, chief executive officer at the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said in an interview.
Municipalities have been scrambling to align official plans with the Places to Grow Act by a provincial deadline of next June, but under the new greenbelt criteria, a municipality "may initiate a request to grow the greenbelt at the same time as it is undertaking its Growth Plan conformity exercise," the province said.
"All these municipalities are working on a conformity exercise, and hopefully, they are going to meet the deadline. But you throw this into the mix, and they could be sidetracked. The next thing you know, this could be an excuse for delay," Mr. Dupuis said.
Tony Guergis, warden of Simcoe County, a municipality in which environmentalists have said the greenbelt should be expanded, said he welcomed the new greenbelt authority for municipalities as a confirmation of the county's ability to protect the environment.
Even so, he said, "we could have planned without it. The County of Simcoe's new official plan protects over a third of the entire county as it is. I think we are well on the way to achieving and meeting what it is ... that is what this direction from the province is trying to get at."
As well as Simcoe County, other areas where an expanded greenbelt might come into play are Caledon, Halton Hills, and the outer parts of the Golden Horseshoe such as Waterloo Region or neighbouring Wellington County, which surrounds the city of Guelph, an industry analyst said.
But attempts to expand the greenbelt could pit countryside landowners against city folk.
When the province set the greenbelt boundaries three years ago, some councillors in Halton Hills thought that another 7,000 acres of the town should be included, but they backed off when farmers complained that it would deprive them of retirement incomes when they sold their farms.
In the longer term, the possibility of expanding the greenbelt raises two other vital issues.
One is where growth will go once current development areas are built out. Currently, the land zoned agricultural that lies outside urban boundaries acts as a reserve for the period beyond 3031, when urban areas are expected to be built out.
If the greenbelt line moves, it will change the urban development pattern. "Growth pressure had to find an outlet," Mr. Dupuis said.
The other issue is that the new plan could create political tensions inside two-tier municipal and regional governments. If lower-tier municipalities respond to pressure to limit growth by proposing changes to greenbelt boundaries, it would shift the growth pressure to a neighbouring municipality, said a development-industry executive who asked not to be named.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080825.wgreenbelt25/BNStory/National/Ontario/
AoD
New greenbelt rules poorly timed, industry says
JAMES RUSK
From Monday's Globe and Mail
August 25, 2008 at 5:00 AM EDT
A move by the province to give municipalities authority to expand the 1.8-million-acre Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt has come at the wrong time, according to the development industry.
Last week, the province published criteria for the expansion of the protected lands at municipal behest. It included a requirement that municipalities could propose changes in the greenbelt boundaries only after public consultation and approval by both local and upper-tier municipalities.
The new rules are unlikely to have an immediate impact on the development pattern in the Golden Horseshoe. However, they have the potential to drive the next generation's development farther away from Toronto, if municipalities close to the city choose to expand the greenbelt.
To get provincial approval, a municipality would have to show that the new boundary meets the same criteria for the protection of land with environmental or agricultural importance that the province used to establish the original greenbelt legislation in 2005.
Unlike the greenbelt land, the use of which cannot be changed in a municipal plan, land designated by an official plan for agriculture or forestry use can be rezoned for urban development in the future.
When the province created the greenbelt, some municipalities, such as Waterloo Region and Wellington County, argued that it should have been larger. The province brought down its new rules in response to this pressure.
What upsets industry is the possibility that the latest change could throw a last-minute curve at municipal efforts to bring official plans in line with the provincial Places To Grow Act, which sets population and density targets for the most populous urban area in Canada.
"This is premature and a potential distraction," Stephen Dupuis, chief executive officer at the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said in an interview.
Municipalities have been scrambling to align official plans with the Places to Grow Act by a provincial deadline of next June, but under the new greenbelt criteria, a municipality "may initiate a request to grow the greenbelt at the same time as it is undertaking its Growth Plan conformity exercise," the province said.
"All these municipalities are working on a conformity exercise, and hopefully, they are going to meet the deadline. But you throw this into the mix, and they could be sidetracked. The next thing you know, this could be an excuse for delay," Mr. Dupuis said.
Tony Guergis, warden of Simcoe County, a municipality in which environmentalists have said the greenbelt should be expanded, said he welcomed the new greenbelt authority for municipalities as a confirmation of the county's ability to protect the environment.
Even so, he said, "we could have planned without it. The County of Simcoe's new official plan protects over a third of the entire county as it is. I think we are well on the way to achieving and meeting what it is ... that is what this direction from the province is trying to get at."
As well as Simcoe County, other areas where an expanded greenbelt might come into play are Caledon, Halton Hills, and the outer parts of the Golden Horseshoe such as Waterloo Region or neighbouring Wellington County, which surrounds the city of Guelph, an industry analyst said.
But attempts to expand the greenbelt could pit countryside landowners against city folk.
When the province set the greenbelt boundaries three years ago, some councillors in Halton Hills thought that another 7,000 acres of the town should be included, but they backed off when farmers complained that it would deprive them of retirement incomes when they sold their farms.
In the longer term, the possibility of expanding the greenbelt raises two other vital issues.
One is where growth will go once current development areas are built out. Currently, the land zoned agricultural that lies outside urban boundaries acts as a reserve for the period beyond 3031, when urban areas are expected to be built out.
If the greenbelt line moves, it will change the urban development pattern. "Growth pressure had to find an outlet," Mr. Dupuis said.
The other issue is that the new plan could create political tensions inside two-tier municipal and regional governments. If lower-tier municipalities respond to pressure to limit growth by proposing changes to greenbelt boundaries, it would shift the growth pressure to a neighbouring municipality, said a development-industry executive who asked not to be named.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080825.wgreenbelt25/BNStory/National/Ontario/
AoD
afransen
Senior Member
Now that's what I call long-term planning!
Seriously, it's the noises everyone would expect the development industry to make.
lordmandeep
Banned
I think they mean 2031...
ShonTron
Moderator
LOL! You know, Simcoe County is a pretty big place. They could sprawl over everything from Bradford to Collingwood (including Cookstown, Innisfil Beach, Tottenham, Alliston and Beeton) and still "protect" almost half the county, because of all those townships north of Barrie, like Severn, Rama, Flos, Tay, Tiny, Oro, Medonte, Orillia Twp.