ERO 026-0300: Comment on…

ERO 026-0300: Comment on Bill 98, The Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, 2026

May 12, 2026

Further to prior ERO postings, Shoreline Conservation: Peterborough County (SCPC), continues to look to Ontario to sustainably resolve the Province’s housing crisis, accelerating our housing supply without sacrificing our natural heritage and our precious natural water resources. In our view, Bill 98 represents additional challenges to achieving this goal of sustainable development.

SCPC is a volunteer, not-for-profit entity founded in 2021 by the Environment Council for Clear, Ston(e)y and White Lakes (EC). SCPC’s mission is to sustain and enhance healthy lakes in Peterborough County by promoting the preservation and restoration of natural shorelines. Partnering with the EC, SCPC works to build community consensus about the importance of healthy lakes and natural shorelines and urges more proactive protection of water resources with Peterborough County and the County’s five northern Townships – Selwyn, Douro-Dummer, Trent Lakes, Havelock-Belmont-Methuen and North Kawartha.

Several aspects of Bill 98 threaten environmental conservation. For example, the Bill issues a clarification that green building/construction standards are voluntary and cannot be imposed by municipalities. It also states that zoning cannot be used to specify sustainable elements.

For site plan approval, Bill 98 would no longer allow local governments to require specific Enhanced Development Standard elements. At the lot level, Enhanced Development Standards outside of buildings cannot be required for site plan approval unless they are necessary for health or safety reasons such as stormwater management. A municipality, responding to its community’s wishes, can no longer incorporate measures to protect a natural heritage feature or a water body through site plan agreements, removing a land use planning tool that has been effectively used by many Townships to limit development risks for their lakes, their other water bodies and their natural heritage features. At the same time that Ontario’s recent Provincial Planning Statement (PPS) charges local governments “to protect water resources and features and encourage watershed planning”, Bill 98 is narrowing the ability of municipalities to safeguard their water resources and natural ecosystems. It is ironic that the Province deems the OP sections of Bill 98 to have a neutral environmental impact because municipal decisions must align with the PPS and its ‘high level’ environment goals.

The proposed regulation prohibiting municipalities from using certain mandatory Enhanced Development Standards or sustainability measures as a condition of land division approvals, as outlined in ERO 026-0309, raises concerns similar to our comments in the paragraph above. This regulation will lead to abandoning natural ecosystem safeguards, with short- and longer-term costs to conservation.

Bill 98’s streamlining and standardization of future OPs for lower- and single-tier municipalities may yield some benefits such as greater consistency among OPs across Ontario. However, we urge the Province to incorporate sufficient flexibility to allow individual municipalities to effectively respond to their specific economic, historical and natural heritage situations as they update their OPs.

The Ontario government’s aim to make the development process more certain and predictable for all players is being disrupted by the rapid pace of announced changes over the past half-decade that are both broad and deep. Implementation details and execution will necessarily take time, leaving municipalities, the building industry and consumers uncertain and reluctant to proceed, particularly if further substantive changes continue.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on some of the aspects of Bill 98 that affect the preservation of our water resources and natural heritage.