I oppose the Ontario…

I oppose the Ontario Province’s proposed elimination of policies to fight climate change and protect sensitive natural areas as found in major revisions of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS).
I question the “market based” changes that will make it easier for developers to pave over farmland and effectively shift planning approvals from a municipal-led approach to a developer-led one.
The new PPS rules on climate change are limited to preparing for its “potential” impacts. I believe that this suggests uncertainty and does not acknowledge that impacts from climate change are already occurring. It appears that the province is removing all directions to prevent climate change.
There are no policies within the document that speak to the importance of taking measures now to prevent or avoid climate change.
The fight against climate change is a race against time, and actions need to be taken immediately to prevent irreversible impacts from climate change. It is an omission in the policies to not include direction to fight and prevent climate change at both the provincial and local levels through a variety of actions.
I think that the province should remove the new policy that “would allow mineral aggregate extraction to take place in certain natural heritage features where not previously permitted.” I also challenge wording changes that would base quarrying approvals on promises to rehabilitate in the future rather than the current requirement to review them “based on the ecological value and significance” of the affected landscape.
Other changes to the PPS centre on development decisions on “market-based need” and “market demand”, terms that I believe could result in maintaining a market ‘status quo’ that is primarily based on a perceived desire for low density housing and will do nothing to encourage a shift to an urban form that is based on increased density.
I also note that “market need” and “market demand” are subjective terms and wonder who will define them and how that definition will be determined.
Hamilton currently is carrying out a large-scale review of how to accommodate expected population growth to 2041 and whether an expansion of the urban area onto more rural lands is justified. Developers are pushing to expand residential development on foodlands to the south of the urban area, including the proposal to add 80,000 residents to Elfrida in the biggest urban boundary expansion in Hamilton’s history. I believe that shifting that review to a market-based approach may identify a requirement for a larger urban expansion area.
I believe that other proposed changes to the PPS are unjustified and pose threats to the public interest, including:
• allowing new private communal sewer systems in the rural area, because when they fail the taxpayers are forced to take them over;
• eliminating the application of minimum separation distances between farms and new non-agricultural land uses;
• limiting the power of the city to protect or even designate heritage buildings, and;
• slashing the requirement for buffers around sensitive land uses.
I object to the many instances that the word “shall” is being replaced by “should” in the PPS, basically changing to policy from “required” to “suggested”, which gives developers more opportunity to overturn council decisions during appeals to the provincial planning tribunal.