Town of Milton: Comments to…

Town of Milton: Comments to ERO-019-1503

Thank you for hosting the webinar on April 20, 2020 to further discuss ERO-019-1503 – Proposal to identify and protect a corridor of land for future electricity infrastructure in the Greater Toronto Area. The Town participated and has provided responses to your questions below. We hope our input to-date has been useful in your process and has helped provide clarity on Milton’s current and planned growth. We look forward to continuing to work with you throughout this process.

Question and responses:

Are you aware of potential barriers or issues that may be associated with the proposed narrowed area of interest?

The expansion of the area of interest beyond the GTA West Highway Corridor EA study area in the north-east area of Milton does bring conflict between the study area and the Agerton Secondary Plan area. The Agerton Secondary Plan is being planned concurrently with the Trafalgar Secondary Plan to the south. The Trafalgar and Agerton Secondary Plans are collectively referred to as the Trafalgar Corridor and are collectively accommodating 32,000 people and 19,000 jobs with the Agerton Secondary Plan accommodating 6,800 people and 15,000 jobs. This new community was brought into the urban area through Regional Official Plan Amendment 38 with a development timeframe of 2021-2031. The Agerton Secondary Plan was taken to public meeting in February of 2019 through staff report PD-009-19. A concept plan for the Secondary Plan was endorsed by Milton Council in March of 2019 through Staff Report PD-017-19.

The proposed area of interest would cover the north-east quadrant of the Secondary Plan which is currently planned to be Employment Area- Office Priority. Including these lands in the proposed study area would impact Milton’s employment area growth.

Are there other principles we should consider in conducting the study?

Additional principles that should be included would be the impact on already planned areas – not just built-up areas. The inclusion of urban area with a development time frame of 2021-2031 would have large impacts on all of the planning work completed for the area in the last few years.

How does the study impact your municipality’s official and secondary planning process?

As discussed above, the proposed area of interest for the study area would have a negative impact on Milton’s 2021-2031 Employment Areas for development. The Town does not support this area being included in the study area given the amount of planning work that has been completed and is underway for this area. This area has had extensive planning through the Regional Official Plan process (ROPA 38 adopted in 2009), the Town’s Official Plan Update (Official Plan Amendment 31), the Agerton and Trafalgar Secondary Plan processes, the Town’s Land Base Analysis (2017) and the Town’s Urban Structure.

Overall, the Town does not support the study area being expanding beyond the GTA West Highway Corridor EA study area to include the north-east quadrant the Agerton Secondary Plan Area, the 2021-2031 Urban Area employment lands. Including these lands in the study area would impact the Town’s planned for employment growth to 2031. The Town looks forward to the next meeting with the Ministry throughout the project.