THE PRESERVATION OF…

THE PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY (PALS)
{Estb. 1976}

The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society comments, for the record ,regarding this proposal are contained in the following letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing :

Ms. Heather Watt
Regional Director, Central Region
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
777 Bay Street, 13th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, M7A 2J3
July 20, 2022

Request for Notice of Decision Niagara Regional Official Plan

The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society (PALS) requests notice of the Provincial decision regarding approval of the 2022 Niagara Region Official Plan. In this regard PALS stresses that we were deeply involved in the development of the current Regional Official Plan over many years and have taken part in numerous public consultations on the proposed new Official Plan .

Therefore PALS respectfully requests that the Province not approve this proposed new Regional Niagara Official Plan. However, should the Province determine to approve it, PALS asks that the following aspects regarding the expansion of urban area boundaries, the environmental policies, and the proposed creation of future Employment areas beyond the proposed designated urban boundaries, be considered, and modifications be made accordingly .

Population Estimate and De-allocation of Residential Lands Wrongly Used to Justify Expansion of Urban Boundaries

Regarding the rationale for urban expansion, PALS is alarmed at the use of a higher population projection for Niagara than that which was provided by the Provincial Government. This approach will, if approved, be especially negative in Niagara whose rural lands have more agricultural and ecological significance than other areas of the province because of its unique micro-climate.
The slippery slope that Niagara embarked upon to create a higher population estimate than the one allocated by the province began in a quite inappropriate manner, with a calculation that the Town of Lincoln and the City of Welland had a greater capacity for residential growth than was previously believed to exist within their urban boundaries. This is not a reason to justify a higher growth projection. It simply illustrates that there is a greater capacity for residential growth within the Niagara Regional boundaries than previously was believed.

Additionally, in discussions during the public consultation it emerged that there is no agreed upon density target for Employment Lands. In such a situation the supposed shortage appeared to be based only on the apparent desirability of Employment lands in Fort Erie near the Queen Elizabeth Highway, and the flimsy attempt to justify urban expansion in the Smithville area of West Lincoln, based on changing the small farming service village into a “complete community” by tripling its current population. There is also a semi-Employment lands designation in south Niagara Falls, claimed to be Community lands, but for Employment uses ancillary to the a new hospital.

Deallocation of Residential Lands to Justify Urban Boundary Expansions Wrong

Another flawed assumption behind the presumed need for urban expansion, is the “de-allocation” of residentially-zoned and serviced land from the capacity estimates for the Niagara Region, specifically in Thorold and Port Colborne. Some 315 hectares of lands were deallocated from Port Colborne and Thorold through what was termed a “final adjustment” to justify urban boundary expansions of lands. They were used to provide a growth rationale for lands protected by the agricultural provisions of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) in West Lincoln, Niagara Falls and Port Colborne.

During the period of the Niagara Region’s consideration of its proposed new official plan, PALS made numerous attempts to request that the exact 315 hectares to be de-allocated be mapped. To have such a precise figure in hectares an internal map must have been developed by the Niagara Regional Planning Department. In the absence of such a map, the rationale used to justify the de-allocation, such as proximity to existing or future aggregate operations, is questionable. This bias is compounded by the lack of regard for the possible residential use of quarries within urban boundaries that are planned to be abandoned in the future.

Requirements of PPS to Consider Alternative Lands of Lesser Agricultural Capability not Fulfilled

For a considerable period, one of the cornerstones of Niagara Region’s adherence to the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) has been to require, in the case of any urban expansion onto prime agricultural lands protected by the Agricultural Policy of the PPS, that lands of lesser suitability must be considered. All the lands proposed for urban expansion in the new Official Plan are lands defined as prime in the PPS. These are entirely lands of Class One to Three agricultural capability. There was no attempt to claim that this mapping is inaccurate in response.

PALS did suggest lands of lesser suitability in both Welland and Port Colborne adjacent to existing urban boundaries for urban expansion. In the Port Colborne Official Plan these lands are defined as Rural, indicating that the municipality has mapped them as lands of lesser agricultural capability. Some of these lands in both Port Colborne and Welland are indicated in the new official plan as lands suitable for Employment Lands in the longer term.

Long Term Employment - Lands Strip Harms Future of Agricultural Lands and Natural Areas Protected by PPS

Although in an area immediately adjacent to the current urban boundaries of Fort Erie and Port Colborne, the new plan does contain areas of lower capability lands which could reasonably be alternatives to urban expansion, most of the proposed Employment Lands in the new plan encourage dangerous sprawl on prime agricultural lands and areas protected under various Natural Heritage Policies of the PPS. These strips are on both sides of the Queen Elizabeth Highway, part of the Welland Canal, and adjacent to what is believed to be the future route of a mid-Niagara peninsula expressway. Significant Natural areas here, include the Babion Woodlot in Port Colborne and the Waverly Woodlot in Niagara Falls, which contains a rare Black Gum dominated old growth forest. And most of these corridors consist of either Significant Wetlands where development is prohibited or Significant Woodlands where it is discouraged under the Natural Heritage policies of the PPS.

Report of Niagara Falls Planning Department Negates Supposed Housing Needs for Urban Expansions

Regarding the benefit of urban expansions for housing needs, these assumptions were critiqued by the Niagara Falls Housing Department, based on the City of Niagara Falls Housing Needs and Supply Report. This report found that any urban expansions would exacerbate rather than improve housing problems in the city. The strategy in this report was carefully aligned with the Niagara Region’s 10-year Housing and Homelessness Action Plan, which came into effect on January 1, 2014. The report’s conclusions are quite applicable to other municipalities since it found that Niagara Falls has the largest housing growth forecast of Niagara area municipalities. Other municipalities where the Niagara Region has proposed major expansions, notably West Lincoln and Fort Erie, have much smaller population and projected housing needs.

In their report PBD-2021 the Niagara Falls Planning Department found that, “A focus on single-and semi-detached housing in Greenfield locations will make it very difficult to provide an appropriate mix of housing across the housing continuum. Accordingly, the Region’s draft housing growth forecasts will need to be amended to focus on future housing growth towards the City’s Built-Up area where a wider range of housing options such as townhouse and apartment units can be provided. A more diversified housing stock that is more affordable can begin to help mitigate some of the earlier identified demographic trends.” Without any urban boundary expansions, the Department concluded that, “the city is well positioned to accommodate more housing growth within the Built-Up area than currently allocated by the Region in their draft housing forecasts.”

Proposed New Environmental Policies Confusing

Regarding the proposed revision of Environmental policies, PALS requests that the Niagara Region be asked to do a new consultation before they are completed. What the revision needs to accomplish, is to reduce confusion in the relationship between the policies of the PPS for Natural Heritage and those of the Regional Plan. The proposed new plan increases rather reduces such ambiguities.

The critical problem with the current policies is that the Environmental Conservation Areas (ECA) in the Regional Plan are not clearly labelled as Significant Woodlands and protected as such under the Natural Heritage policies of the PPS. This ambiguity has led to remarks claiming that there are no recognized provincially significant woodlands in the Niagara Region unless they are designated as such by lower-tier municipal plans.
Essentially, the natural heritage policies of the proposed plan divide the ECA features into two elements. Some are now designated as significant woodlands. Other components of these features have become designated as Locally Significant Wetlands.

This is a problem, since under Provincial policy significant wetlands and woodlands are clearly defined as to what is permissible in terms of site alteration, and it is not clear as to what are the constraints on Locally Significant Wetlands, a term which is new to land use planning in Niagara.

PALS is quite familiar with the constraints imposed by existing ECA features through its successful participation in an OMB hearing which resulted in the defeat of a development application in an area now proposed for urban expansion in northwest Niagara Falls in the vicinity of the headwaters of the Ten Mile Creek. Here was situated a feature identified as the Central Woodlot, which is currently identified in the Niagara Regional Official Plan as an ECA. In the hearing, a key issue was that it provided woodland amphibian breeding habitat which would be disrupted by the proposed location within it of a storm water management facility.

Under the proposed new Niagara Regional Official Plan about 80 per cent of the Central Woodlot is to become designated as a Locally Significant Wetland. It is unclear what this designation would mean in terms of an environmental constraint. About a fifth of the woodlot would remain designated as a significant woodland. The division of the ECA features in the new environmental policies which were formerly recognized as significant woodlands will trigger endless confusion.

During new Regional Plan consultation period a significant flaw in the current environmental policies emerged when PALS made use of the Natural Heritage Mapping Tool. As a result, we discovered that the headwaters of Miller Creek had vanished. This underscores the problem of the current Regional Plan’s provisions for Environmental Impact Studies (EIS) paid by the proponents of development. The EIS claimed a better creek would be built by the developer and lined with trees. The online mapping tool revealed that Millers Creek west of the Queen Elizabeth Highway had been completely eliminated. The Province should, considering this history, require that the new Niagara Regional Plan contain provisions that when EIS studies are triggered, the funds for them are paid into a fund administered by the Regional government, so the developer does not choose the reviewer of his project.

Watershed Planning Does Not Properly Evaluate Consequences of Planned Urban Expansions

Concurrent with its development of a new Niagara Regional Official Plan, the Niagara Region did undertake a watershed planning exercise. Some indication of the impact of the planned urban boundary expansions on individual watersheds can be found in Table 2.1 of this watershed study. Regarding the impact on the Twenty Mile Creek watershed, it shows an increase in the percentage in urban cover from the current 6 per cent to 10 per cent. In the case of the Welland River North, which largely involves urban expansions in the City of Niagara Falls (all opposed by its Planning Department), the increase is from 6 to 10 per cent of the watershed area. Niagara River South, (most notably the former Canada Motor Speedway (CMS) lands home of the doomed Miller Creek, the increase is from 4 to 12.5 per cent.

The watershed plan by the Niagara Region acknowledges that urbanization on the scale anticipated in the urban boundary expansions proposed by new Niagara Regional Official Plan do have the potential to create considerable environmental damage. To quote from this document it acknowledges that, “These proposals and potential cumulative impacts through land conversions and the additional impacts of climate change will result in watershed scale implications if not managed appropriately.” The only specific example cited in the watershed plan to accomplish this hoped for mitigation is through what are termed “Quaternary Watershed Plans.”

By using the term Quaternary Watershed plans, it appears that the experts who crafted the recommendations for the urban expansions are referring to the watershed plans composed by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA). They are not relying on the guidance of existing watershed plans by the NPCA, but rather ,predicting that such plans in the future will serve to prevent environmental problems.
The proposed new Niagara Regional Official Plan has been in development for the past five years. During this period there was ample time to have Quaternary watershed studies conducted by the NPCA to determine what would be the environmental impacts of urban expansions. Such studies were promised to participants in the Niagara Regional Plan review. However, they were never delivered.

PALS is familiar with past Quaternary Watershed plans by the NPCA in the various watersheds where urban expansions are being proposed. The content of all these plans shows that the various watersheds where urban expansions are now being proposed are all under stress. Moreover, NPCA guidelines already discourage ecological restoration in areas within urban boundaries. None of the existing plans attempt to discuss mitigation of problems within urban boundaries. The NPCA has various watersheds for future study within completely urban areas, but these watersheds have never been examined through a Quaternary study. There is little in the content of such studies which could be expected to mitigate future environmental harms from urbanization based on their past records.

Ecological problems, in part because of climate change, loss of forest cover and urbanization, are all more severe in the various watersheds targeted for urban expansion than they were when the various earlier Quaternary Studies were undertaken. The watershed study conducted by the Niagara Region for the new Niagara Regional Official Plan is most deficient regarding the Twenty Mile Creek, since unlike all the other watersheds where urban boundary expansions are being proposed, it is shared with another municipality, in this case, the City of Hamilton.

When the NPCA conducted its Quaternary study here, the headwaters area of the Twenty Mile Creek was then in agricultural zoning. This situation has subsequently changed, and the entire watershed within the City of Hamilton has been placed within urban boundaries. This eventual urbanization poses greater challenges for any future Quaternary study to mitigate the negative environmental impacts caused by the proposed Niagara Official Plan’s 1,100 acre change from agricultural to urban zoning in the West Lincoln area of the Twenty Mile Creek.

Urban expansions being encouraged in the North Welland Canal area of Niagara Falls through the new Niagara Regional Official Plan, were earlier subjected to an uncompleted Quaternary watershed study of the Welland Canal Turning Basin. watersheds . The level of detail in the process was trivial compared to the scrutiny, including on- site visits by experts of all parties, which was revealed through an adjudication of the proposed expansion by the Ontario Municipal Board. (OMB). The investigation revealed that an area proposed for a storm water management pond was a significant Woodland Amphibian Breeding Habitat.

The watershed plan done to accompany the new Niagara Regional Official Plan indicates, that in the future, Wildlife Habitat, which is supposed to be protected by the PPS, should eventually be mapped. It notes that this has not been done because of insufficient data. Early in the process, PALS indicated that such studies should be undertaken before the Niagara Regional Plan was sent to the Province for approval. Unfortunately PALS experience at the OMB and advice to the Region of Niagara regarding the discovery of previously unidentified Significant Wildlife Habitat at the headwaters of Ten Mile Creek and the need for mapping and studies before any potential urban boundaries are approved, was not heeded.

To conclude, PALs reiterates our request that the Province not approve this new Regional Niagara Official Plan. However , if it does approve the plan, the Province should modify aspects regarding the expansion of urban area boundaries, the environmental policies, and the proposed creation of future Employment areas, beyond the proposed designated urban boundaries. Additionally, it is of significant importance that the watershed studies be conducted by the NPCA to determine what would be the environmental impacts of urban expansions on watershed before any developments take place .

Douglas Woodard, President