To Whom It May Concern, New…

To Whom It May Concern,
New Horizon Development Group c/o 502 Winston Road Inc. is the owner of the lands municipally known as 502 Winston Road in the Town of Grimsby and we thank you for the opportunity to provide written submissions on the Proposed Amendments to the Greenbelt Plan via ERO No. 019-6216.
Please accept this submission as our full support for the proposed redesignation of certain lands located on Winston and Hunter Roads in the Town of Grimsby to Towns/Villages. These lands are delineated on Map 11 of the posting.
As the owner of these 10 acres we fully support your initiative to assist the development community to build 1.5 million new homes across Ontario by 2031. We are a land development and home builder with a proven track record of building townhomes, mid and high-rise development projects throughout Halton, Hamilton, and Niagara. New Horizon Development Group has on average 1,000 units in production each year and are confident that we can redevelop these lands with essential new housing before 2025.
These lands have not produced any type of agricultural commodity for over 40 years and are currently developed with a former institutional building, parking lot and outdoor playing fields. In 2015 during the last Greenbelt review, the Town of Grimsby Council formally requested the Province remove these lands from the Greenbelt and as part of that submission, included a report from an Agronomist who confirmed these lands are not used for, nor should they be considered prime agricultural lands. While not considered at that time, the use of these lands has not changed since our company obtained ownership in 2019.
A separate Agronomist was retained and reconfirmed the unsuitability of these lands for future agricultural use. We have since submitted both Local and Regional Official Plan Amendment applications seeking a redesignation to a lower priority agricultural capability, and thereby making them a candidate for consideration of urban uses as part of the next MCR process. The proposed redesignation reinforces the fact this is not a viable farming location and would enable us to immediately proceed with a development concept as per the province’s housing objectives.
This posting was released the same day the decision was posted on the new Regional Niagara Official Plan approved by the Ministry. The new Regional Plan includes several urban boundary expansions but did not include this change as it is still in draft form. We suggest this Greenbelt redesignation occur, and subsequently the province enact a Ministers modification to the new Regional Plan to now redesignate these lands to urban purposes. Otherwise, we remain at a disconnect between the new Regional Plan and the revised Greenbelt Plan. As you are aware, we are faced with the 2-year moratorium on seeking amendments to a new OP (Section 22(2.1) of the Planning Act) and while there is the ability to seek a Council resolution to accept an amendment, doing so adds significant time delay to the overall redevelopment process which is contrary to our collective goal of building more homes faster.
In conclusion, these lands are located on the edge of the urban area; have a full complement of municipal and utility services available and with adequate capacity; have not been actively farmed for many years and based on Agronomists reports are not suitable for farming; are owned by a development company with a proven track record of bringing new housing to the market; and, redevelopment will contribute to the housing supply in the Niagara Region.
Accordingly, we fully support the proposed Greenbelt redesignation to Towns/Villages and encourage the Ministry to also enact an immediate modification to the new Regional Official Plan to further support the timely redevelopment of these lands.
Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the Greenbelt Plan.