To: The Ministry of…

To: The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Re. Serious Concerns about Bill 23 in relation to impact on conservation, greenspace & community - responding to call for input on Proposed Changes to the Greenbelt Plan
From: Benchlands Citizen Group, Lincoln, West Niagara, Ontario
Contact: benchlandscitizengroup@gmail.com
Date: December 4, 2022

False Dichotomy
In Bill 23 the Ontario government is proposing to address a crisis in housing by stripping away measures that place any constraints on uncontrolled urban development and protect our non-renewable land resources—including farmland, wetlands, greenspaces and foodlands. This destroys, in one omnibus bill, the balance formed through a decades-long negotiation over sound policy.

The predictable, long-lasting consequences of this open assault rest on a falsehood: that we have to choose between protecting the land and building housing. Groups across Ontario have long presented reasonable, evidence-based options that demonstrate how we can both provide needed, affordable housing and conserve lands that are essential to build sustainable communities across the province.

In fact, many of the principles underlying the relevant existing policy structure and regulations (e.g the Provincial Policy Statement, Growth Plan) have worked toward the essential balance between housing and conservation—a balance that we must find in order to build sustainable communities.
Communities requires Conservation
Throughout Ontario, Bill 23 will have a negative impact on the environment, on lands, on waters.
Despite daily acknowledgements that Ontario rests on Indigenous lands, under treaty or unceded, the Indigenous principles of conservation of lands, and of sustainability for seven generations forward, are not part of this Bill. We are unaware how, or if, Indigenous communities impacted by this Bill have been properly consulted under the Duty to Consult.

Allowing “offsets” for wetlands and woodlands through developer fees will be an ecological disaster that will stretch into our farmlands, impacting the ability of our farms to provide ecosystem services over the long term. In the face of a rapidly changing climate and uncertain seasonal weather patterns, the disruption of complex wetland systems can have massive impacts on above- and below-ground waterways, and the production potential of adjacent agricultural lands.

Bill 23 also eliminates the ability of conservation authorities to protect watersheds and greenspaces, by eliminating their ability to holistically manage watershed resources.
Many of the duties of Conservation Authorities are being dumped into the laps of municipalities—without the resources and expertise to effectively carry out those responsibilities.

While this legislation pays lip service to the need for farmland protection, Bill 23 will instead:
accelerate farmland grabbing, placing more non-renewable farmland under the control of speculators and developers;
re-zone thousands of acres of prime farmland to allow for development;
increase land prices—something that new and young farmers can not afford—and increase the cost of producing food locally;
eliminate agricultural systems mapping and impact assessments, critical tools for evidence-based decision-making (https://ontariofarmlandtrust.ca/2022/11/10/bill-23/);
increase fragmentation of rural and agricultural areas, placing further strain on rural communities;
attack meager regional planning efforts to control urban sprawl, and dramatically alter the long-term planning framework, the Provincial Policy Statement;
increase, instead of limit, car dependent communities;
increase uncertainty over planning and conservation efforts, from the farm level to the municipality, and will do irreversible harm to the ability of our regions to produce good food over coming generations;
eliminate the growth plan density requirements;
remove key infrastructure planning elements of the growth plan;
allow settlement area expansions (Growth Plan, Planning Act changes);
separate development approvals (municipal) from infrastructure planning (upper tier) (Planning Act changes)
prevent public and conservation authorities from appealing sprawl proposals to the Ontario Lands Tribunal (Proposed Amendments to the Ontario Land Tribunal Act, 2021)
facilitate developer appeals of official plans by eliminating a 2-year timeout (Planning Act amendments)
allow developers to reduce payments for new infrastructure costs of sprawl (Development charge changes)

Communities Requires a Sustainable and Responsible Approach
With Bill 23 the provincial government is taking an unbalanced, radical approach that will produce harm—an approach that seems to be singularly driven by the developer lobby’s profit-driven priorities. Rather than increasing enforcement to make up for the multimillion-dollar revenue shortfall in development fees, this legislation reduces those fees for developers—without acknowledging that the shortfall left in municipal budgets is most often made up for by cutting community and social services, already insufficient to make up the serious gap on income security policies, also set at the provincial government.

Similarly, many changes in Bill 23 take responsibilities away from Conservation Authorities and hand them to municipal governments, who often have no experience or resources to carry out these duties.

The downloading of responsibilities to municipalities without the attendant budget; the promotion of housing construction without the associated municipal revenues required to service those neighbourhoods; the wholesale removal of regulations that hinder some home building, but which are required to prevent negative outcomes from construction elsewhere: this is an approach to governance that does not attempt to look for balance.

While Ontario has not found this perfect balance to date, we recognize the need for balance. For one bill to tilt policy and slash regulation in so obviously one-sided a manner is undemocratic and unaccountable to people living in Ontario, policy experts, and our lower-tier governments.

For our community, Lincoln, Bill 23 will have serious consequences that will not only impact us now but for generations to come. We agree that we need smart, sustainable development but don’t believe that Bill 23 is the legislation that accomplishes this. Town of Lincoln Council and staff have already worked to update planning this year to meet the provincial growth targets to 2051 by revamping residential zoning by-laws to allow for higher density construction within urban boundaries and by carefully planning for large new high-density housing sites at appropriate locations - the new community at the waterfront in Vineland, former home of Prudhomme’s Landing, and around the site of a future GO Station in Beamsville. There is no reason to reduce municipal, regional and citizen input as the community is already on track to double the population while preserving agricultural, green belt and green lands, by 2051.

We want to see our green space, and green belt protected while growing our community. We want strong conservation authorities in our community. If there is one thing the Covid 19 pandemic has taught us is that community green space is not only a hub for community connection but also vital to our mental and physical health. The rich Carolinian ecological zone and our fruitful agricultural lands are the heritage of generations to come, and must be protected, and enhanced - not irretrievably eliminated by sprawl that does not address the core of the housing access and affordability crisis. We encourage you to reconsider Bill 23 so that we can continue to have thriving communities for generations to come.