The Ontario government’s…

The Ontario government’s Bill 23 “More Homes Built Faster Act” is not the answer to Ontario’s housing crisis. Under the guise of tackling the housing crisis, the Bill 23 will only encourage more sprawl will decimating existing environmental protections for wetlands, woodlands and other sensitive green spaces.

Ontario is experiencing a housing crisis. However, this crisis is not caused for lack of land available for development, as was confirmed by the Ontario government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force Report from Feb 2022. Ontario’s housing crisis is caused in large part by its continued focus on single-family houses—the very sprawl that the Greenbelt was created to prevent.

The Greenbelt

According to the Greenbelt foundation, the Greater Golden Horseshoe is one of the fastest growing regions in North America. The foundation estimates that up to 13.5 million people will live in this area by 2041.

After decades of unchecked development and sprawl in southern Ontario, the Greenbelt was created, and it remains a shining example of logical and sustainably development planning.

Ontario's Greenbelt is the world's largest greenbelt, protecting farmland, forests, wetlands, rivers, and lakes. According to the Greenbelt foundation, it contains over 2 million acres of protected land, including 721,000 acres (292,000 ha) of protected ecologically sensitive areas.

The Greenbelt’s natural systems support ecological and human health. It provides us with fresh air and clean water. The Greenbelt offsets 71 million tons of carbon every year.

The Greenbelt includes the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine — which filter and replenish groundwater, and feed into the many river systems that flow through Canada’s most developed region. It is estimated that the Greenbelt filters the drinking water for more than seven million Ontarians.

The Greenbelt contains some of the province’s most valuable agricultural land, more than 4,782 farms are protected by the Greenbelt. These farms employ countless people and feed millions of Ontarians.

The Greenbelt is one of the most biologically rich areas in all of Canada. It provides a home for diverse plants and wildlife, and ensures our communities have greenspace to explore and enjoy.

Greenbelt needs to be inviolable

The Greenbelt was intended to provide permanent protection for the lands within its borders. Without permanence, the Greenbelt becomes virtually meaningless and completely vulnerable. The land swaps proposed in Bill 23 will set a dangerous precedent for the future, demonstrating that the protection offered by the Greenbelt is illusory, and can be sacrificed upon request. Removing protected lands from the Greenbelt it will undoubtedly result in a flood of request to remove more land from the Greenbelt. It will begin a death by thousand cuts.

Moreover, in contrast with government messaging, the supposed land swaps do not result in a net gain of protected land. The opposite is true. Bill 23 purports to protect 13 new urban river valleys. However, all of these river valleys were already protected from development by virtue of being part of existing conservation authorities. Therefore, Bill will actually result in less land being protected than before.

Land isn’t the problem

As I mentioned earlier, the Ontario government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force delivered its report on housing that explicitly concluded that “[a] shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem. Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts.” A bigger problem, the Report said, is that Ontario had not used availably land efficiently.

The Report highlighted that that outdating zoning rules that mean that 70% of land zoned for housing in Toronto is restricted to single-detached or semi-detached homes. The Report further outlined that the solution to the housing crisis “must come from densification. Greenbelts and other environmentally sensitive areas must be protected, and farms provide food and food security. Relying too heavily on undeveloped land would whittle away too much of the already small share of land devoted to agriculture.”

Despite these conclusions from the government’s own report, Bill 23 has not removed the exclusionary “single detached” zoning. The proposed amendments to the Planning Act do not allow medium size walk-up apartments or even townhouses to be built as of right on the existing lots. More single family houses will not solve the house crisis.

The fact that Bill 23 does not address any of the key issues raised in the government’s own affordable housing report is alarming. If the Bill is not going to address the real causes of the housing crisis, what is its purpose?

Housing

Ontarians need access to affordable housing, but they do no need more single-family suburban sprawl. Ontarians do not need more communities where they have to drive everywhere. Ontarians do not need more communities mired in gridlock, designed around cars rather than people.

What Ontarians need communities with medium density housing, where condos are filled with units that can comfortably house whole families, not just a single individual. Ontarians need communities that allow them to walk their children to school, to the park, to a local restaurant. Ontarians need communities interwoven with protected parks, forests and wetlands, where they can enjoy the beauty and benefit of this province’s astonishing diversity of wildlife.

Committee Members, I urge you to rethink this Bill. This own government's report said the housing crisis would not be solved by opening more land to development, but by more densification. This Bill will bring about the opposite, encouraging more sprawl and putting Ontario’s air and water on the chopping block.