Proposed Planning Act and…

Proposed Planning Act and City of Toronto Act Changes
019-6163

Re: • Changes proposed to remove the planning policy and approval responsibilities from certain upper-tier municipalities (regions of Durham, Halton, Niagara, Peel, Simcoe, Waterloo, York).

Good planning requires planning on as broad a base as possible. It makes sense for Regional governments, which are responsible for planning and funding Regional transportation and services to have planning and policy approval responsibilities. They are staffed to manage these responsibilities. It does not make sense to pass these responsibilities on to municipalities which do not have the expertise on staff or the funding to hire the needed expertise. Having each municipality doing its own thing, especially in such an interconnected area like Niagara sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. This is especially concerning where in other policy changes, as below, the government has proposed removing some official plans from needing review. Good planning requires coordination and adherence to policies. You are removing all the ways to ensure that.

Re: Streamlining Municipal Planning Responsibilities by future regulations which would identify which official plans and amendments would not require approval by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (i.e., which lower-tier plans and amendments of the lower-tier municipality would need no further approval). The proposed changes could also potentially be applied to additional upper-tier municipalities in the future via regulation.

Official plan approval by MAH has been required to ensure compliance with Provincial Planning Policy. If approvals are being removed, how can compliance be assured? This sounds like a recipe for each municipality doing its own thing which could be an environmental and planning disaster.

Re: Proposed changes to limit conservation authority (CA) appeals of land use planning decisions. CAs would continue to be able to appeal matters where they are the applicant. When acting as a public body, CAs would only be able to appeal with respect to matters related to natural hazard policies in provincial policy statements.

Conservation Authorities have the expertise we need to avoid flooding and other natural disasters. In You should limit Conservation Authorities in their ability to protect the public.

Re: Proposed changes to broaden the ability of CAs to use an existing streamlined process to sever and dispose of land.

It is absolutely unacceptable to consider selling off Conservation Lands. The lands, held in trust by the Conservation Authorities, should not be sold off. We value these lands. They have important ecological functions. We need more Conservation Areas and protected natural spaces not less.