The proposal to no longer co…

The proposal to no longer co-locate the hydro transmission corridor with the Highway 413 Corridor in the Heritage Heights community in Brampton is an unusual and inappropriate change in direction. For years, the province and IESO have consistently maintained in all public communications, that the hydro corridor would be co-located with the Highway 413 corridor. Co-location, wherever feasible, has been set out as the primary guiding principle in the corridor search and study process. The Provincial Planning Statement requires co-location of linear infrastructure. Throughout years of process - until October 10 - these important planning policies and site location principles have been followed. The new proposed hydro corridor is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement.

The proposed new hydro corridor, to the extent that it is no longer proposed to be co-located with the highway corridor in Brampton, will have many adverse effects and negative impacts. The proposed location will set back an extensive community planning process, that has been followed for many years, which culminated in a mediation and Ontario Land Tribunal approval of the Heritage Heights Secondary Plan in 2024. That approval protected for a co-located highway and hydro corridor. If the new proposed separated hydro corridor is allowed to stand, it will cause enormous costs in terms of time and money to re-examine and replan the community. The amount of interface between infrastructure and community will double - twice as much hydro corridor interface, and twice as much highway interface - for the length of the separated corridor. This will dramatically increase the negative impacts and adverse effects of the linear infrastructure on the future community.

Thousands of units of much needed housing will be delayed, and even eliminated. The proposed new hydro corridor will have impacts on an existing place of worship, significant wetlands and significant wood lots. By dividing the future community into thin linear strips, it will have an adverse impact on the ability to achieve a complete community, and limit the ability to efficiently achieve east-west connectivity and cohesion. The costs of delivering local community infrastructure will rise due to this inefficiency.

If the new hydro corridor location is adopted, the expropriation and land acquisition costs will escalate significantly. Instead of locating the corridor on many land parcels that will be acquired as part of the Highway 413 construction process, the move away from co-location will now require an entirely new corridor of land to be acquired - significantly increasing the costs to the taxpayers. Maintaining a co-located hydro and highway corridor will, in contrast, result in significant savings from a land acquisition and expropriation process perspective. In addition, the social disruption from expropriation will be much less if the co-located corridor approach is maintained.

The above and many more concerns are set out in detail in the enclosed submission from Aird & Berlis.