Comment
I am opposed to the proposed open-for-business planning tool because it makes it harder to get good development that meets local needs. And local citizens cannot share important knowledge with developers ahead of the project starting.
The makers of Bill 66 seem to be saying that developers and business people know everything, and that they ALONE know what is best for the towns and cities of Ontario.
Bill 66 throws out local Official Plans and zoning bylaws. Never mind that the whole municipality, ALL its citizens, spent years debating and fine tuning these local planning tools. Bill 66 says developers and builders, even if they come from other provinces or countries, know what's best for my municipality.
On top of this, Bill 66 takes away the opportunity for local citizens to share important information which developers may not know and which may end up jeopardizing their project (e.g. depth of the water table, existence of an abandoned cemetery on the site). This is because there is no requirement to share (publicize) information about the planned development.
The removal of the site plan approval process is very troubling. This has been an important mechanism for local planning staff to feed local concerns and information to developers, a fine tuning process. Bill 66 seems to be saying all these little details don't matter. But let a project get stalled for six months as it figures out how to deal with an unexpected underground spring or buried corduroy road, and you may have a different outlook on the "red tape" that requires investigation of such possible hazards ahead of time.
So, although it's designed to save developers money, it could end up costing them more.
And it reduces everyone but builders/developers to non-citizens who can no longer participate in the development of their own municipality.
Submitted January 20, 2019 6:49 PM
Comment on
Proposed open-for-business planning tool
ERO number
013-4125
Comment ID
20595
Commenting on behalf of
Comment status