I am writing to express my…

I am writing to express my anger and opposition to the proposed changes to the Greenbelt Plan. I can’t grasp how a government could propose such drastic changes to so many provincial Acts and Regulations concurrently with minimal public commenting period with no previous proposals being made public for discussion prior to the formal ERO postings.
These are difficult times and made worse by the pace of these profound changes to provincial regulations, how can experts, municipalities, conservation authorities (CA), Indigenous Peoples and the public possibly be able to review, understand, digest and comment on all these changes in such a short amount of time. It’s simple, they can’t, even all the municipalities, CA’s, experts, professional associations can’t appreciate all this change at once. These changes cascade through many acts and regulations, a process like the Sewell’s Planning and Development Reform Commission should be convened to study these changes before they are implemented – “Says better use must be made of existing City space rather than allowing continuous expansion” (1991).
All this regulatory change proposed with an ongoing pandemic creating the worst times for our hospitals with surgeries, diagnostic tests, and treatments being postponed by the thousands, hundreds continue to die every month and experts warn it’s going to get worse through the winter months – collateral damage the government does not care about. Following a municipal election where new councils have yet to be sworn in, with no meaningful involvement of experts, municipalities, conservation authorities, interest groups, the public, and little supporting information and analysis provided to justify the need for the most profound changes to municipal and environmental planning ever seen in the history of the province.
Given the breadth and depth of these changes clearly the government had been planning these significant changes for some time, why were these not outlined in the Conservative Party election platform this past summer? Oh, I know why, the Conservative Party did not have a platform, nor would their candidates participate in public meetings and forums, and a leader that would not take questions – How’s that for democracy!!!
The removal of these significant protected lands within various GTA municipalities will result in the loss of significant habitats, linkages, carbon sequestration, places for people to enjoys in Vaughan, Richmond Hill, King Township, Stouffville, Markham, Clarington, Ajax, Hamilton, Niagara, and other areas proposed for the provinces land grab. Shifting most of the replacement lands to one small community west of Caledon will have no measurable benefit to the residents of these communities. The new lands do not come close to being equivalent lands.
Furthermore, these lands do not create new ecological areas they already exist it’s just a mapping change, however, the newly designated lands proposed for development will result in a significant loss of key natural heritage features that sustain our ecosystem and ourselves. Allowing the loss and attempting ecological offsetting does not work (most of these areas fail or do not result in the replacement of equivalent features and functions). With the provinces refining of ecological offsetting this transfers the costs to environmental organizations and subject communities to try and recreate wetlands, forests, and other significant habitats that history has shown do not work. These biologically, complex features were created over hundreds and thousands of years.
I have been in the environmental and planning field for over 30 years when I started my career Ontario was at the forefront of environmental planning and regulations, unfortunately we are now near the bottom and the proposed changes in Bill 23 and accompanying regulations will accelerate this process.
Through Bill 23 the government has produced a narrative of a false crisis to support changes to various regulations and the Greenbelt boundary area. There is no shortage of developable lands in the current Greenbelt area, as detailed by Environmental Defense in the existing areas identified for development are enough for 25+ years. There is “no crisis” and there is no shortage of developable land within the protected Greenbelt. Yes, there is a shortage of affordable housing, and if the government truly wanted to address that problem, they would have consulted with experts, municipalities, and the public not just their developer friends.
If it is affordable housing the province wants then why are the new lands not automatically designated for multi unit dwellings, i.e., Townhouses, low rise apartments, high rise apartments. How will these changes make developers build affordable housing when they won’t build it now? Tens of thousands of building permits currently sit idle in the GTA; houses are not being constructed developers are just sitting on the approvals and crying that they need easier to develop sprawl lands for their profit-making machines.
What do the people you say you care so much about get? - they get to lose their rights to participate in planning matters that may directly impact their daily lives, uncoordinated and piecemeal planning by over 400 municipalities, fewer and more expensive homes, the right to pay higher municipal taxes to pay for the millions of dollars of lost development fees going into the pockets of developers, the right to be put in harms way due to the acceleration of climate change that will come from these ill conceived policies – increased flooding, rising temperatures and drought the right to watch our natural features and farmland destroyed and paved over.