Comment on the Ontario…

Comment on the Ontario government’s efforts to have Seven Conservation Areas cover all regulated areas

I wish to make a comment on the Ontario government’s proposal to make seven Conservation Areas to cover all the regulated areas in Ontario. I put forward an opinion on this amalgamation as someone who had the honour of being appointed as the City of Ottawa’s (or one of its previous component municipalities) representative to the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) for 41 years. I learned a great deal about the function and value of Conservation Authorities in those years.

Ontario’s Conservation Authorities have established excellent understanding and control of flood pains, control of the setback for the proximity of building basements adjacent to flood plains, slope stability, and more recently, the meander belt and source water protection. Additionally, each individual CA knows the intricacies and anomalies of its particular coverage area.

The Province undoubtedly accepts that the Conservation Authorities have established expertise in water management and have accepted that expertise for decades. There was a concern expressed that conservation authorities were holding up building permits. Currently the MVCA meets targets for providing permits 97% of the time (139/144 applications Year To Date). If the Province insists that there be a new Agency to monitor CA's work, then the Province should be funding it, not the municipality.

At present, 67% of funding to operate the MVCA comes from municipalities. Federal and Provincial governments provide only 5% of operating costs although both levels of government do offer additional funding for capital projects such as dam reconstructions.

The MVCA and other conservation authorities are grateful that the Province offers additional funding under programs such as the Water & Erosion Control Infrastructure (WECI) grant program, but the Province should boost WECI funding — which has been stagnant at $5 million/year for the last 20 years. This amount must fund all CAs in Ontario and does not meet needs. For example, the MVCA’s Kashwakamak Lake Dam replacement alone is going to cost an estimated $6 million.

The administration of the WECI program seems to be concerned that everything from tendering approval to completion of construction should be done within one fiscal year. When approvals arrive, usually in July, the CA typically has about eight months to tender and complete the projects. Four of these months come with the limitations of Canadian winter.

Such a short time limit narrows the field of bidders and probably drives up the construction costs. A broader selection of bidders and lower prices would be available if the time limit from approvals was a more practical 12 months. This would allow some of the project to be completed in the spring and summer of the following year.

After leaving the MVCA board, I recently assisted a neighbour in obtaining MVCA approval to establish that a house can be built on a lot adjacent to Huntley Creek. During my more than 41 years of appointment to the MVCA and in the process of establishing the conditions in which my neighbour could build a house, I did not notice that there was any duplication of effort or resources within the Conservation Authority.

In getting a building permit, a serious and expensive obstacle is created by MNR's overly conservative setting of the meander belt at 20 times the river width. Water’s Edge, an Engineering firm knowledgeable in the area of meander belts, was able to establish the actual meander belt was half of the setback from Huntley Creek. Rectifying this overestimation of the danger area is a more time-consuming and costly deterrent to building more houses faster than any hold up at the Conservation Authority. I would like to note that there is duplication, but it is not within the Conservation Authority. Rather, the City continues to put its own standards on setbacks from water bodies even though Conservation Authorities are the accepted experts in building near bodies of water. The City of Ottawa, in its Zoning By-law, establishes the distance from the body of water it will allow development to occur. The organizations with expertise are with the Conservation Authorities. The City wants a little more land to be sure development will not cause problems in the future. The reality is that the City should be listening to the Conservation Authorities. The duplication occurs not within Conservation Authorities, but when the City attempts to set its own criteria on where safe development can occur.

Since the majority of the funding to operate MVCA comes from the city (and municipalities generally for other CAs), it is not realistic to assume the CAs will say to the city "this should be the Conservation Authority’s jurisdiction as Conservation authorities are the experts in the appropriate setbacks from rivers and watercourses. Since cities are created by the province, perhaps it's an appropriate time for the province to say to the city, "You should let the conservation authorities determine the appropriate setbacks from watercourses."
Since the MVCA meets targets for providing permits 97% of the time (139/144 applications YTD), it is unlikely that an additional costly oversight body will improve the permit granting speed and will not assist in building houses faster.
Although the current proposal is to pass all the cost of the additional oversight agency onto the seven new Conservation Areas, I am sure the Province is conscious that any extra cost downloaded to the seven new Conservation Areas by the New Oversight Committee will be the cause of much resentment.

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