This tool is supposed to…

This tool is supposed to enable municipalities to attract business and create employment opportunities within the municipality however it does so by eliminating other tools that allow the municipality to grow in a planned way and protect its natural environment and water resources by restricting certain types of growth in environmentally sensitive areas. Municipalities also need to ensure that growth takes place where the municipality has planned for it and provided the necessary infrastructure of transportation and services. By setting these existing planning tools aside this new tool is destructive rather than constructive.

Although municipalities can opt out of the tool by simply not passing an enabling by-law, there is a danger that competition between adjacent municipalities for investment will create pressure to implement the tool. If one municipality in an area passes such a by-law, its neighbours will feel pressure to follow suit in order to compete.