Niagara asks province for regulatory help
All Wayne Redekop wants is some clarity.
Like any mayor, the Mayor of Fort Erie wants to see his town benefit from economic opportunities. But it’s a struggle, he says, because the town is boxed in by competing regulations that can paralyse business development.
One ministry’s regulation that allows development of lands conflict with others that forbid it.
“What we have are three provincial ministries (The Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Minister of Economic Development & Growth and the Ministry of Natural Resources),” Redekop says. “They all have regulations that conflict with each other and the problem is we don’t even have any kind of arbitrator to help us navigate it.”
These regulatory dead ends have hampered economic opportunities in Fort Erie, Redekop said, but he is hoping that recent meetings with government ministers will change that.
On Tuesday Redekop, along with regional chair Alan Caslin, regional commissioner of planning Rino Mostacci and other Niagara Region representatives met with ministers during the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa.
Caslin led the Niagara delegation during meetings with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Ministry of Economy Development to ask for more regulatory harmony that recognizes Niagara’s economic and geographical situation.
The request was made in the context of Niagara’s designation as a provincial gateway economic zone, which is designed to promote economic growth in areas close to the United States border. The zone calls for the development of industry that benefits from access the border.
In an interview Tuesday, Caslin said Niagara would like to see the province expand areas called “settlement zones” - areas that can be developed for appropriate industry.
The difficulty for Niagara, he said, is that given the regulatory conflicts, potential developers cannot know where they could set up shop.
Caslin said the Region isn’t asking the province for permission to develop ecologically important land, but rather institute a regulatory framework that takes into consideration the needs of the gateway zone.
Mostacci said the Ministry of Natural Resources is currently creating a catalogue of ecologically sensitive land in the Greater Toronto Area, and he is considered the criteria used for that catalogue won’t apply to Niagara.
“We’re in a different geographical area. We’re in a Carolinian zone, which isn’t the geography of the GTA,” he said, adding that if the criteria for the GTA is applied to Niagara, some land that could be developed for the economic gateway may get incorrectly classified as ecologically sensitive.
“We are asking the province to recognize that, and understand Niagara’s unique situation,” Caslin said.
He said the meetings with provincial representatives went well, and that the government was receptive to Niagara’s concerns.