The growth debate: Slashing red tape or local democracy?
Hamilton’s decision to freeze its urban boundary instead of expanding into rural lands has emerged as a provincial election issue
After 67 years in Hamilton, Sam Marranca wants out.
The Dofasco retiree is sick of battling congestion on local expressways initially built to offer drivers speedy commutes across the city.
Rymal Road East, the once rural south Mountain road that leads in and out of the Summit Park subdivision he calls home, is also bad.
The bottlenecks boil down to a lack of arterial roads to adequately service all the residents, he says.
“They’re trying to build more and more housing without carefully planning. They’re not thinking.”
That’s why Marranca applauds council for freezing Hamilton’s urban boundary to prevent more sprawl into the rural outskirts.
Council voted 13-3 to direct staff to draft a plan that maps out that approach to accommodate a projected 236,000 people by the year 2051.
That was November, but antisprawl rallies around Hamilton in recent weeks reflect the local decision is far from sewn up as Ontario’s June 2 election draws closer.
The governing Progressive Conservatives haven’t been shy about expressing their views on the topic.
Last fall, as council lurched toward the vote, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark called the city’s exploration of a
frozen boundary “unrealistic” and “irresponsible” in a Spectator oped.
Holding the line, Clark said, would lead to a “shortfall of nearly 60,000 homes” due to a lack of available land.
Then in early April, addressing the legislature about Bill 109, the More Homes for Everyone Act, MPP Donna Skelly said council was “pushing an anti-housing and antigrowth ideology” that was choking supply and hiking home prices.
Clark said he’d consider sending the city’s revised official plan — which must be submitted to the ministry by July, after the election — to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) for review “as an impartial adjudicator.”
That option is available through Bill 109, which contains a suite of measures meant to increase Ontario’s housing supply by slashing through municipal red tape.
As minister, Clark has the power to rip up official plans without the tribunal, but Mayor Fred Eisenberger figures the OLT gives the province an outlet to override the city’s decision while appearing to “keep their hands clean.”
“They’re characterizing this as municipalities are the reason why the price of housing is the way it is,” Eisenberger added. “And that’s just a false premise to start with.”
The Spectator requested interviews with Clark and Skelly, but neither made themselves available.
City councillors, meanwhile, frame Bill 109 — which followed a provincial housing task force’s recommendations — as developerfriendly legislation that does little to address affordability or ensure homes actually get built.
“The More Homes for Everyone Act, should really be reading, the More Money for Campaign Donors Act, because it seems like it’s written for and by the development industry,” Coun. John-Paul Danko said during a recent meeting.
“The province is downloading the cost of development to municipal taxpayers,” Danko added. “They’re creating a regulatory process that is by design impossible for us to meet.”
For the city, one of Bill 109’s poison pills is a policy that forces municipalities to refund processing fees to applicants if provincial timelines to render decisions on files aren’t met.
Planning staff predict this could backfire by causing a rush to judge files, potentially giving short shrift to environmental studies, cutting out public consultation and sparking more lengthy and expensive OLT disputes.
Even before Bill 109, councillors aired concerns about mounting city losses before the tribunal.
This week, a staff report tallied 19 appeals, for nondecisions alone, between July 2018 and this past January. Of those, the city had one win, one “partial” win, six losses and 11 settlements.
Between external legal counsel and consultants, the bill was $418,831.54. So far, the tab for 14 ongoing appeals is $32,121.20.
While Danko and others argue the OLT favours developers, Matt Johnston, a planning consultant with Urban Solutions, suggests the city has found itself outgunned.
“You’ve got a well-rounded team working for the proponent and you’re not getting the same representation from the municipal side.”
In 2019, Premier Doug Ford’s government shortened timelines for municipalities to process applications: to 120 days from 210 for official plan amendments, and to 90 days from 150 for zoning changes.
To avoid penalties under Bill 109, the city would have to double or triple its complement of 30 staff that work on applications, chief planner Steve Robichaud says.
The focus is on municipalities, but processing applications can also be slowed by tardy responses from developers and outside agencies that must weigh in.
Moreover, back and forth between parties can flag issues that weren’t initially caught at the outset, Robichaud says.
“This is such a fundamental shift in the way that we would have to arrange and deliver services that it would require a significant investment.”
In an email, Clark’s office said the province plans to invest $19 million over three years to “strengthen the OLT and help it reduce its backlog.”
‘Ambitious density’
Holding the line wasn’t always on the table.
City planning staff had initially recommended pushing into 3,330 acres of rural lands, mostly in Elfrida, to help accommodate an expected 110,320 new units by 2051.
Developers, industry groups and the local chamber of commerce supported the “ambitious density” scenario as an “aggressive” but “balanced” approach to growth.
It called for an average rate of intensification — housing created in the built-up area — of 60 per cent over those 30 years, up from about 40 per cent achieved over the previous decade. A frozen boundary would need 80 per cent intensification.
Based on studies and consulting reports, the strategy was predicated, in part, on the province’s market-based approach to land needs, which weighs what types of housing, ranging from single-detached homes to apartments, consumers will demand.
In line with Ford’s government, the pro-expansion contingent warned a firm urban area would cause buyers searching for singlefamily or “ground-oriented” homes to bypass Hamilton for other communities where the stock is available.
But other planning experts have advised council that allowing “gentle density” — and not towers everywhere — on underutilized lots in