Sprawling concerns over density targets
Province says rollbacks will better localize the control of development
The Ontario government is proposing changes to the growth plan that it says will attract jobs, boost the region’s housing supply and give municipalities more say in how and where development occurs.
But critics and environmentalists fear the amendments would spur sprawl in areas outside Toronto by encouraging the kind of single-family residential development that requires residents to commute long distances by car.
Ontario’s smart growth plan governs how and where municipalities can grow. The idea is to concentrate the population around services such as transit and infrastructure.
The changes would roll back some density targets that were added to Ontario’s Places to Grow Act in 2017, reverting to the numbers outlined in the original 2005 smart growth plan. In some greenfields — the areas where developers traditionally build single-family home subdivisions — the targets would be halved from a combined 80 residents and jobs per hectare, to as few as 40.
Barrie, Brantford, Guelph, Orillia, Peterborough and the Durham, Halton and Niagara regions would be required to put 50 residents and jobs per hectare on greenfields. The city of Kawartha Lakes and the counties of Brant, Dufferin, Haldimand, Northumberland, Peterborough, Simcoe and Wellington would need 40 people and jobs per hectare under the planned changes.
Although some provincially designated employment lands would be untouchable, municipalities throughout the Greater Golden Horseshoe would also be able to convert some of their employment lands to residential development. Municipalities would also be allowed to develop some small parcels beyond the their current growth plan boundaries.
“Municipalities want that flexibility ... on how and where they grow,” Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark said on Tuesday.
“We made a big decision that one size (growth plan) can’t fit all, that we have to provide the flexibility and that’s exactly what the new policies on intensification targets and the designated greenfield areas provide,” he said.
The plan sets growth targets through 2041. By then, the region is expected to grow by 4 million people. That is 85 per cent of the overall provincial population growth forecast.
David Wilkes, CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), welcomed the changes, saying they would make development more predictable by better aligning infrastructure, zoning and housing.
But critics and environmentalists say the growth plan amendments, along with the government’s recently introduced Bill 66, threatens the agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands in the 1.8-million-acre Greenbelt around Toronto.
“It’s the province setting developers free to do what they want,” said Tim Gray of Environmental Defence. Given more leeway to make exceptions, local politicians will be subject to greater pressure from builders, he said.
Bill 66 would allow municipalities to apply to the province to build employment on the Greenbelt without telling the public.
Under the existing growth plan municipalities have to prove they need to extend urban boundaries. “This guts any kind of rationale,” Gray said.
York Region chief planner Paul Freeman is among the municipal officials who said they were still studying the changes. But, he said on the surface the amendments would maintain the region’s intensification goals while providing flexibility for different community requirements with a new threezone system that applies different intensification targets according to geography.
In the inner zone, which includes York Region, he said 60 per cent of growth would still come within the built-up area; middle zones would have a 50 per cent target and outer zones would have a 40 per cent in- tensification target.
“In York’s case, a 60 per cent intensification would mean more of our growth is in the existing urban area and, if anything, it would decrease the need for urban expansion if at all,” he said.
Densities around transit stations depend on the kind of transit, Freeman said. York’s Viva bus rapid transit demands 160 people and jobs per hectare must go with a transit station. The numbers go up to 200 for subways.
Northeast of Toronto, the city of Kawartha Lakes welcomed the proposed changes because it allows the community to grow according to its own values, said manager of planning Richard Holly.
“A lot of people come here because it’s lower density. It’s not Toronto. The prospect of having to become more like those areas isn’t something people want,” he said.
Although builders want to develop land near some of the larger centres such as Lindsay, Bobcaygeon and Fenelon Falls, Holly said, “We’re not going to gobble up large amounts of agricultural land or natural environmental features.”
Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman, who worked on the original growth plan, said he welcomes the changes where they reduce overlapping policies and provide a more diverse housing supply.
“People’s preferences need to be respected. Not everyone wants to live in a condo,” he said.
But Lehman said he also fears “a race to the bottom” where municipalities are willing to do what it takes to attract business. He said, “The potential to allow a development that has negative consequences for the environment exists.”