Reject requests to develop on Greenbelt, environmentalist urges province

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 11, 2016
By Lisa Queen

Warning environmentally sensitive land in York Region is particularly vulnerable, Sony Rai is urging the provincial government to turn down requests to open up thousands of hectares of land on the Greenbelt to development.

“I think it would be catastrophic for the province to consider any changes to the Greenbelt at this point,” said Rai, director of Sustainable Vaughan.

“Parceling off each of these lands out of the Greenbelt would render the Greenbelt meaningless.”

But Joe Vaccaro, CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, said the development industry respects the Greenbelt and pointed out the province has said it is committed to growing it.

The Ontario Greenbelt Alliance has released a map showing some of the 650 requests made to Queen’s Park to remove land from the Greenbelt, which would open up the now-protected land to development.

Two-thirds of the requests to remove 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) come from York Region, where 7,500 hectares (more than 18,500 acres) are at risk, the alliance said.

That includes prime farmland, natural areas along highway corridors and sensitive areas around the headwaters of important creeks and rivers such as the Rouge and Don, it said.

Developers, landowners and municipalities are making the requests as part of the government’s review of growth plans for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which will welcome four million additional residents over the next quarter century.

There is more than enough land within existing urban boundaries and in so-called white belt lands designated for future development to accommodate growth for at least 20 years without attacking the Greenbelt, Rai said.

“There is so much land supply to meet housing needs, I think it will be easy for the province to reject all of these requests,” he said, calling the number of requests in York Region “surprising” and “alarming.”

However, there is no need to be anxious about the Greenbelt’s future, Vaccaro said, adding landowners are simply following the province’s invitation for requests as part of its growth plans review.

“We (developers) are not here to fight the Greenbelt. The government is committed to growing the Greenbelt. (The home builders’ association) supports a science-based approach to growing it,” he said.

“Government did include, as part of their review, an opportunity for submissions for adjustments. The government invited ratepayers, farmers, landowners to make submissions for boundary adjustments.”

The government itself is recommending four boundary adjustments to the Greenbelt, including at Teston Road and Pine Valley Drive in Vaughan, Vaccaro said.

“Now, it is really on the province now to determine the technical merits (of the requests) and determine the next steps,” he said.