Ajax mayor wants Carruthers Creek headwaters in Greenbelt

Mayor Steve Parish is leading a push to stop development and place the area northeast of Pickering inside the Greenbelt.

TheStar.com
Oct. 12, 2016
By Alex Ballingall

The province wants to add more than two dozen waterways and wetlands to the Greenbelt, but not the headwaters of Carruthers Creek, an omission that has flummoxed and outraged Ajax Mayor Steve Parish.

As far as he’s concerned, the swath of land northeast of Pickering is prime turf that needs to be included in the soon-to-expand Greenbelt.

“For Ajax this is not negotiable. There is no middle way. This goes in the Greenbelt. It’s a no brainer, and we will fight until that is done,” Parish said of the spot where rivulets spawn one of the major creeks that flows south through his town.

Parish claims that without protection, the headwaters will likely be developed, which would increase the likelihood of flooding problems in his municipality downstream and force taxpayers to foot the bill to upgrade storm drainage systems.

“If the headwaters are developed, there’s nothing we can do, there’s no amount of money we can spend, that can fully protect that downstream area,” he said.

“From a growth perspective, from an environmental perspective, this has ‘wrong’ written all over it.”

The Greenbelt was created more than 10 years ago by the Liberal government of then-Premier Dalton McGuinty to contain suburban sprawl and protect environmentally sensitive areas and farmland in southern Ontario. The policy is currently being reviewed as part of a process to update the province’s urban growth strategy for the Golden Horseshoe. In May, the province released proposed amendments to the Greenbelt and three other urban growth and conservation plans, which included adding 21 major urban river valleys to the Greenbelt, along with seven coastal wetlands.

Environmental organizations, municipalities and property developers can make suggestions to the proposed amendments until Oct. 31. So far, this has included more than 600 “site specific” requests to have land removed from the Greenbelt, as well as applications from towns such as Ajax to have certain areas added.

Conrad Spezowka, spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, did not explain why the Carruthers Creek headwaters are not included in the proposed Greenbelt expansion. In an emailed statement, he said the proposed changes give municipalities like Ajax policy direction for protecting hydrologic and natural heritage features and areas on their own. The changes also provide a framework for the future inclusion of places like the Carruthers Creek headwaters in the Greenbelt, Spezowka said.

Parish argued the best way to protect the area is to put it in the Greenbelt, adding that there’s no time to waste because parts of the land northeast of Pickering that comprise the headwaters are in the hands of developers with plans to build there.

Currently, a company called Dorsay Development owns nine parcels of land totaling 889 acres, with plans to build on the land no earlier than 2021, according to their website.

The Town of Ajax passed a resolution on Oct. 3 to submit a staff review to the province, requesting that the Carruthers Creek headwaters be included in the Greenbelt now. The report suggests the creek may be the only urban river valley in the Greenbelt area that does not have its headwaters included in a protected zone. That came after the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) passed a motion asking the province to “seriously consider” adding the Carruthers Creek headwaters to the protection plan.

The area has been a locus of the development-vs-conservation debate for more than half a decade. In 2010, in the midst of a fight over development of the headwaters that pitted Durham Region politicians from Pickering and Ajax - including Parish, who was mayor back then as well - against each other, the province rejected a proposal to build a housing community for 30,000 people on the land.

At the time, Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan supported the development. In an email this week, the manager of business development and public affairs in the Pickering office of the mayor, Mark Guinto, pointed out that the TRCA is in the midst of a four-year review of how to best protect the Carruthers watershed. As such, Guinto said it is “premature” to discuss future plans for the headwaters area.

Geoffrey Grayhurst, president of Dorsay Development, said in an email that the company intends to build “a complete community that enhances the health of the built environment, ecological systems and human interaction with both.” He added the company will continue to work with the relevant municipalities and the province to abide by growth plans and environmental regulations.

Parish, the Ajax mayor, is adamant that development would be bad for his town. “It’s a poster child for going into the Greenbelt,” he argued. “It’s the only way to protect these headwaters.”