11,000 hectares of Greenbelt at risk of development: environmentalists

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 6, 2016
Lisa Queen

Environmentalists are outraged with developers, speculators and politicians they blame for trying to pave over Ontario’s Greenbelt, warning York Region is particularly at risk.

The Ontario Greenbelt Alliance released a map Thursday showing some of the 650 requests made s to the provincial government to remove land from the protected Greenbelt, which would allow development to take place.

Joe Vaccaro, CEO of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, could not be reached immediately for comment.

The map points to a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy by developers to destroy the Greenbelt, the alliance said.

“Removing land from the Greenbelt piece by piece would be the exact opposite of what Greenbelt farmland, forests and rivers need – permanent protection. Developers don’t need more land, especially in the Greenbelt,” Erin Shapero, Environmental Defence’s Greenbelt and smart growth program manager, said in a statement.

“There is already a huge amount of land available to develop. In the (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) alone, there is more land already approved for development than the size of Mississauga and Oakville combined. The premier must ask why developers insist on paving over the Greenbelt instead of developing lands already allocated for future growth?”

Two-thirds of the requests to remove 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) of land from the Greenbelt 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 which flow into Lake Ontario, a source of drinking water for millions in southern Ontario, it said.

York environmentalists are alarmed.

“York Region is where the Oak Ridge’s Moraine Plan and the Greenbelt Plan were born. In the early 2000s, development pressures, gridlock and rapid destruction of farmland and sensitive ecosystems forced the province to act to protect these important landscapes,” Sustainable Vaughan director Sony Rai said.

“The fact that developer pressure is being applied here again speaks to the land speculation that continues to happen as part of the development industry’s attempt to hoard land in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Region.”

Jim Robb, president of Friends of the Rouge Watershed, is worried about the cost of development on the environment.

“With climate change bringing more extreme weather and floods we should be protecting more of our vital headwaters and green infrastructure, not paving over them to satisfy the greed of land speculators,” he said.

Jack Gibbons, of the North Gwillimbury Forest Alliance, called on Premier Kathleen Wynne to intervene.

“The premier has a clear choice, protect and expand the Greenbelt and build healthy and sustainable cities or favour developers and urban sprawl at great public expense in terms of increased traffic gridlock and taxes, and increased damage to our health and quality of life,” he said.