Review of the big move - integration needed

NRU
April 20, 2016
By Geordie Gordon

This year’s review of Metrolinx’s regional transportation plan offers an opportunity for the province to more closely align transit infrastructure and growth. However, it remains unclear just how well The Big Move will be integrated with the results of the coordinated review of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Greenbelt Plan, Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and Niagara Escarpment Plan.

Urban Land Institute executive director Richard Joy told NRU that the opportunity to integrate the five plans represents a “tantalizing prospect.” He is concerned that they won’t be fully integrated, certainly not as closely as they need to be.

“I think there’s a body of opinion that thinks that perhaps those things could happen concurrently, that the final phase of the four plan review, including the Growth Plan, could be done in concert with The Big Move review, so as to ensure that the policies between [the Growth Plan and The Big Move] are watertight,” he said.

However, Joy said that sequential reviews of the plans is likely.

“Yes they will be very close to one another, and yes they are designed to be extremely mindful of one another ... but when you look at [the Growth Plan] through the lens of transit infrastructure planning, you’re going to see things a little differently than when you’re looking at it though the other lenses [such as affordability, the environment, economy and social equity]. And so you might arrive at some different perspectives and have missed an opportunity to achieve maximum alignment,” he said.

Joy said that the transit lens is a particularly powerful lens, as it can help to address other issues, such as affordability, the environment, and the economy. He said that because the transit lens rests with the Ministry of Transportation and not the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the two ministries could be working together to deliver the reviews as opposed to doing them sequentially, even if they are coordinated.

This is exacerbated all too often by not enough thought being given to how plans will be implemented.

“Interpretation of multiple plans opens itself up to confusion [and] sometimes ambiguity. If these plans were done in total lockstep, you likely minimize the chance that they are going to be interpreted differently than they were intended,” he said.

This is a topic that Ryerson City Building Institute executive director Cherise Burda keeps coming back to: What should be done if the policies in the plans are not enforced? She highlights the fact that a lot of municipalities are not meeting their growth targets, and simply having them in a plan does not mean that they’re going to be achieved. Instituting some requirements can play a role in achieving the intended policy outcomes.

“If municipalities are going to get a billion dollar transit line, there needs to be a requirement for them to achieve minimum densities and land use objectives to build complete communities...if we don’t actually have a requirement for municipalities to do that, there’s no guarantee that it will happen,” she said.

Burda told NRU that following the Crombie advisory panel’s recommendations concerning the four plans, an eff ort needs to be made to ensure transit lines are located where growth is occurring.

“It’s going to be fantastic if Crombie’s recommendations are put in place, and I think it’s going to make [the Growth Plan] stronger. But I don’t know where in the Growth Plan the changes are going to be made that reflect where the actual growth goes. ... There needs to be a process by which growth and transit work together ... I don’t know where in the Growth Plan review that is being determined, and that needs to happen,” she said.

Burda said that growth hasn’t necessarily gone in the places that have been identified in the Growth Plan, such as the Urban Growth Centres, most of which have not met their growth targets.

“What do you do about that? Is the goal to bring transit to them so that we can up the growth? Is the goal to put a lot of effort into putting population there? Or is the goal to look at those and say ‘Okay, well which ones are realistic and which ones aren’t? Where is the market going, where’s the growth going, where’s the transit going?’ And all of that is iterative,” she said.

Research conducted by Neptis Foundation shows that while the rate of urban land consumption in the GTHA dropped from 26 per cent between 1991 and 2001 to 10 per cent between 2001 and 2011, population growth has predominantly gone to areas without transit, and outside Urban Growth Centres.

Neptis executive director Marcy Burchfield said that fits the trend across Canada, which has been towards more efficient use of land. However, Burchfield said we have not done as good a job in directing growth to where infrastructure exists and where future investments are going, with the exception of downtown Toronto, North York Centre, and to an extent Mississauga.

Of the 1-million residents added to the GTHA between 2001 and 2011, only 10 per cent were accommodated in areas around GO stations, and 13 per cent in Urban Growth Centres. Burchfield said decision makers need to be more strategic in understanding where population growth is going and making sure that it’s going where infrastructure exists, or is planned. She said the same holds true for employment growth.

“Outside of downtown Toronto, the Urban Growth Centres haven’t seen a lot of growth and jobs, and so there are these suburban areas-that have been identified in Pamela Blais’ report Planning for Prosperity-and the Growth Plan doesn’t even recognize those as part of the regional structure. So I think [the province needs to be] more strategic in how it’s directing growth,” she said.

Phase 1 of the review of The Big Move is underway, and must be completed by mid-2016 according to the Metrolinx Act, 2006. Metrolinx is expected to release a Phase 1 discussion paper this summer. Phase 2, which is to include draft amendments to the regional transportation plan based on the results of the review, is scheduled to be completed this year. Phase 3, which includes consultation on the draft amendments will conclude in 2017 with the final regional transportation plan.