Concerns with growth plan targets numbers questioned

NRU
July 20, 2016
Geordie Gordon

Concerns are being raised about the implications of proposed changes to the Growth Plan and what they mean for GTA municipalities’ ability to meet increased intensification rates and greenfield density targets. Municipal leaders and industry representatives say that some of the implications of the changes have not been fully considered by the province. A one-size-fi ts-all policy may not be appropriate.

Oshawa mayor John Henry told NRU that he understands intensification policies for downtown Toronto, but for municipalities such as Oshawa, where a big part of the community is rural, there isn’t the infrastructure in place to support increased densities.

“To take the minimum density target from 50 to 80 residents and jobs per hectare is diffi ult in rural areas, in rural parts of the city... Oshawa [is] not downtown Toronto,” he said.

Henry said that the timing of the changes is challenging, given that most councils are shut down over the summer and comments on the proposed amendments are due by the end of September.

“On an issue that’s this big, it’s a very short timeframe,” he said. “We still haven’t met the expectations of the last plan under Places to Growth...Municipalities have spent all this money and time building their plans [and] now the province wants us to come back and re-do all of it again. It’s a very expensive endeavour.”

To help it respond to the proposed changes to the Growth Plan, the Building Industry and Land Development Association retained Malone Given Parsons, who is meeting with GTA regional staff and chairs to come up with a consistent set of concerns to express to the province. MGP president Don Given told NRU that so far, there is not a lot difference between the industry and municipalities with regard to their issues with the draft amendments.

As the firm began its study of the proposed changes, a number of issues were identified, Given said, where it is difficult to understand how they became draft policies. Several stand out, including the level of consumption of designated greenfield areas. Based on analysis done by the province in 2011, the amount of designated greenfield areas consumed, according on Places to Grow performance indicators, ranges between 3.1 and 6.7 per cent for inner-ring municipalities.

However, Given said that, his firm’s calculations, while preliminary, show that about 50 per cent of the available designated greenfield area in most regions has already been consumed. This creates an issue with the proposed increase of greenfield density from 50 to 80 people and jobs per hectare.

“If that [level of consumption] is the case that 80 number [the province] is asking for... would have to be applied to the remaining [greenfield] land, because we don’t see anybody opening up those existing communities. Effectively what it does is it doubles the density from 80 to something quite a bit higher, depending on the region you’re in,” he said.

MGP principal Matthew Cory said that by looking at the vacant greenfield sites that are left , as well as the regional official plan expansion areas that were established after 2006, the densities could end up being between 110 and 120, or higher, people and jobs per hectare on remaining vacant lands to get to 80.

Given said that the firm has been asking the province to gain a better understand of the implications of the increased densities, as MGP thinks it is a serious issue. The increased densities change the basis on which forecasting was done to arrive at Amendment 2 to the Growth Plan in 2013. At the time the forecasting was based on lower densities and rates of intensification. The increase would result in municipalities exceeding the population and employment numbers in Amendment 2. While the increased densities may be an attempt to create more sustainable communities, the impact on servicing has not been anticipated.

“It creates a mismatch between what would result from the [amended] Growth Plan and what was forecasted in Amendment 2,” he said. “We’re very concerned that in some ways the challenges of trying to deal with climate change, which have overtaken the province’s agenda, and the direction [it] wants to go with density, undermine [its] own eff orts to get those population capacities serviced throughout the GTA.”

Caledon mayor Allan Thompson told NRU that he doesn’t know where the province is getting the proposed greenfield density targets, and why that target is now 80 people and jobs per hectare. He said there is concern that the huge demand for detached homes won’t be addressed if the greenfield target is as high as that which is being proposed.

“I don’t know what greenfield development [will be], unless you build an apartment building, which people don’t want [in greenfields],” he said.

Thompson says that there isn’t enough understanding of the impacts the current intensification policies have had, and changes should be put on hold until they are better understood.

“How do you know if the 80 [people and jobs per hectare] is going to work? And I’m going to tell you, at this point, I think we need to put a pause on it... and really think this thing through. [The province]  wants to have it ready to go for September, and done in the fall, I think it’s going to take a year for a lot of us... to know how this is going to look,” he said.

BILD policy & government relations vice president Paula Tenuta says that when the amendments were first introduced, there was a lot of curiosity about what the proposed changes to the targets would mean. Tenuta said that that the development industry has been doing its part to meet the Growth Plan
targets that are in place now, and the proposed changes raise some concerns.

“For BILD it’s not a high rise versus a low rise... conversation, it’s about housing affordability and choice. And what we feel is these proposed targets may not allow for that housing affordability and choice. And I feel as though some of the municipalities are starting to realize that might be the case as well,” she said.

Tenuta said that the work that MGP is doing is really about the implications of the targets for municipalities.

“What do the density targets actually translate into, and what additional infrastructure and financial requirements...are needed to support them. I think municipalities are starting to see that the province has really left it up to [them] to figure all of this out,” she said.

Tenuta said that while no one is opposed to intensification the industry is concerned about what the increased targets could look like.

“Is [intensification] going to [happen] in areas where the infrastructure is there to support it? What  we’re seeing [based] on what the plan is right now... these higher orders of intensification may end up being built in the outer areas where there isn’t transit to support it. ...Is that proper planning, is that evidence-based planning?” she said.