Prime Issue

Brampton’s employment land concerns

NRU
Sept. 28, 2016
By Geordie Gordon

Brampton staff is concerned that there are conflicts within the proposed employment land protection policy amendments to the Growth Plan that could diminish the city’s ability to protect its employment lands. Staff says the proposed policies are overly prescriptive. Instead local municipalities should be responsible for the categorization of employment lands.

According to changes proposed by the province, municipalities will be required to identify “prime employment areas,” which are characterized by land intensive or low employment density uses.
The lands designated as prime employment would be excluded from greenfield density calculations and would not be eligible for conversion to non-employment uses.

However, Brampton acting policy planning director David Waters told NRU that while the intentions of the province are good in attempting to protect employment lands with the proposed amendments, he doesn’t think that employment lands should be broken into categories in the Growth Plan, and that it’s something that could be left to municipalities.

“I think [the province] is try to get too far into regulating land uses, and directing land uses. I think provincial plans should provide more general guidance … we have a bit of an issue with that.”

Furthermore the proposed policies could create problems by differentiating between prime and non-prime employment lands.

“I think what [the province] has inadvertently done is created a hierarchy of employment lands,” he said. “Our concern is that it essentially sets those [non-prime lands] up for conversion in the future.

Waters said that the implications of the different designations could have long-term impacts on the ability of Brampton to protect non-prime sites.

“You could potentially have a battle over what’s prime and non-prime with the long-term objective of eventually converting those [non-prime areas], if they’re older employment areas, on the fringe or on the edge.”

One of the options for Brampton is to consider every piece of employment land in the city as prime, Waters said, although he acknowledged that they may not function as prime areas
as set out in the proposed amendments. The proposed amendments identify prime as “uses that are land extensive or have low employment densities and require these locations,
including manufacturing, warehousing and logistics.”

“We don’t want to convert employment lands. Our older employment lands could be vulnerable, but they might not fit the category of a prime employment area,” Waters said.

The employment policy comments from staff were included with other concerns with the proposed amendments to the Growth Plan, including increases to the intensification and greenfield density targets and the need for infrastructure improvements from the province to support growth. The staff report will be considered by council September 28.