Halton Controversy
Growing the Greenbelt

NRU
May 9, 2018
Rachael Williams

Halton Hills is doubling down on its opposition to a motion passed at Halton Region that calls on the provincial government to grow the Greenbelt by incorporating whitebelt lands. 

The province recently completed consultations on a proposal to grow the Greenbelt in the outer ring of the Greater Golden Horseshoe to protect important water features facing pressure from urban development. As part of the consultation, stakeholders were asked to weigh in on the proposed study area, which includes Waterloo Region, as well as Brant, Wellington, Dufferin and Simcoe counties. Halton Region approved a motion that asks the province to broaden that study area to include its local municipalities – Oakville, Burlington, Halton Hills and Milton. 

“In our view, it was a premature request and it does have potential long-term planning ramifications for the town with a particular focus on economic development,” said Halton Hills planning and sustainability commissioner John Linhardt. 

In a report unanimously approved by council on May 7, Halton Hills staff laid out five reasons why expanding the Greenbelt into the region’s most agriculturally-rich municipality constitutes poor planning. Undermining municipal growth management and threatening future opportunities to designate strategic employment lands were among the reasons identified in the report. 

Oakville mayor Rob Burton, who put forward the motion at regional council, told NRU the most effective way to curb sprawl would be to incorporate whitebelt lands—lands between the outer boundary of the urban settlement area and the Greenbelt—into the Greenbelt. 

With 11,700 hectares of whitebelt land in Halton, Burton said it is a “temptation to developers” who want to build outside of areas identified in the provincial Growth Plan, and contributes to urban sprawl. 

Halton Hills is demanding it be kept out of the regional motion, arguing it could have unintended consequences for the town’s land use planning policies. For instance, the Premier Gateway, located between Steeles Avenue and Highway 401, is Halton Hill’s strategic employment area. Its proximity to the highways 401 and 407 interchange offers easy access to major markets and has attracted roughly $230-million in private sector investment in the past 12 to 16 months.

“There is cause for concern that any potential to expand [the gateway] in the future might be pre-empted by any Greenbelt expansion in that particular area,” said Linhardt. Halton Hills mayor Rick Bonnette also noted that adding whitebelt lands to the Greenbelt could force the town to intensify more rapidly than expected.

“Our motto is small town living at its best,” he said. “I’m the last one that wants to see sprawl, but I don’t want to envision that in 50 years it’s all high-rises in this little block of Georgetown. That’s not the town image we want to have.”

Halton Hills is expected to see approximately 18,000 residents occupying 1,000 acres of land as part of its Vision Georgetown plan, mandated by the provincial Growth Plan.

“We haven’t been busting out the seams of growth. We’ve been managing it...but we don’t know what the unintended consequences will be,” said Bonnette.

Environmental Defence livable communities senior manager Susan Lloyd Swail told NRU the Greenbelt is crucial to building complete communities–a concept Halton Hills should learn to embrace.

“Georgetown in particular has a lot of commercial sprawl and strip development that could be converted eventually to create a town centre around its transit station, and to build up around transit lines, creating more jobs and housing,” she said.

Fearing a potential population boom similar to the Town of Milton, which has grown from 30,000 people to 115,000 “almost overnight,” Bonnette said the vision for Halton Hills should be determined by local planning authorities, not dictated by a motion narrowly passed at regional council.

The staff report also calls any attempt to expand the Greenbelt in Halton premature, as it pre-empts the region’s own Municipal Comprehensive Review, which will include a growth management strategy up to 2041.

Sixty per cent of Halton Hills is already protected by the Greenbelt Plan and the Niagara Escarpment Plan, as well as various other natural heritage and source water protection policies.

“When you make decisions, you make decisions not for the next generation, but for the next four or five generations,” said Bonnette.