Greenbelt or street names: which is more important to Richmond Hill?

Deadline for comments to the province is Jan. 20

Yorkregion.com
December 19, 2018
Kim Zarzour

Former regional councillor Brenda Hogg --one of the key initiators behind Ontario’s Greenbelt protection --is concerned that the new Richmond Hill council has its priorities skewed.

Hogg, who retired this year, said she was aghast to see council deem the naming of a local street more urgent than the province’s plan to gut the protection of the Oak Ridges moraine.

At the Dec. 17 meeting of council, Ward 4 councillor David West asked to have the issue of Greenbelt protection added to the agenda as “an emergency or time-sensitive matter.”

Noting that Richmond Hill is located on the moraine and the province’s new Bill 66 would open the door to development on this “provincially significant land mass and crucial natural resource,” West hoped staff could prepare a report on the impact of the bill and recommended response from the town.

Several other municipalities, including Hamilton, Burlington, Barrie and Guelph, have already voiced their reservations over Bill 66’s potential to put the Greenbelt at risk.

West said many residents have expressed concern about the bill and what it would mean to greenspace in Richmond Hill.

“Richmond Hill was kind of Ground Zero for the Oak Ridges Moraine Act … and it’s clear the public wants a fairly firm stand on this.”

The deadline for comments to the province is Jan. 20, making this week’s meeting the only time available to ask for the staff report, he said.

However a majority of councillors --Greg Beros, Tom Muench, Carmine Perrelli and Joe DiPaola --voted against having the matter added to the agenda.

“The motion to allow discussion was soundly defeated with little rationale as to why,” West said in a Facebook post after the meeting. “It is now my understanding that Richmond Hill council will not be able to officially provide comment to the province related to Bill 66 and its possible impacts on the Greenbelt and moraine.”

Immediately after this vote, Beros said he, too, had an urgent issue to add to the agenda --a motion to include “Banshee” in the list of approved street names.

A majority of councillors voted in favour of adding this issue as an “emergency or time-sensitive matter.”

“To say I was disappointed doesn’t begin to cover it,” Hogg said. “I believe it is far more important that we deal with the protection of the environment than naming of a street.”

Hogg has been sounding the alarm over Bill 66, saying it threatens southern Ontario’s ecological future.

“People in Richmond Hill, particularly, fought hard to protect the source water from the Oak Ridges Moraine, and the Greenbelt Act was created to protect our local food sources,” she wrote in a letter to the province.

Hogg said she has received more support from residents on this issue than any other in her lengthy political career.

“Nine months ago, the premier promised to leave the Greenbelt alone,” she said. “As soon as he was elected, he said the greenbelt is open for business. It’s beyond broken campaign promises, it’s an outrageous turn of events and it’s definitely not in the best interest of the Town of Richmond Hill, where the original protection started almost 20 years ago.”