‘Consuming all prime farmland’: Vaughan councillor tells York Region that Ontario 2051 growth plan not endorsed yet

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 20, 2021
Dina Al-Shibeeb

A Vaughan local official has told York Region that her council hasn’t “endorsed” Ontario’s draft 2051 growth plan for the city, which spells out the demise of the remainder of whitebelt.

Vaughan has already scheduled an online meeting Wednesday, Oct. 13 to allow its citizens input as the city undergoes reviews to update its official plan.

Coun. Marilyn Iafrate, whose ward covers Maple and Kleinburg, challenged York Region that Vaughan has backed the draft in an email sent Sept. 15, a day before a York Region meeting on the overall growth plan.

“Please note that your staff report states that Vaughan Council endorsed the draft forecast,” Iafrate said in the email she shared with the Vaughan Citizen.

“That is fundamentally false,” she added. “Vaughan Council did not support the draft forecast. Council simply received it for information.”

When York Region presented the provincial targets to Vaughan council in May, Iafrate described it as “aggressive,” and requested alongside other councillors at the time to involve the public.

“I and my residents are completely opposed to consuming all the provincially identified prime farmland for development,” Iafrate said in her email.

The councillor criticized the planning with already-established neighbourhoods not even provided with the proper transportation infrastructure.

“The whitebelt lands left in Vaughan are nowhere near any public transit such as the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) or Yonge/Steeles subway,” she said, adding how the “build-out of new Kleinburg has over 3,000 homes and no public transit either from YRT or Metrolinx.”

“This area is forecasted for development by the Region, yet transit infrastructure is wholly dependent on whether or not the #413 moves forward,” she added. “What if the #413 no longer proceeds? What happens to the proposed development for the area? Can the Region afford to build it?”

Vaughan and King councils have withdrew their support to Hwy. 413, but York Region backed it.

The councillor also lamented how York Region “did not push back on the Province with these growth numbers” in light of the “huge financial debt,” if this goes through.

Robert Kenedy, president of the MacKenzie Ridge Ratepayers Association, said York Region already has more than $2 billion in debt, and “struggling to keep up with it's own poor development decisions.”

Kenedy described how these decision are “often egged on by our own Vaughan Council approving unnecessary MZOs and promoting development without any proper infrastructure.”

“Often we go into debt due to poor planning and low development charges,” with the main benefactors being the developers, he added.

With the “dwindling to eventually non-existent green and whitebelt, and other costly infrastructure that developers spend as little as possible installing and we end up fixing,” he said.

“I have reported sinkholes the size of smart cars, cracked and crumbling roadways and sidewalks, pathways, and a myriad of other problems.”

York Region is getting Ontario’s attention, since it anticipates to attract the most growth in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area by 2051. Vaughan, known for its manufacturing jobs and proximity to the airport, is expected to see the most intensification with the region, too.

Environmental Defence has criticized the urban sprawl accelerated in York Region and tapping into new land despite that there is no land supply shortage.

The environmentalist group told the Vaughan Citizen that York Region has sprawled at a rate of roughly 357 acres per year since 2001.

According toe the group, this means that the proposed new rate of sprawl of 791.5 acres per year is more than double the rate of sprawl over recent years.

The proposed growth will “add 5,000 more acres to the roughly 20,000 of farmland and natural heritage York Region opened up years ago, but which has not had to be used,” the group said.

Iafrate even suggested that York Region is better for York Region to improve Kirby and Mulock, its two approved GO Stations “to better serve any future growth.”

So far, the pushback isn’t only local in Vaughan. On Sep. 16, York Region has also deferred a decision on its growth plan overall due to division within the regional council.