'This is insanity': East Gwillimbury grapples with 120,000 growth target and sewer delay

Province struck an expert panel on Upper York Sewage Solutions earlier this year

Yorkregion.com
Nov. 8, 2021
Simon Martin

What's East Gwillimbury going to look like in 30 years? That's what the town council is grappling with after York Region put 70 per cent of the town's whitebelt lands in the region's growth plan until 2051.

Unlike the Greenbelt, which is protected, the whitebelt is designated as prime agricultural and countryside areas that can be rezoned as residential to accommodate future growth and employment targets set by the province. For East Gwillimbury, 70 per cent of the whitebelt lands means a population between 115,000 to 120,000 by 2051.

At the Nov. 2 council meeting, residents and council members raised concerns about where this ship was sailing as the town undertakes its official plan review.

“Fundamentally, the issue is sprawl,” East Gwillimbury resident Bill Foster said. “Is council listening to developers or the residents? I suspect the answer is they are listening to the developers.”

Foster has been a vocal critic of the Bradford Bypass, among other things.

“Simply put, the province is forcing unsustainable growth targets on our region,” he said.

Another difficulty the town faces is a lack of sewage capacity and the unknown of what is happening with the Upper York Sewage Solutions (UYSS) project that is currently being delayed by the province.

Executive director of Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition Claire Malcolmson said planning for so much development without knowing how you are servicing the development is troublesome.

She wasn't the only one. Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said it's incredibly frustrating to try and plan without any knowledge of what is happening with the UYSS. “We don't know what we're dealing with here. I don't know how you effectively plan without knowing all of the variables,” he said. “I just wonder if we would be better off to set it on fire and have a marshmallow roast, because this is insanity.”

Ward 1 Coun. Loralea Carruthers isn't sure the public understands that the growth they have seen in the next five years is what they can expect for the next 30. “We need to be treating these lands as a finite resource. This is all that we have,” she said.
The town needs to learn from past mistakes in this process, Ward 2 Coun. Tara Roy-DiClemente said. “We've got subdivisions that aren't finished because we started being told that servicing was happening and now servicing is paused,” she said. “We've got subdivisions that are islands that don't have the kinds of complementary services that we want to see.”

While acknowledging the frustrating unknowns before them, Mayor Virginia Hackson said the process that plays out during the review will help bring answers. “It’s an exciting time for all of us to be here. We certainly can make a difference in our town, probably much greater than ever before,” she said.

According to a staff report, the East Gwillimbury Whitebelt Landowners Group is committed to front-end funding for the UYSS Water Reclamation Centre’s initial construction and first expansion. According to staff, this will ensure that development of the whitebelt lands will not be 100 per cent tax-supported.

Extensive discussions were held over the past year between town staff, regional staff and the Landowners Group, with the recognition from the Landowners Group that a minimum of 70 per cent of the whitebelt becoming an urban area is required to make front-end financing for the related infrastructure costs viable. The estimated total regional development charge revenue for 70 per cent of the whitebelt lands is over $735 million, and the anticipated total town development charge revenue is over $335 million.

The new Regional Official Plan is anticipated to be complete in 2022 and will implement the 70 per cent of the East Gwillimbury whitebelt becoming an urban area. The vast majority of land in East Gwillimbury will still be protected. Town staff said 83 per cent of the land in the town can't be developed on due to various protections.