The next step in the Greenbelt battle: protecting the once off-limits Oak Ridges Moraine

With the Greenbelt under threat, advocates now worry about plans to build transit, wastewater infrastructure and housing on the sensitive Moraine.

Thestar.com
June 5, 2023
Noor Javed

Debbe Crandall thought the fight was over.

The Caledon farmer has been a leader in the movement to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine, a vital ecological and hydrological component of the Greenbelt, for the past 30 years.

She has studied it, advocated for it, helped write the legislation around it, and effectively convinced Conservative ministers in the early 2000s to enact its protection into law.

Decades later, Crandall says the province’s recent decisions on the Greenbelt, which includes the 160-kilometre Moraine that naturally replenishes the GTA’s underground aquifers and feeds the headwaters for some 65 streams and rivers from the Niagara Escarpment to the Trent River, have her concerned and perplexed.

And she fears the compounding effects of recent changes to planning legislation, which has removed environmental oversight and development approval on adjacent Greenbelt lands, will permanently damage the ecological landscape.

“I think what their recent actions show is that they don’t care,” said Crandall, with the advocacy group Save the Oak Ridges Moraine. “This is not about saving a species of frog, it’s about science, it’s about climate change resiliency, curbing loss of biodiversity, protecting freshwater but their policies show that they don’t care. And that’s so chilling.”

Over this past term, the Doug Ford government has reneged on its promise to protect the Greenbelt. The province removed 7,400 acres of land that was once deemed untouchable and sacrosanct from protection in November. This month, the premier called the Greenbelt -- which is made up of the Greenbelt’s protected countryside, the Niagara Escarpment and the Moraine -- a “scam.”

With the Greenbelt under threat, and the province not doing enough to protect the Escarpment (as an auditor general report found last year) advocates say there is growing concern around development decisions being made on the sensitive Moraine. Currently, the province is pushing plans to build transit, wastewater infrastructure, housing and a long-term-care facility on the Moraine -- projects environmental groups fear will open the door to more incursions.

“Everything is connected to everything else,” said Crandall. “The moraine can’t thrive if there are sprawling cities surrounding it (on Greenbelt lands). It can’t thrive if there are policies in place that undermine it. Can the ecological health of the Moraine be maintained or survive when this government’s actions are all said and done? No, it cannot,” she said.

The Oak Ridges Moraine formed some 10,000 years ago as glacial ice sheets melted away leaving behind debris like sand and gravel remnants, which act like a natural filter to clean water and store it underground. In the past, most homes in the GTA got water from wells, now most are serviced by lake water. But the Moraine water still feeds into streams and rivers like the Don, Humber and Credit -- and ultimately Lake Ontario.

Steve Holysh, a senior hydrologist with the Oak Ridges Moraine Groundwater program, says it’s vital to understand how land use could change or impact these systems.

The borders of the moraine were determined through extensive studies by experts and government officials who mapped the boundaries using natural heritage and hydrogeological surveys.

He says development decisions made upstream on the Moraine can often impact cities downstream, and one reason why the City of Toronto joined their program is because “they were seeing development in York and Durham Region upstream … and those developments of extra erosion were being felt down in the city.”

“It’s all connected. In order to understand the entire water system, you can’t stop at an arbitrary Greenbelt or Moraine boundary.”

The government didn’t answer questions about its recent decisions impacting the Moraine, and defended its actions on the Greenbelt, saying it has grown the protected area by 2,000 acres. The Star previously reported that much of those Greenbelt lands were added in the Town of Erin, on already protected lands, with no consultation with local officials.

“Our expansion of the Greenbelt provides new protections for prime agricultural lands, supports a healthy and vibrant agricultural system, and better captures natural features such as wetlands and woodlands adjacent to moraine functions area,” said Victoria Podbielski, press secretary for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark.

The Moraine has largely remained off-limits from development since 2001, when the legislation was introduced under then-premier Mike Harris. Even though the land is protected, there are different designations on the land including “natural core areas” -- which are critical to maintaining integrity of the Moraine and have very restricted uses -- “natural linkage areas,” “countryside areas” and “settlement areas,” where development is allowed.

The Moraine, however, runs through much of the urbanized parts of the GTA and includes large swaths of King City and Whitchurch-Stouffville. Politicians and farmers whose lands are in the Moraine recently petitioned the province for ways to remove protected land for specific employment uses.

The province didn’t approve that specific request. Meanwhile, recent development decisions on the Moraine will have long-term implications. Among them:

In King City, in addition to removing 700 acres from the Greenbelt for a hospital, the province redesignated a large of chunk of adjacent land in the Oak Ridges Moraine to settlement area. This means the land, which could not be developed before, will now be developed into homes.
King City councillors said they did not support the redesignation. Neither did York Region: “Once lands have been removed from the Greenbelt/Oak Ridges Moraine without criteria, it is likely other landowners will follow suit adding pressure for additional development,” said Paul Freeman, chief planner for the region.

At the heart of this debate in King City is whether a recently approved long-term-care facility on a site that once served as a monastery for Augustinian fathers conforms to the rules of the Oak Ridge Moraine Conservation Plan, which only allows for development when there has been a similar “existing use” on the site before.

The monastery sits on part of the largest wetland complexes on the Moraine, including rare kettle lakes. Most of the current buildings on the property were built before the Oak Ridges plan came into effect.

Environmental advocates say the 160-bed long-term-care facility didn’t meet the test for existing use as the building was historically used as a small-scale private facility that provided short-term care to clergy members.

King City planners sided with the interpretation of the developer, Augustinian Fathers (Ontario) Inc, that they were simply expanding an existing use, and the facility was approved last month. Even before this question was settled, local MPP Stephen Lecce announced in March 2021 that a long-term-care facility was on its way at Marylake.

King City councillor Debbie Schaefer says the allowance of this project is an “indicator that we aren’t going to protect the Moraine anymore,” she said.

In an April letter to the Township of King committee of adjustment, Quinto Annibale, the corporate secretary of the Fathers, said the building had “historical and ongoing” use as “a nursing home, retirement and convalescent home to Augustinian friars.”

A transit station runs through it. When the province approved York Region’s official plan last fall, Municipal Affairs Minister Clark added a clause identifying that a future major transit area would be delineated around the Gormley GO station in Richmond Hill. The site was identified without any consultation with the region or residents and is in a natural core area of the Moraine, which has the strongest protection and thus cannot simply be removed from the Moraine, according to Crandall. “They probably haven’t written the regulation, because it would be illegal to do it,” she said.

Moreover, the province’s recent decision to cancel the Upper York Sewage Solution that would have provided wastewater and sewage infrastructure for new development in York Region means the sewage will have to go downstream to Lake Ontario through Durham Region. Eco groups say an expansion will have to cut through the Oak Ridges Moraine -- which is no easy task. When the Big Pipe, which brings all of York’s wastewater to Lake Ontario, was expanded in the early 2000s, staff struggled with putting in pipes alongside the Moraine’s aquifers, forcing them to dewater the area leading to a drop in well levels and changes to local creeks.

Amid all this, advocates worry an important safety net has been removed. Recent legislative changes have curtailed the role of conservation authorities in providing technical advice to municipalities around how to protect and manage natural heritage.

“If they are not doing that, who’s going to?” said Crandall. “If they aren’t getting (it) done, the (Oak Ridges Moraine) plan and its natural features are not protected, because there is nobody to champion them.”