Hamilton to enter Greenbelt talks ‘under protest’

Process is ‘murky, smelly, stinky,’ councillor says of development negotiations

Thestar.com
July 13, 2023
Teviah Moro

Hamilton will enter talks with a provincial facilitator over ex-Greenbelt lands eyed for development -- but “under protest,” reluctant councillors have decided.

The hope is to have some say in how that development unfolds with the province dangling the prospect of “community benefits” through the facilitator-led negotiations with builders.

“I think we’ve been dealt a bad hand. I lament that,” said Coun. Ted McMeekin, echoing his colleagues during Tuesday’s planning committee meeting.

But if there’s “any chance” for a “creative or imaginative solution,” Hamilton won’t find it “by ignoring the process,” McMeekin reasoned.

Most on the committee agreed and told staff to engage the facilitator while angling for community benefits if homes are to be built on the parcels the province has yanked from the Greenbelt.

Those could range from affordable housing to enhanced parkland contributions and extended sewer lines, city staff noted.

But some councillors maintain there’s more to lose in political capital by acquiescing to Premier Doug Ford’s scheme to open up roughly 1,900 acres of formerly protected local countryside to development.

“Our leverage is our participation, and we’re giving the only leverage that we have for nothing in return,” said Coun. Alex Wilson, urging the city not to be “complicit” in the process. “We don’t have options in Doug Ford’s planning game.”

The facilitator-led negotiations, which are to be confidential, are “bizarre,” Coun. Maureen Wilson added. “This process is murky, smelly, stinky and undermines good governance.”

The province’s decision late last year to remove about 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt across southern Ontario -- after Ford vowed not to alter the protected zone -- has been met with widespread protest.

The move is also the focus of a value-for-money probe that Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk launched in January amid concerns that developers were secretly told about the province’s plan.

The Progressive Conservatives contend the Greenbelt grab is needed to help reach their goal of 1.5 million new homes by 2031 to ease Ontario’s housing crunch, an assertion planners and anti-sprawl advocates have challenged.

In Hamilton, a swath in the Book Road area of Ancaster is the largest of three local carve-outs. Smaller parcels are along White Church Road in Mount Hope and Fifty Road in Winona.

Technically, the former Greenbelt parcels are still outside the city’s urban boundary and require land-use changes before they can be developed.

With the province’s deadline to have construction “substantially” underway by 2025, city staff expect Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Steve Clark to issue a minister’s zoning order (MZO) to expedite those amendments.

But ahead of such orders, the city has the chance to “negotiate and request certain community benefits” related to proposed housing plans on the former Greenbelt lands.

Not taking part in the talks could leave the city empty-handed and squander the chance to influence the shape of the future residential areas through sound guidelines, said Jason Thorne, general manager of planning and economic development.

“I would say that’s a very significant risk for the city, because at the end of the day, these will be our neighbourhoods.”

But the prospect of the Greenbelt development talks -- after councillors delayed a decision on the issue last month -- has generated a pile of correspondence from concerned residents.

“These are games. It’s a farce. It’s absolutely infuriating,” Ian Borsuk, who leads Environment Hamilton, told councillors at city hall Tuesday.

There’s “nothing to be gained” through the negotiations, but rejecting them would send an important political message, Borsuk suggested.

“You need to step up and you need to say no to this now because the entire province of Ontario is watching.”

Noting his reservations, Coun. John-Paul Danko predicted an MZO is on the horizon no matter what the city pitches.

“I don’t trust Doug Ford or his government as far as I can throw him, and I know I couldn’t throw him very far.”

But the city still has an “obligation to participate in a process, as much as I hate admitting that or saying that,” Danko conceded, suggesting the city enter the talks “under protest.”

That nuance gained traction with the committee, which also told staff to emphasize to the facilitator that the protection of agricultural land and natural features are of “prime consideration,” despite development being the province’s end game.

As well, staff are tasked with organizing a public session in August to gather feedback on the exercise.

In another decision Tuesday, councillors backed a framework to guide the eventual development of provincially imposed urban expansion lands, which are separate from the Greenbelt carve-outs.

Late last year, Clark rejected the city’s bid to hold its urban boundary firm to avoid sprawling into farmland.

Instead, with Hamilton expected to surpass 800,000 people by 2051, the minister ordered a roughly 5,436-acre expansion into Elfrida and Glanbrook to “allow for more desperately needed housing to be built.”

City planners, meanwhile, have asserted the province’s housing targets, including a local goal of 47,000 units by 2031, can be met within the formerly delineated urban footprint, and without the former Greenbelt parcels.

Secondary plans -- which map out community needs like schools, stormwater ponds and natural features -- must be drafted before any development can take place on the expansion lands.

The city’s framework to develop those plans, informed by recent public consultation, will see the city lead the exercise and follow a suite of guidelines.

They include an emphasis on “complete communities” that offer services within short distances; a variety of housing types, including affordable homes; transit connectivity; protection of natural assets; and financial strategies to recoup “full life-cycle” costs of infrastructure.

The city expects to hire consultants to start drawing up the secondary plans in the spring or summer of 2024.