Hamilton greenbelt review: asking for flexibility

NRU
Dec. 2, 2015
By Geordie Gordon

Not sure how much land it will need to accommodate future growth, the city of Hamilton wants to hedge its bets by being allowed to request changes to Greenbelt Plan designations and boundaries outside of the 10-year review process.

The city engaged Dillon Consulting to provide a report on land use planning issues related to the Greenbelt review. According to that report, while Hamilton has a sufficient supply of employment lands to meet Growth Plan targets to 2041, it may have a shortage when it comes to residential lands due to a significant amount of its remaining whitebelt land being unsuitable for residential development. Of 2,448 hectares of unplanned whitebelt land, only 896 hectares are considered suitable for residential development due to constraints such as airport lands, airport expansion lands and the noise contours around the airport.

Hamilton policy planning and zoning by-law reform manager Joanne Hickey-Evans told NRU that the whitebelt situation in Hamilton is unlike other municipalities in the GTA.

“Hamilton has a very unique circumstance where 63 per cent of our whitebelt area is constrained from sensitive land uses. That’s a big issue. And the remaining 37 per cent... they’re not whole, large parcels with the exception of an area just south of the urban boundaries. Most municipalities’ whitebelt [lands] are not constrained by that.

So it’s not a fully functional [whitebelt] for both employment and population,” she said.

Hickey-Evans said the study found that Hamilton could be facing a land shortage as it looks at longer term growth targets, and that staff needs to gather more information.

“We did a preliminary review of future land need on the basis of our forecast and we’re showing a shortage of between 200 and 700 hectares of land for long-term growth,” she said, “Our big conclusion out of this is we need more information...What intensification rate are we going to go to, what actual lands do we need...And so we will start on that and that will provide us with a better direction.”

Hickey-Evans also said that there is more work that Hamilton needs to do in order to determine their future land needs. Hamilton’s intensification rate is currently below 40 per cent, and Hickey-Evans said this will need to be addressed during the review.

“Part of our problem at this point in time is we have to do the municipal comprehensive review... to deal with the 2041 growth, we haven’t done that yet; so a little more flexibility, that’s our ask.”

Environment Hamilton executive director Lynda Lukasik told NRU that the organization has concerns about the recommendation that municipalities be able to request changes to the Greenbelt boundaries beyond the timeframe set out in the legislation.

“At the most fundamental level, the greenbelt 10-year review process is that way partly because the province doesn’t want municipalities tinkering with the boundaries on any regular basis, so that recommendation we have concerns about,” she said.

Hamilton has recently concluded a public consultation process to get input as to whether it should ask the province to add to and/or remove several parcels of land from the Greenbelt. [See NRU September 23 edition.] As a result staff is recommending the city ask the province to remove the Lower Stoney Creek lands, which comprise 104 hectares, and the Waterdown lands, comprising 28 hectares, from the Greenbelt. It is also recommending the addition of the Twenty Mile Creek lands, which comprise 231 hectares.

Lukasik also has concerns with the recommendations for additions and removals of land parcels as outlined in the staff report. She had understood that the coordinated review process was not intended for this type of exercise.

“We weren’t expecting, and we don’t believe that the Greenbelt boundary review process was intended to be a process whereby municipalities were making pitches for large removals and additions to the Greenbelt, I think particularly on the removal side, we weren’t expecting that,” she said.

The Planning Committee will consider the staff report at a special meeting December 3.