Growth pains will worsen if we don’t tighten Greenbelt

If we keep building bedroom communities far from workplaces, our suburbs will soon be obsolete.

Thestar.com
Dec. 8, 2015
By Martin Regg Cohn

Unless the Greenbelt is tightened a few notches, Ontario’s urban bulges and suburban sprawl will show yet more middle-age spread.

A decade after the government vowed to limit growth in the wrong places with its much touted (but insufficiently tight) Greenbelt, provincial policies are straining under the weight of their own contradictions.

A report delivered Monday by Toronto’s one-time tiny, perfect mayor, David Crombie, highlights past imperfections. Part of an obligatory 10-year review of the Greenbelt, Crombie’s report also raises red flags about uncontrolled regional growth in the decades ahead.

We already pay a price in congestion for the lack of connections between economic growth, residential construction and transit planning. If we keep building bedroom communities at great distances from daytime workplaces, our suburbs will suffer from built-in obsolescence.

If we blithely rely on commuting by car, local congestion will intersect with global warming in the worst possible way. The reality is that a robust Greenbelt can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Crombie, a former federal Tory cabinet minister, is optimistic that the provincial Liberals get it - and will incorporate his recommendations in their planned update next year: His report examines both the Greenbelt and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe - an arc stretching from Niagara to Peterborough, encompassing the GTA and Waterloo Region (the Niagara Escarpment Plan and Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan, are also part of the mix).

Despite Crombie’s hopes, Queen’s Park can’t get by on just a plan and a prayer. Urban planning is nothing if not complicated, and getting it right requires compliance at all levels - which is where the Greenbelt has failed so far.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe is made up of 110 distinct districts and municipalities that lack an effective form of regional governance to connect the dots on the map, leaving each community free to do its own thing. While the Growth Plan sets a 40-per-cent “intensification” target for residential construction (as opposed to carving out new areas for land-hungry developers), many outlying municipalities have relied on exemptions to produce far lower targets, ranging from 15 to 32 per cent.

The provincial strategy “is showing mixed results so far,” Crombie’s report notes dryly. And despite a declared objective to boost transit links, the report “found marginal changes ... with the vast majority of residents continuing to rely on cars for their morning commute.”

Even if future targets are met, transit users would increase from 14 per cent to only 17 per cent over the next quarter-century. The proliferation of “low-density housing and employment options will not provide the numbers of riders needed to support efficient and attractive transit systems.”

Even when municipalities do the right thing, they face the utter unpredictability of the Ontario Municipal Board, whose provincial appointees adjudicate development disputes for better or for worse.

“Despite this strong policy and legal framework, there are still situations where municipal decisions are appealed to the OMB,” the report notes incredulously.

When Waterloo Region tried to align land use with provincial growth targets, it got bogged down in interminable hearings and incoherent rulings from an obtuse OMB that appeared to be at cross-purposes with the province’s best-laid plans. Crombie’s report should be required reading for every member of the OMB, notably those who believe the best Greenbelt is a slack one.

It should also be compulsory homework for politicians across the Greater Golden Horseshoe, a region that generates two-thirds of Ontario’s economic activity. If they want to manage growth, they need to grow into their jobs.

Over the next quarter-century, the region’s population of 9 million is expected to surge by 50 per cent to 13.5 million - roughly the size of the entire province today. That requires building residences in the right places, with the right transit links to the right workplaces.

Treating the Greenbelt like a line in the sand isn’t good enough. All these years later, it’s time to open the lines of communication - and ensure compliance - among all 110 communities within the Greater Golden Horseshoe, before our luck runs out.