Vaughan planning boss on Greenbelt Plan panel


Yorkregion.com
March 4, 2015
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Vaughan’s top planning official is part of a panel charged with revisiting the Greenbelt Plan, a decade-old land protection measure aimed at curbing urban sprawl from Niagara Falls to Peterborough.

Commissioner of Planning John MacKenzie is among six “advisers” tapped to carry out a review of the Greenbelt as well as three related plans - the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan, the Niagara Escarpment Plan and the Greater Golden Horseshoe growth plan.

By law, the sweeping land-protection legislation enacted by former premier Dalton McGuinty in 2005 is up for review this year.

The four land-use plans are coordinated to keep the suburbs and semi-rural communities surrounding them from sprawling further by declaring large swaths of farmland and ecologically sensitive areas - including large tracts of land in northeast and northwest Vaughan - off limits for development.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie is leading the panel, which includes Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Keith Currie, former Credit Valley Conservation Authority official Rae Horst, Urban Fieldgate Homes executive Leith Moore and Debbie Zimmerman, chief executive officer of Grape Growers of Ontario.

Municipal Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin said Queen’s Park wants to “grow the greenbelt” to protect even more land.

The panel will hold public consultations throughout the region and the government hopes to complete the review by early next year.