Hamilton Urban Boundary Parcels Up For Review

NRU
Sept. 23, 2015
Geordie Gordon

Hamilton’s urban boundary could be changing as part of the coordinated Greenbelt Plan review. The city is consulting the public on the specific lands that it is considering for removal or addition to the greenbelt. It also wants the ability to make minor adjustments to the natural heritage system outside of the review process.

Following in the footsteps of other municipalities which have submitted potential greenbelt boundary changes to the province, Hamilton is currently considering revisions that would impact its urban boundary. The city is asking residents for input on the potential addition of three parcels and the removal of four parcels from the Greenbelt Plan. Currently, 78 per cent of city land lies within the greenbelt.

Hamilton policy/information planning and zoning bylaw reform manager Joanne Hickey-Evans stresses that the process underway in Hamilton is all about getting feedback.

“[The areas are] out there for conversation, were there any areas that people thought ‘wow, yeah that make a lot of sense’, or were there areas that people said ‘oh, that doesn’t make sense’’ that type of thing, that’s why we did it.” Hickey-Evans told NRU.

Residents are asked to provide their feedback based on a list of proposed criteria provided by the city. To be considered for inclusion or exclusion, residents must assess the specified parcel’s value as agriculture, cultural heritage and protected environment, among others.

The response from the public provides a range of opinion.

“It runs the gamut from ‘don’t touch it at all’ to ‘take it all out’, ‘put more in’, ‘keep the status quo’, you’ve got everything in between,” Hickey-Evans said.

While Hickey-Evans said the process is not in any way intended to undermine the Greenbelt Plan, Environmental Defence executive director Tim Gray sees any potential change to the greenbelt boundaries as highly detrimental to the legitimacy of the greenbelt itself.

“If you have a greenbelt that’s not permanent, it’s not a greenbelt. It’s just back to the kind of planning that we had before we had the legislation if you can routinely remove stuff from its protections. So it would be the end of the whole experiment and I think the public doesn’t want that,” Gray told NRU. “[Further] if you have a system put in place that would allow routine removals [as suggested by some municipalities], we would see huge resources going into that from the development industry because they would have a huge vested interest in doing it.”

Gray does acknowledge that there are some instances where correcting the boundaries might be necessary, but it shouldn’t occur outside of the review process.

“The boundaries were established, by necessity, along some administrative lines. If some of those don’t make any sense, you know, some of them should be [moved] over a hundred metres or up-to-a-hundred metres that’s one thing and that should be done during this process. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should look at those things.”

Hamilton is asking the province for the ability to make minor adjustments to the boundaries of the Natural Heritage System within the greenbelt, outside of the coordinated review process.

“[It’s] more of an appeal mechanism and the ability to [make] small adjustments to [natural heritage system] boundaries [within the greenbelt] where there are errors,” Hickey-Evans said.

Hamilton-Halton Home Builders Association executive officer Suzanne Mammel agrees with the city’s request.

“It’s often people at the local level, conservation authorities, natural heritage planners at the city, who know the lands here. There is a general agreement that some of the mapping done by MNR and conservation authorities is out of date, and not necessarily indicative of what’s around,” Mammel told NRU.

Mammel would like to see a consistent approach brought to the process of defining the edges of the natural heritage system.

“Having a mechanism whereby municipalities make those decisions at the local level, and having a system where every municipality is doing it consistently because there’s nothing that developers like more than knowing what the rules of the game are.”

Hamilton parcels that are under consideration for addition to the greenbelt include lands near Book Road, Nebo Road and the area surrounding the Red Hill Urban River Valley. Those parcels that are up for consideration for removal are areas around Lower Stoney Creek, Upper Stoney Creek, Stoneybrook and North Twenty Mile Creek.

The city has completed three community meetings on the greenbelt boundary, and has a fourth and final meeting scheduled for September 28.