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Watershed Moment: New PPS policies on Ontario’s natural environment

NRU
March 19, 2014
By Edward LaRusic

Environmental experts praise the addition of new language and policies to protect Ontario’s natural environment under the recently-updated 2014 Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), but warn some confusion remains over the definition of “significant woodlands” and “cultural heritage landscapes.”

Tom Hilditch, founder and president of Savanta, an environmental consulting firm, told NRU that the 2014 PPS, which takes effect April 30, strengthens efforts to improve ecological restoration and create large natural heritage systems.

“The PPS has always had language like ‘conserve,’ ‘enhance’ and ‘restore where possible,’ but the language is stronger now around restoration and enhancement. So it’s moving in a direction that suggests [to] people we’ll have to go beyond protecting what’s there, and look much more creatively at enhancing systems and improving systems that are on the ground.”

As a result, Hilditch predicts, municipalities and private developers will likely invest additional funds to create natural systems that “function well and are sustainable in the longterm.”

He cited recent initiatives in Brampton, where he said the development industry has made “substantial investments” to create large natural heritage systems that account for about 20 per cent of a landscape compared to about six per cent in the past.

Significantly, he said, new language in the 2014 PPS on climate change makes it an important issue to be addressed by municipal planners and the development industry.

“It’s going to require people to come forward, and talk about how you integrate climate change into development planning and infrastructure planning,” said Hilditch. “How do we prevent climate change from having long-term effects?

That’s a requirement [in the new PPS] that I think is new and more challenging because it’s less well understood.”

Environmental lawyer Julie Abouchar (Willms & Shier LLP) agrees.

“The new language is requiring planning authorities to support energy conservation and efficiency, reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions, and climate change adaptation, so I think that will mean that there be a piece in their work that is going to have to support all of those things,” she said. “In everything that they do, they’ll have to think about climate change. Whether they’re looking at transportation, or development and different uses of land, they’ll have to think about the impacts on climate change.”

Abouchar added that new policies and language in the PPS address improvements to or restoration of the “quality and quantity of water,” placing the watershed as a meaningful unit for long-term planning.

“For municipalities or for planners that are working with this document, they’re not used to taking a watershed-based approach,” she said, with the previous focus on municipal boundaries. The new language means that municipal planners will have think beyond their borders, as is the current practice for conservation authorities, when assessing the impact of development on the watershed, she said.

Hilditch predicts it will take a little time to “shake-out” the impact of the updated PPS.

“Municipalities now need to define natural heritage systems,” he said. “Some have started to do that, such as Peel, York, and Halton [Regions].”

Hilditch notes an expanded definition in the new PPS, updated from 2005, of what constitutes a natural heritage system to include “natural heritage features and areas, federal and provincial parks and conservations reserves,” and “other natural heritage features.”

“The approaches taken in each of those [municipalities] are different, so although there is a requirement for it now, there are still not clear rules around what that means,” he said. “The standards are going to differ from place to place.”

Also of concern to Hilditch is the revised definition of “significant woodlands.” In contrast to general language used in the 2005 version of the PPS, language in the updated policy “raises questions over who (municipalities or the province) determines what is a significant woodland.”

The new definition in the 2014 PPS says that woodlands may be “delineated according to the Forestry Act definition or the province’s Ecological Land Classification system definition of ‘forest,’” which Hilditch suggests might be attempt by the province to reign in municipalities.

“What about these significant woodland studies that have been done in York, and Peel and Halton and other locations?” asked Hilditch. “Have they gone too far in terms of declaring woodlands that perhaps are beyond what the province would designate as significant woodlands?”

“Because municipalities are saying that all woodlands ‘are important,’ what’s the threshold for ‘significance’?” he asked. “When does ‘important’ get replaced by ‘significant’? If it’s the province that makes that determination, how are these municipalities going to define them going forward?”

Finally, he cited a change in the definition of “cultural heritage landscape”, potentially opening the door for municipalities to expand conservation areas. Hilditch said that whereas the older definition required natural elements and heritage features, the new definition simply requires natural elements alone. Rural municipalities, such as Halton Hills and areas of Durham Region, could use the new language to protect features such as hedge rows, old stone fences and old agricultural buildings.

“Typically, hedge rows take on a lot of prominence in the planning process,” said Hilditch. “Municipalities say ‘we’ll encourage scattered trees and hedge rows to be looked at for possible retention’ and the development community tends to look at them as the lowest level of importance on the landscape and seek to get them removed.”

“Those kinds of natural features might take on a higher degree of importance than they have in the past.”

Other 2014 PPS changes

Environmental consultant Tom Hilditch noted three additional changes of note: