NEWS

Paving Paradise: the impact of the 413

Toronto Highway

From Environmental Defense:

We wanted to get a sense of the impact Highway 413 could have on climate change and air pollution, so we hired a transportation modelling team to add up how much pollution, and how much sprawl Ontarians could be facing if Highway 413 is built.

The evidence shows that by adding hundreds of thousands of polluting cars, SUVs and trucks to Ontario’s roads, Highway 413 will make climate change worse and harm the health of people, communities, and sensitive ecosystems. It also shows how a new highway will help developers build out and not up, abandoning sustainable, dense, vibrant cities for sprawling car-dependent subdivisions that force people to travel even farther to get where they need to go.

Highway 413 Webinar

Stop the 413

Environmental Defence hosted a Highway 413 Webinair on March 23 focused on how the highway will impact Caledon and what we can do about it. If you weren’t able to join, the information is available to watch again on YouTube.

Watch the Highway 413 Caledon community discussion here.

Do you want to take action to stop Highway 413 from ripping through our farmland, communities and river valleys? There’s so much you can do to make your voice heard:

Growing the Greenbelt 2021 Webinar

milkweed

A free webinar will be hosted by the Ontario Headwaters Institute to learn about responding to the Environmental Registry of Ontario request for feedback on ways to grow the size of the Greenbelt. Submissions must be made by April 19, 2021. 

This webinar, part of Growing the Greenbelt 2021: REGIONAL RESILIENCE will feature insight from professional planner and Greenbelt educator Susan Lloyd Swail speaking on ‘The Consultation and its Six Questions’.

Date: Thursday, April 1, 2021 7 – 8:15 p.m. ET
Registration is required. 

Update on proposed Bill 257 – please add your voice

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March - field

NOTE: Unfortunately, Bill 257 with Schedule 3 was passed on April 12, 2921. So MZOs no longer have to be consistent with the PPS (except in the Greenbelt).

On March 8, we advised that FUN has written to Hon. Steve Clark as we are concerned, disappointed and angry that he has introduced legislation that amends the Planning Act to provide that Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs) are not required and are deemed to never have been required to be consistent with Provincial Policy Statements (PPS) issued under subsection 3 (1); that is, except for such orders that apply to land in the Greenbelt Area.

Letter re: Bill 257 from 120 organizations

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March - Ontario marshland

NOTE: Unfortunately, Bill 257 with Schedule 3 was passed on April 12, 2921. So MZOs no longer have to be consistent with the PPS (except in the Greenbelt).

We, the 120 undersigned organizations, strongly oppose Schedule 3 of Bill 257, Supporting Broadband and Infrastructure Expansion Act, 2021, which proposes to amend the Planning Act so that both existing and future Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) would no longer have to be consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS). We request that you remove this schedule from Bill 257.

By allowing the Minister to authorize developments that contravene the PPS, the proposed Schedule 3 changes would erode the very basis of planning in Ontario and would eliminate the benefits of this predictable, fair and principled planning framework for municipalities and other authorities implementing PPS policies. Given that MZOs are issued without public consultation or opportunity for appeal, these changes would also undermine the right of Ontarians to participate in important planning decisions affecting their communities.

Bill 245 Amalgamates Five Tribunals into One – why the haste?

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LPAT - view of woods

UPDATE: Bill 245 received Royal Assent on April 19, 2021 and hence the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal no longer exists. It is now within the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Our major concern with the amalgamation of five tribunals, each of which deals with specialized areas of law and practice, is the potential loss of appreciation and sensitivity to the cases dealt with by these individual tribunals. Each tribunal requires adjudicators that have specialised expertise in the subject matter of the appeals that they hear, and in the interpretation of their home statutes, in addition to adjudicative expertise. The more specialised the tribunal’s jurisdiction, the more this would be an issue.

For example for hearings before the Conservation Review Board (under the Ontario Heritage Act) you knew you would be heard by someone who was familiar with and had appreciation for built heritage and had expertise in interpreting the Ontario Heritage Act. The subject matter knowledge and appreciation, and expertise in the interpretation of its “home statute,” will be impossible to meet with such a wide span of subject legislation to be concerned with. Given the diversity of statutes and subject matter over which the Ontario Land Tribunal will have jurisdiction to hear appeals, it may be difficult to make the case that members of this Tribunal, who are arguably intended to be “generalists” dealing with a number of statutes, will develop expertise in interpreting such an array of “home statutes.”

Speak Up on How to Grow Ontario’s Greenbelt – Webinar

Ontario Greenbelt

A free webinar will be hosted by the CELA (Canadian Environmental Law Association) to learn about how to support growing the Greenbelt. The focus will be on the central Grand River Watershed and the Paris-Galt Moraine.

Bill 257

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Ontario wetland - fall

NOTE: Unfortunately, Bill 257 with Schedule 3 was passed on April 12, 2921. So MZOs no longer have to be consistent with the PPS (except in the Greenbelt).

We are concerned, disappointed, and angry that you have introduced legislation that amends the Planning Act to provide that Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs) are not required and are deemed to never have been required to be consistent with Provincial Policy Statements (PPS) issued under subsection 3 (1); that is, except for such orders that apply to land in the Greenbelt Area.

This legislation, sneaked in as part of an omnibus bill dealing with unrelated matters, is unjust, authoritarian, and undemocratic. It curtails the municipal planning process and facilitates non-compliance with the Provincial Policy Statements. Worse, it is applied retroactively, apparently to attempt to avoid the Provincial Government being held to account in two ongoing court challenges; Duffin’s Creek and the Foundry.

Proposed Bill 257 a further attack on protected land

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Ontario creek

NOTE: Unfortunately, Bill 257 with Schedule 3 was passed on April 12, 2921. So MZOs no longer have to be consistent with the PPS (except in the Greenbelt).

Today, the Government of Ontario placed provincially protected wetlands, farmland and forests across Ontario in line for development, as the Province launched yet another sneak legislative attack on environmental protection and public participation rules.

Hidden within a Bill entitled “Supporting Broadband and Infrastructure Expansion Act, Bill 257” are proposed changes to the Planning Act that will allow Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) to override key provisions of the Planning Act. If this legislation becomes law, when a MZO is used to permit development, it will no longer have to be consistent with Ontario’s fundamental planning principles – set out in the Provincial Policy Statement (the “PPS”). Except within the Greenbelt, lands currently protected under the PPS will become vulnerable to development at the whim of the Province, as the law will allow MZOs to be issued to fast-track development projects that destroy protected farmland, wetlands and natural features.

Affordable Housing on Eastern Avenue Consultation (The Foundry)

The Foundry at night

This is in response to your Ministry’s request for input from residents’ groups and the public “on how some elements of the existing structures could inform development” of the provincially owned property at 153-185 Eastern Avenue. The request indicates that the Province of Ontario intends to “create new affordable and market housing, and community space, in response to numerous requests from the City of Toronto for increased affordable housing”.

The Court ordered the Province to continue the pause on demolition because there is compelling evidence that the Province has not met its own standards under the Ontario Heritage Act and has breached heritage-related commitments in a subdivision agreement.

We continue to oppose the use of a Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) which allows the Province to bypass nearly all planning requirements set by the City. Our members are increasingly seeing a pattern of legislative activity involving the use of MZOs across the province, along with other coercive measures the Province is using to fast-track development without full and fair public consultation with those directly affected.