FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Stop Dump Site 41
Walk for Water
Facebook Petition Campaign
EVENT: Launch of Facebook Petition to the Honourable Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario and John Gerretson, Minister of Environment to Stop Dump Site 41
DATE: Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:00AM LOCATION: Media Studio, Queen’s Park, 1st Floor, Room 148
This is a campaign to stop a dump site on the surface springs and aquifers of Tiny Township and to prevent the pollution of the waters of Georgian Bay.
“This garbage dump is a form of eco-genocide. Wolves, rabbits, deer, fox, raccoon, eagles, ducks and all life are drinking the sacred waters of Georgian Bay aquifers. The aquifers and the waters of Georgian Bay belong to our children’s future. We should protect our children’s future”, says environmentalist Danny Beaton.
Water expert Dr William Shotyk of the University of Heidelberg (Germany) has called the water of Tiny Township, “the old-growth forest of natural waters” and “the best water on Earth” because of its purity. “This is an area of artesian wells where water frequently rises out of the ground under its own pressure.”
Confirmed Speakers:
Maude Barlow, United Nations First Senior Advisor on Water Issue, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians
Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada
Danny Beaton, Environmentalist, Turtle Clan, Mohawk Nation
Stephen Ogden, Community Leader, Stop Dump Site 41
Consultants and Hosts:
Dan McDermott, Director, Sierra Club of Canada Ontario Chapter
Garfield Dunlop, MPP, Simcoe North
Andrea Horwath, MPP, Hamilton Centre
Bruce Stanton, MP, Simcoe North
Peter Tabuns, Ontario NDP Environment Critic
For further information, contact Danny Beaton in Toronto: 416.921.0014, beatondanny@yahoo.ca, www.dannybeaton.ca, or
Stephen Ogden in Elmvale: 705.543.1470 or 322.2398, stephenogden@sympatico.ca, www.stopdumpsite41.ca
ACROSS THE PROVINCE -John Bacher
Ecological Farmers Call on Government to Expand Greenbelt
At a recent 2007 meeting, the respected farm organization, the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, urged that the Ontario government expand its Greenbelt. The resolution read, “We are quickly losing prime farmlands in Ontario because of the lack of adequate provincial farmland preservation policies. The Ontario government must recognize that the Greenbelt proposal has already and will continue to impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside the Greenbelt. We therefore call upon the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario, and to re-evaluate the zoning by-laws adversely affecting farmland already encroached upon by urban sprawl. “
In a commentary prepared after the meeting the Ecological Farmers explained that their resolution was passed, “due to concern by our members about the “leapfrog” effect of the Greenbelt. The continued expansion of cities and the expansion of highways are eating up prime farmland. Developers are quickly gobbling up farmland in Brant, Simcoe, Wellington and Waterloo counties in particular. Superhighways such as the Niagara-GTA and 424 will cut through prime farmland and promote urban sprawl. We ask that the Ontario government recognize that the Greenbelt proposal has already and will continue to impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside of the Greenbelt. We also ask that you to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario”.
Save the Maskingonge Tackles Core Environmental Problems
Since 2002, the small environmental group, ‘Save the Makingonge’, has been fighting the biggest environmental threat to southern Ontario - the noxious combination of urban sprawl and expressways. This group is currently fighting at an OMB hearing to stop a proposed Keswick Business Park which is planned to be built adjacent to the river. The proposed business park, like most controversial land use planning battles in Ontario, is part of the “white”, or “black”, belt areas just outside of the Greenbelt. (see brief re Greenbelt Expansion )
Save Maskingonge members are also fighting the extension of the Highway 404, which will pass over the remains of a native long house along the river. Urban sprawl has so dried up its watershed, that in 2002 and 2007, the river, which flows into Lake Simcoe, has been dry for part of the summer.
Lake Simcoe Threatened by Urban Sprawl
Half of the watershed of Lake Simcoe is protected by the Greenbelt- half has been left outside. This reality shows the half-hearted attitude of the Ontario government when it comes to stopping urban sprawl and saving Ontario’s waters. A government serious about saving Lake Simcoe would put its watershed entirely in the Greenbelt and pay farmers to make environmental improvements on their farms such as buffer strips along streams. This is simply not happening because of the power of developers and the fear of many to confront them.
Pollution problems in Lake Simcoe are so severe that Lake Trout cannot survive without massive annual stocking. The fact that four trout a year are able to be reproduced naturally, have been used by opponents of tough measures to curb sprawl to trivialize the environmental problems confronting the lake.
Elsewhere on Lake Simcoe, environmentalists opposing the proposed Big Bay Point resort on Lake Simcoe were hit by multi-million dollar SLAP suits. Four separate suits have been filed totaling $90 million and $3.6 million has been sought by the developer from the opponents for OMB costs.
Government funded studies have tended to disguise the impact of urban sprawl on Lake Simcoe. In 2006 at the cost of $1.5 million a Lake Simcoe Assimilative Study was conducted. It was supposed to examine how much development Lake Simcoe could handle. It backed off of this issue and instead recommended a phosphorous loading plan, which did not take into account expected declines in annual precipitation expected from global warming.
AROUND THE REGION -John Bacher
North West Niagara Falls Faces Urban Expansion.
The Niagara Falls City Council recently voted to have the Niagara Region consider an expansion to its urban boundaries on 150 acres of predominately Class One agricultural land. The proposal is located on the south side of Mountain Road, west of the Queen Elizabeth Highway, immediately south of the border of both the Greenbelt and the Niagara Escarpment Commission Planning area.
In its brief to Niagara Falls City Council, PALS pointed out that, “To the north of Mountain Road, agricultural land is in high quality grape production and intensive horticultural operation. Mountain Road is not a division of agricultural micro-climate or soil type. It is however, the boundary of both the Provincial Greenbelt and of the Niagara Escarpment Plan area. Within this area, applications for urban development are not permitted until at least 2016. This would be only the beginning of the start of a process, which is expected to drag on for several years before any construction could actually begin. South of Mountain Road, the area where this proposed urban planning is taking place, the lands are either vacant, or are rented on short term leases for cash cropping.
PALS pointed out that, “ if the land use planning system is strong enough whereby it is clear to landowners that excellent grape land will not be paved over, then these lands will attract considerable investment in estate wineries.” The best example of this is the large estate winery in St Davids, Chateau de Charmes. The subject lands were vacant and owned by speculators for many years but became the site of an estate winery after it became clear that the urbanization of the site was unlikely because of the strict planning control administered by the Niagara Escarpment Commission.
PALS also pointed out that our opposition to the proposed urban boundary expansion was supported by a City of Niagara Falls Planning Department report prepared by UrbanMetrics. It concluded that, “on our review of these planning submissions and the extent of residential land development and redevelopment opportunities that exist inside the existing urban boundary, we do not believe that alterations to the urban boundary are critically required at this time as a means of effectively managing future growth. In fact we believe that growth outside the urban boundary in the near to medium term may if fact have damaging impacts on the take-up of more centrally located residential infill and re-development opportunities in the city”, serving to “undermine development of other lands in Niagara Falls where residential uses area permitted as of right.”
Urban Metrics warned that Niagara Falls may soon be deluged with development applications for urban boundary expansions, as far away from the current urban boundaries as the Lyons Creek area of the city. This is because the North West expansion is serving as the “proxy”, “for all other development applications outside the urban boundary.”
Regional Population Debate. (See Quotables article)
Developers who hope to justify sprawl in Niagara outside of the provincial Greenbelt, are placing their hopes on the debate on the region’s population projection. They are attempting to do this by disputing the population estimate given to Niagara by the provincial government. This is done by claiming that their will be migration to Niagara as a result of planning controls in other communities, and by the impact of the mid-peninsula expressway. Since this debate has received no comment in the media, it is important that your concerns be addressed to the Niagara Regional Planning Department.
Province Plans Battle to Uphold Growth Management Plan.
On Monday, April 14th the Province Ontario will be engage in a battle to uphold their Growth Management Plan through an Ontario Municipal Board hearing at the Niagara Falls City Council Chambers which is expected to last at least three weeks. PALS, along with Jean Grandoni, will be participating in this hearing, where the province has appealed to the OMB official plan amendments approved by the Niagara Falls City Council and the Niagara Regional Council. These would allow rural estate development on two and a half acre lots, on an area of around five hundred acres in the former Township of Willoughby in Niagara Falls. New re-zonings for such development are not permitted under the provincial Growth Management Plan. Both PALS and Jean Grandoni are participants at the hearing in support of the province and have submitted witness statements.
PALS Works to Protect Forests
Ably assisted by Jean Grandoni, PALS has worked diligently in recent months to protect forests in Niagara Falls, threatened by urban encroachment. In the case of the Warren Woods subdivision, the developer asked the City Council to address our concerns when we pointed out
that two ten acre forests, which are protected as provincially significant wetlands, were not properly identified in a proposed zoning amendment. In the case of the proposed Thundering Waters application, we supported comments by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority based on its newly approved Land Use Policy, which for the first time recognizes the importance of Locally Significant wetlands. This concerns a very large 180 hectare Carolinian forest, which is a rare Pin Oak swamp ecosystem and an important deer wintering yard.
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PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY
Working to protect the best farmlands in Canada since 1976
Box 1090 St. Catharines, ON L2R 7A3
March 22, 2008
The Honourable James Bradley
Minister of Transportation
Dear Minister Bradley,
Our congratulations on your appointment to the post of Minister of Transportation. The work that you do will have many important ramifications related to urban sprawl and the protection of prime farmlands, the unique fruit lands and natural areas such as the Niagara Escarpment, a rare and much treasured World Biosphere Reserve. .
PALS is certainly pleased that the Niagara to GTA Corridor is undergoing a full scale Environmental Assessment. Nevertheless, our researcher, John Bacher, who sits on the EA’s public advisory committee, has drawn an important matter to our attention in this regard.
It is of some significance, that although the Environmental Assessment is going to identify local use of east-west corridors, such as the QEW, as a factor in congestion, it is not planning to identify any solutions to this problem, deeming it to be in the jurisdiction of municipal governments. This means that methods of reducing heavy local QEW use in Hamilton-Burlington and St. Catharines, that in the past have been cited as points of congestion on the QEW, will not be addressed.
Both Dr. Bacher of PALS, and the City of Burlington planners have noted the heavy local traffic on the QEW near shopping malls, such as the Fairview Mall, as causes of severe congestion, and have raised the failure to undertake local transportation studies as a problem with the Niagara to GTA corridor plans several times over the last few years.
As you are aware, there is quite an area of shared jurisdiction between the provinces and municipalities and in the past there have been several joint projects. For instance, in 1964 the Province provided substantive funds for the St. Catharines Transportation Study document. Unfortunately it is still the only such overall guiding study for the City, and has now become obsolete because, among another factors, many of the excellent grape and tender fruit lands which were slated for urbanization in that report, are now protected by the Provincial Greenbelt.
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PALS feels that it is not enough just to identify a ‘peak-demand’ factor caused by local use of east-west corridors in St. Catharines and Hamilton-Burlington. Rather, the Niagara to GTA Corridor Environmental Assessment exercise should look at strategies
by which this congestion can be minimized , thus removing an excuse that the congestion necessitates a new expressway.
Additionally these traffic-reduction strategies would also help tourism and the shipping of goods along the QEW and be an important factor in the reducing the overall human impact upon the environment in the study area, especially in terns of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We thank you for considering our concerns and look forward to your thoughts on this important matter.
Sincerely,
Val O’ Donnell, President
PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY (PALS)
‘Working to Protect the Best Farmlands in Canada since 1976'
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
14th Floor, 777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5G-2E5
Brief re: ‘Growing the Greenbelt: Draft Criteria for Consultations
Dr. John Bacher PhD. March 25, 2008
Introduction- Strengths of the Greenbelt
The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society welcomes this opportunity to comment on the expansion of the Greenbelt. This is an important initiative by the government, and one that is needed to provide serious protection for our agricultural land base.
PALS believes that the establishment of the Greenbelt was a long overdue measure. For apart from the Greenbelt lands similarly protected by the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act - to the southern shore of Lake Simcoe - the Act provides the type of protections envisaged in the original 1978 Preliminary Proposals of the Niagara Escarpment Plan. In doing so, it provides protection to both the Niagara Fruit Belt, the most valuable farmland in Canada from the perspective of a microclimate to grow tender fruit and grapes and a great range of agricultural crops, and most of the watersheds that cross the Niagara Escarpment.
The Greenbelt Act also pioneered in developing a broader form of provincial regulation of the rural landscape, than the exclusively agriculturally orientated land reserves of British Columbia and Quebec. It protects not only valuable agricultural lands, but a range of environments, especially environmentally significant forests and recharge areas.
PALS recognizes the Greenbelt’s strength in two other ways. First, unlike any other area of the province, it provides permanent protection from urban encroachment, for the unique farmlands of the Niagara Fruit Belt and Holland Marsh. Secondly, it imposes on the rest of the province, a moratorium on all urban expansions until 2015.
Limitations of the Greenbelt
However, there are significant limitations in the Greenbelt. First, while the province’s best Niagara Fruit lands are properly part of it, the vast majority of the excellent Class One to Three agricultural lands in Ontario are excluded from its protection. Indeed many of the environmental features protected through the Greenbelt- the Escarpment, the Oak Ridges Moraine, and other forests and natural areas, tend, by their nature to be poorly suited for agriculture.
Secondly, in municipalities that still have agriculturally zoned land , only in Niagara and the City of Burlington, are the urban zoning boundaries right up against the Greenbelt boundaries. In all the other municipalities in the Greenbelt, there is a gap.
This has been termed the “White Belt”, by the Neptis Foundation, and the “Black Belt”,
by the late farmer Peter Grandoni, in recognition of the tendency for these areas to become engulfed by urban sprawl.
The first priority regarding the expansion of the Greenbelt should be to expand it right up to the urban zoning limits of municipalities where this does not take place. This includes, Hamilton, Milton, Vaughan, Markham, Oshawa, Pickering and Georgetown.
PALS is not convinced by the arguments that have been used to exclude lands from Greenbelt in the “white”, or “black” belt. Part of the problem is the refusal of the province to accept the City of Toronto’s goal to accommodate more than its provincial growth projection allocation of 500,000 people. Another problem is that the over zoning of industrial land has not been recognized. Such over-zoned lands over time are largely converted to residential purposes, but the failure to recognize this is a major contributor to sprawl. There are also, as Neptis points out, lands which over time tend to be converted to urban purposes e.g. quarries, golf courses, and most significantly brownfield sites. While PALS has seen figures of the total acreages of brownfield sites in various municipalities, we have yet to see a single example of these lands being taken into account in developing estimates of land need.
The Need to Expand the Greenbelt on Prime Farmlands South of the Canadian Shield
Regarding the extension of the Greenbelt outside of the “black belt”- in effect to other municipalities- PALS wishes to stress that in principle, the Greenbelt should be the norm in determining urban boundary expansions throughout the predominately agricultural privately owned rural landscape of southern Ontario. These lands are different from the predominately crown land pattern of ownership characteristic of the Canadian Shield. Essentially, therefore, there should be a Western Greenbelt east of Kingston, defined by the fertile land south west of the Canadian Shield, and an Eastern Greenbelt for the agricultural lands of south eastern Ontario.
The Need for Orderly Land Use Mechanisms for Agricultural Land Protection
It is important to consider the major difference between the protections of the Greenbelt and that afforded by the Planning Act to agricultural land. The reformed Planning Act now, for the first time, imposes a five year freeze on any re-zonings of agriculturally- zoned land, requiring that such changes be part of a comprehensive municipal plan review. It also gives the additional protection that an individual municipality has the right to refuse such requests, without the ability of developers, as in the past, to appeal these decisions to the Ontario Municipal Board. (OMB.) In turn, what the Greenbelt does is require (outside of Niagara) that any such changes wait till 2015. This is just two years longer than the freeze imposed everywhere by the Planning Act.
Our suggested expansion to the Greenbelt simply ensures that the review of urban boundary expansions by a provincial tribunal, will be more orderly than the process of OMB hearings on applications throughout Ontario on a case by case basis. Such a process, in PALS long experience going back to our founding in 1976, will be one that will encourage urban sprawl, based on the opportunistic use of population projections. A comprehensive review will be the basis of more realistic projection, where there will be just one estimate for the province. This would replace the current use of projection figures, which if combined, would exceed the actual growth in a population by a factor of ten.
Support for Our Recommendation
There may be a tendency to regard PALS’ request for an extension of the Greenbelt to be based on extreme views, unappreciative of the sensitivities of farm residents. In this regard, we wish to draw to your attention a recent resolution passed by the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, which reads, “We are quickly losing prime farmlands in Ontario because of the lack of adequate provincial farmland preservation policies. The Ontario government must recognize that the Greenbelt Proposal has already and will continue to, impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside the Greenbelt. We therefore call upon the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario, and to re-evaluate the zoning by-laws adversely affecting farmland already encroached upon by urban sprawl.”
Conclusion
Finally, PALS notes that in the proposed criteria that the government has suggested for Greenbelt expansion there would only be one area, where the Greenbelt- base would be able to expand. This is the Region of Waterloo, one of the municipalities least in need of such protection, because of its strong zoning policies for almost 30 years. While Guelph has requested to be in the Greenbelt, according to Draft Criteria #3, it could not be, since it is not adjacent to it.
PALS’ recognizes that the criteria proposed for Greenbelt expansion will be pleasing to many municipal governments. It is not however, what is needed to protect the farm community from sprawl, or to address the serious environmental problems of the province caused by it, some of which, notably the threat to our watersheds, now have dramatically increased because of global warming. We hope your government has the vision and courage to take a decisive step toward the province becoming an authentic model for environmental sustainability.
“Response to the Proposed Regional Niagara Growth Strategy,
By Dr. John Bacher (PhD), Researcher February 8, 2008
1. Thrust of Niagara Growth Management Strategy is to Undermine Intent of Provincial Growth Management Plan
Although disguised as a seemingly reasonable “medium” growth scenario, between two other “low” and “high growth”options, the basic result should the Region accept the proposed Niagara Growth Management Strategy, by Dillon Consulting, would be an undermining of the orderly planning process sought in the Provincial Growth Management Plan. This is contrary to both the Places to Grow Act and the Planning Act, which seek to ensure to control sprawl by ensuring that realistic population projections are employed by municipalities.
To be effective in its basic goal of encouraging good planning, the Growth Management Plan requires the province to allocate population from a provincial estimate. This is done for good reasons. In the past, as was shown in the 1992-94 review of the Planning Act, municipalities would commonly come up with growth estimates that, if combined, would be about ten times the actual total growth of the province. This would be a major factor in encouraging sprawl, since re-zonings of agricultural land for urban development, especially in industrial-commercial areas, would be far in excess of what was actually needed.
In this case, if the Niagara Region was to actually adopt the suggested population projections, it would be defying Provincial Policy. This would result in Regional efforts to approve urban boundary expansions, which would naturally be appealed by the Province, and subsequently defeated at the Ontario Municipal Board, since the Government’s purpose is to ensure that its policies are actually implemented. The result would be a futile waste of public expenses on land use planning in Niagara .”...
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4. Too Much Stress is Place Upon Niagara GTA/Corridor as Growth Stimulant
PALS challenges the assumption, repeated numerous times in this report, that the Niagara/GTA corridor will be a major growth stimulant, with the power to reverse declining trends in the manufacturing sector. This is because there is a major stretch along the QEW in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie, which if these assumption were correct, (ie,. “access to major markets”) would be receiving an increase in manufacturing activity. Instead it is experiencing an industrial decline, which is likely more severe, than the rest of the Niagara Region. This has lead to major re-zonings of formerly industrial land close to the QEW in Niagara Falls, to accommodate both tourist commercial and residential development.
Given the report’s flawed assumptions about growth in other parts of the GTA hitting a wall of planning controls, the Niagara/GTA corridor, rather than a source of employment, appears to be a place for commuter travel to employment opportunities in other areas. If it was done in such a way as to increase the urban zoning envelope, such unwarranted growth would have harmful environmental impacts, but these drawbacks appears to be an unstated assumption in the report.
While the poor state of manufacturing in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie shows that there is no boom in manufacturing here, the boom for residential development on formerly industrially- zoned lands in Niagara Falls, shows that a mid-peninsula expressway, could indeed attract commuter- driven residential development. Just as the QEW assists commuters to Niagara Falls today, a mid-pen expressway would help in the future for such development in Thorold, Welland, Port Colborne and Smithville. The additional negative pressures on the environment such development would bring could very well harm tourism, by putting a negative image on a Niagara brand that is based on images of clean air, streams and a green countryside. “
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Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society
Brief re Growth Management Plan December 22, 2008.
By Dr. John Bacher (PhD), PALS Researcher.
1. PALS Strongly Supports Proposed Growth Management Strategy For Niagara
The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society, fully supports the proposed preferred growth option for Niagara as expressed in the Final Draft report on this issue prepared by Dillon Consultants. Although during the process we have had strong criticisms of various aspects of their earlier analysis, we believe that the final recommendation is an excellent framework for regional planning in Niagara. PALS believes that the final option D recommendation can be called the “Good Planning Option”. This name would be expressive of the manner in which it would likely be upheld if the amendment produced by the growth option was ever reviewed in a hearing by the Ontario Municipal Board. (OMB)
2. Growth Management Plan Process Has Been Democratic and Participatory
PALS has been fully engaged in commenting on the Growth Management Plan over the past two years. The process has been well publicised through the region’s website and newspaper advertisement and by every municipal council. We believe that the final Option D expresses well our own suggestions for improvements to the three earlier options, and input received from municipal councils and the informed public. While supportive of the final conclusion, our only criticisms of the Final Draft is that some of the suppositions behind it are conservative. If they were however, more comprehensively developed, these differences in our view would provide an even stronger basis for the key thrust of the Final Draft that there should be no urban
boundary expansions during the next five years.
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3. Growth Management Plan Should Not Be Interpreted in An Extreme Fashion
PALS believes that most of the criticisms of the proposed Growth Management Strategy are based on extreme interpretations of what is being recommended. Although the Strategy is intended to guide regional planning in Niagara to 2031, there is an important safeguard to prevent land shortages in individual municipalities. This is based on the requirement of the Planning Act, that municipal official plans have to be reviewed every five years to ensure conformity with provincial policy. If some time in the future, a municipality whose growth is not limited as a result of a Greenbelt boundary should actually have less than a 10 year supply of residential land under the various type of housing categories, including single family homes, (generally the most difficult to satisfy), the decision in the Growth Strategy not to have any urban boundary expansions would be revisited and possibly changed.
It should be stressed that currently no municipality in the Niagara Region warrants an urban boundary expansion under the policy framework provided by both the Provincial Policy Statement of the Planning Act, (PPS) and the guidelines established by the Growth Management Plan. Not only is there sufficient land that is zoned and within the urban service boundary for residential and commercial -industrial land to meet the 10 year supply requirement of the PPS, but there is enough land for this purpose even within the more constrictive limitations of draft approved subdivisions. The municipality with the least supply of such land, West Lincoln, has a 13 year supply of residential land in approved and draft approved subdivisions. Across Niagara there is a 19 year supply of such land. At the regional level, which is the basis for planning set
by the province, the consultants for the Growth Management Strategy found that “Niagara’s currently designated urban land can accommodate approximately 40 years of housing growth based on forecast 10 year average demand levels. “
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4. Quick Action on Draft Recommendation Should Result in Provincial Infrastructure Investment
From both reading the report and listening to the combined presentation of Dillon Consultants and the Niagara Regional Planning Department at the December 10th meeting of the Public Works and Planning Committee, it is evident that approval of the Final Draft of the Growth Management Plan should result in co-operation with the province in terms of funding needed infrastructure investment. It should be obvious that such co-operation with the province would be beneficial at a time of economic uncertainty.
There are a number of reasons why it is eminently reasonable for the province to require co-operation with the Region in the manner that has been suggested. For the province to invest in transit infrastructure in Niagara, for instance to have spending on dedicated bus lanes, more modern buses, and possibly eventually having light rail transit here, it would be reasonable for the province to suggest that there be no urban boundary expansions. If these expansions are not made, it is also reasonable to anticipate that by 2031 Niagara will have the higher urban densities that could make light rail transit viable. This will certainly not happen if urban boundary expansions are permitted and densities, as the population projections indicate, would fall below those of today.
The Draft Growth Management Plan goes into considerable detail why urban boundary expansions are bad for improving transit. It notes that Option A “limits the financial feasibility of transit and exacerbates accessibility issues for those who do not have transit available or can not afford personal automobile use. In contrast it found that “Concentrated urban development especially in a north-south corridor between Port Colborne and St. Catharines increases the opportunity for inter-city/regional transit as well as the feasibility of local transit in this corridor.”
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Under Option A, with major urban expansions, the distribution of population growth to municipalities with established transit is 49%. Under Option B, and at least as high for Option D, this figure is considerably better, some 57%. The contrast is even more dramatic when the issue of municipalities with No Transit is considered. Option A would have 25% of growth distributed to such communities, while with Option B, the figure is only 4 %. A similar contrast with found between Option A and B in terms of supporting more walking and cycling trips.
Dillon Consultants also provide detailed costing that indicates why it would make sense for the province to insist on the approval of Option D in exchange for investment in sewer and water services. This is obvious from the detailed accounting that takes place when Option A (the option with the most extensive urban boundary expansions), and Option B, (the one with the fewest is considered. The economic benefits would be even greater with the proposed Option D since unlike Option B, which contemplated a small urban boundary expansion in For Erie, it does not propose any urban boundary expansions.
There would be an estimated $14 million in savings in wastewater facilities upgrades between Option A and B. Dillon found that “Option B has the lowest short term and
intermediate costs...for wastewater infrastructure, allowing more flexibility for financing the long term improvements. There is a significant $297 per household per capita cost for each new water and wastewater services
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The province is already aware of the work of the Growth Management Strategy and its results in any event cannot be kept secret. Based on its findings it would be quite reasonable for the province to refuse to fund new investments for water, sewage and transit which the region’s own consultants and Planning Department have found will result in unwise and wasteful expenditures.
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5. Opposition to Preferred Growth Option Would Simply Result in Futile Confrontation With Province Instead of Developing An Effective Growth Strategy.
Since the areas where urban expansions are proposed are not protected by the Greenbelt it is possible for the Niagara Region to ignore its own consultants and Planning Department’s recommendations even to the extent of a contested hearing at the OMB. It would be extremely unlikely that such as strategy would result in success however! What would happen is that necessary provincial investments in transit, water and sewer services would be delayed and expensive sums would be spent at the OMB. The region would be forced to hire new consultants to counter the findings produced by Dillon and its own Planning Department. All that would result from such a strategy is a delay in implementing provincial policies and additional expenses incurred on OMB hearings. Since the basic purpose of the OMB is to uphold provincial policy in land use planning, an attempt to justify an urban boundary expansion there would be absurd as well as futile.
6.Support of Urban Boundary Expansions Futile in Light of Conservative Nature of Dillon Findings and a Variety of Other Factors
There are number of factors that can make an even stronger case for the avoidance of urban boundary expansions than what can be seen in the Final Draft of the Growth Management Strategy. The most obvious one is the fact that it employs a population estimate that is higher than the one allocated by the province to Niagara. Both the PPS and the Growth Management Plan call for upper tier governments to accept the population growth projections that are allocated to them by the provincial government. This is spelled out clearly in both the PPS and Growth Management Plan. This means that an OMB hearing on a possible urban boundary expansion would be bound to use them. It is for this reason as stated by the consultants at the July 10 joint Planning-Public Works Committee meeting, that the province will only accept the region’s population projection if it makes a commitment to no urban boundary expansions.
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The consultants also indicated that the province will not accept higher projections based on the completion of the mid-peninsula expressway.
The province has developed a single population projection and allocation to the various regional municipalities for good reasons. This is because in the past when all the various population estimates from the various municipalities are added up, the sum total has been grossly higher than the degree and speed to which the province’s population as a whole could grow.
It should be stressed that there are a number of factors which suggest the province’s population estimate for Niagara over the long term is to be conservative. Of these the most important is the announced policy of the City of Toronto to absorb more people and housing units, than have been allocated to it by the provincial government. This was pointed out by a Halton Region Councillor, Alan Elgar, who believes the population projections for Halton Region provided by the province are too high. He has termed the failure of the province to accept Toronto’s projections as a simple sop to developers attempting to use population projections that are too high to justify urban boundary expansions.
There are also a number of other important factors that make the Dillon Consultants projections too high. One of the most obvious is the inability to come up with a projection for housing units that could come from brownfield redevelopment. While there have been total acreages of potential brownfield sites estimated, there has been no estimate of how many housing units this would produce, or what type of housing.
In addition to obvious brownfields, there are also more subtle areas where lands are converted to residential purposes within urban boundaries, that could be called gradual residential intensification. One of the most obvious is the large Lincoln County
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Fairgrounds in the Town of Lincoln, which is being converted to residential use, since the land has become more valuable as a result of the Greenbelt.
In addition to the large acreage of brownfields there is a another area in which more residential land will be made available over time. This is by the gradual conversion of over-zoned industrial-commercial employment lands to residential use in Greenfield situations, as evidence by the conversion of what was the Glendale Industrial Park to Niagara on-the- Green. In its current five year review of its official plan, even the City of St. Catharines, which is confined by the Greenbelt, has discovered it has surplus industrial lands. At a recent public meeting under its five year review, it was discussed that some of these lands eventually may be converted for residential purposes.
One of the reasons that PALS believes Option D was developed was that after the original three options were discussed, all which had some aspect of an urban boundary expansion, more information became available about re-zoning of industrial land for residential purposes. This was pointed out in the August 18, 2008 comments by the City of Niagara Falls, detailed in PD-3008-76. They point out that the consultants failed “to take into account City Council’s recently adopted Warren Woods and Thundering Water conversions. Because of these conversions, the City’s Comprehensive Review did not identify an urban boundary expansion until after 2024.”
Another conservative factor in the consultants projections is the failure to identify likely residential and commercial-industrial development on lands that are zoned for what is termed “dry” industry, (zoned industrial outside urban service boundary), hamlets, and rural estates. While PALS is clearly opposed to new designations of such development areas, the reality is that these areas exist, and will provide some of the land needed for both residential and industrial purposes in the future. We do not expect that there will be any down-zoning of these lands, to prohibit development that is permitted by public health guidelines. PALS has never made such a recommendation, nor has any support
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for this approach, which would for instance, designate lands now zoned “Rural” and “Good General Agricultural” come from the province.
Although they will be regulated by public health requirements that impose a two and a half acre lot size on such development, there is a large supply of land for this purpose. Indeed in the large “Rural” areas in southern municipalities, extensive farms can be be broken up for such purposes. The province’s Growth Management Plan permits such existing “Rural” designations to continue- only prohibiting council approval of new areas.
In response to the proposed A, B and C options, PALS pointed out to the consultants the reality of approximately 5,000 acres that are zoned for dry industries. These are scattered throughout most of Niagara with the exception of St. Catharines, Lincoln and Niagara on the Lake. One community that is often thought of as having no industrial lands, Wainfleet, has extensive areas zoned for dry industries.
While the consultants fail to come up with a projection of permitted development on the various clusters of land outside of urban boundaries, their reality is indicated in Figure 5:1. Here the various hamlets are named and the “Rural Areas”, outlined in white. Note that if the extensive “Rural” area in Thorold north of the Welland River is considered, (which permits dry industries and commercial uses), there is already a continual east-west urban zoned corridor from Fonthill to Niagara Falls. It is comparable to the north-south corridor from St. Catharines to Port Colborne as an area for transit and intensification. Port Robinson can be seen as a hub where these two corridors meet. In addition to provincial funding for an north-south transit corridor, there could be assistance for an east-west one if urban boundary expansions were to cease.
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7.Growth Should Be Directed To Large Surplus Capacity of Southern Municipalities
Thirty years ago the founder of PALS, provincial legislator Mel Swart, set out the basic reality in having good planning. He noted that lands currently zoned for urban purposes in the southern municipalities of Niagara, had all the land needed based on future population projections. He warned however, that if urban boundary expansions continued, then these well situated sites would unfortunately, “just grow weeds.”
There will still be a lot of what Swart termed weed growing, even if all urban boundary expansions cease in Niagara right up to the 2031 planning framework. This situation is well illustrated by one of the most important graphs in the Dillon report, Figure 5.5b. It notes that even if the urban boundaries of Niagara are slammed shut, Port Colborne has a 115 year supply of residential land, Thorold a 81 year supply, Fort Erie a 72 year supply, Welland a 49 year supply and Pelham a 39 year supply. Port Colborne’s 115 year supply certainly illustrates the truth behind the city’s comments expressed in a Report Number 2008-31 from its Planning and Development Department, that “The City has an ample supply of vacant residential land within our Urban Area Boundary to accommodate” any new development that might come their way as a result of an end to urban boundary expansions in Niagara.
The conservative nature of Dillon’s projections are also evident in that they do not assume any residential supply from Wainfleet, although some will come from parcels with adequate lot size. In general they note that the Niagara Region as a whole has a 40 year supply of residential land- a reality that in itself, would make any expansion of urban area boundaries a violation of both the PPS and Growth Management Plans.
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8. Growth Management Strategy Details Some of the Harm Caused by Possible Urban Boundary Expansion
The final draft report goes into considerable detail about some of the possible harm
that would result if the likely urban boundary expansions from the Option A scenario which would take place in both Smithville and north west Niagara Falls. They note that these “Conceptual expansions contain or are immediately adjacent to 40 hectares of the Core Natural Heritage System (including new Provincially Significant Wetlands.)” These expansions they estimate “could result in the loss of 390 hectares of good general agricultural land.” They find that such expansions will damage Niagara’s groundwater since “some 15 hectares of the proposed expansion fall with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, (NPCA) designated high intrinsic susceptibility areas.”
The potential harm by urban expansions to tourism in Niagara is well detailed in the Dillon report. They found that the expansions contemplated under Option A would have undermined “tourism potential in the Niagara Parkway and QEW corridor where factors such as traffic congestion and urban encroachment on tourism assets will continue.”
Dillon notes that there would have been damage done by even the very limited boundary expansions that were originally proposed in Option B and C. The most limited expansion proposed in Fort Erie for employment purposes only, was “immediately adjacent to 10 hectares of Core Natural Heritage System”, and would have also involved “the loss of 20 hectares of good general agricultural land.”
9. Consultation Shows Public Across Niagara Opposed to Urban Boundary Expansions
Some of the public input it received as a result of Dilon’s draft report must have heavily contributed to its subsequent decision to have no urban boundary expansions, such as
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PALS stress on the additional supply from Rural Lands. Regarding public input, they note that in “all the community workshops there was strong support for policies
that would “ensure that new growth is not sprawling in form and does not infringe on environmentally sensitive areas and cultural heritage assets.”
10. Harm From Urban Expansions From PALS Perspective
Dillon has done a good job in summarizing many of the harmful consequences of urban boundary expansions. I will however, expand on these based on my experience over the past thirty years, augmented by development in the Niagara Region’s water quality protection strategy and the numerous watershed studies that have since come from it, and from one of our founding and most active members, Jean Grandoni.
Regarding the proposed Smithville urban boundary expansion, I have gained some insight into the problems of development here as a result of my participation in the NPCA’s Twenty Mile Creek Watershed Plan. This notes that the Twenty Mile Creek is a highly stressed ecosystem and that the major reason for ecological degradation over the past 30 years has been urban sprawl. Urbanization here in the Twenty Mile Creek watershed study found has resulted in “increased stormwater flows and flooding, erosion and sedimentation and loss of natural features.”
Much of the area in which Smithville would expand its urban boundaries is on ecologically sensitive Karst formations, which are underlain by soluble rocks such as limestone and dolomite, and contain sinkholes, depressions, underground caves and buried rivers. Karst formations contain important hydrological features that contribute to ground and surface water supplies. Development here can be the focus for sinkhole formation, since utilities provide a break in the bedrock for stormwater to enter and slowly dissolve the bedrock.
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Buildings built on such formations are vulnerable to descending into sinkholes. Water moves rapidly through karst formations and undergoes little filtration. Groundwaters in karst areas are easily polluted and if contaminates are introduced they will spread quickly.
The warnings against sprawl in the Twenty Mile Creek watershed plan are further underscored by the threats to the watershed posed by global warming. The extreme drought in the summer of 2007 created a situation which had the fish and other life forms dependent on the river, survive in isolated ponds that were only linked together by November rainfall that took place three weeks before the December freeze up of the creek. Twenty Mile Creek is a very fragile ecosystem and it is clearly not prudent to plan for urban expansions here when the Niagara Region has a 40 year supply of land.
For the past 30 years, I have been deeply involved in issues related to the other urban expansion area proposed in Option A, north west Niagara Falls, guided by the remarkable farmer-conservationist, the late Peter Grandoni, to whom your council shortly after his death, gave one of its highest honours, the Lifetime Environmental Achievement Award. This area is predominately one of well drained, Class One Oneida soils. It is immediately south of lands on the other side of Mountain Road, that are in vineyards. The road is not an indicator of a change of soil and climate, but simply the boundary of the planning area of the Niagara Escarpment Commission. Were it to be clear that these lands were to be protected, they would be in high quality grape production. This area is also contains significant forests and it’s the headwaters area for the Ten Mile Creek.
More will likely be known about the ill considered nature of development in the area of Northwest Niagara Falls, when the NPCA gets around to doing a watershed plan for the Ten, Shriner’s and Beaverdams Creeks. Urban development has already harmed these streams, which flow into the turning basin of the Welland Canal, a recognized
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provincially significant wetland. The problems of these creeks, caused by urban development, will not be solved, but rather exacerbated by more sprawl. For instance, if an urban boundary expansion is permitted one of the most significant forests here, may be damaged by a proposed storm water management pond to facilitate residential development.
11. Conclusion: Approve Final Draft, Co-operate With the Province, Get On With the Job
In conclusion, PALS urges Niagara Regional Council to simply approve the final draft of the Growth Management Strategy, co-operate with the province, and get on with the job of providing for an ecologically sustainable and vibrant economy for Niagara. This will not happen if the Dillon report is rejected, a course that will lead to fruitless OMB hearings. Instead Niagara should declare its intention to stop boundary expansions during this five year plan review, embrace the funds for water and transit infrastructure in the province, and plan on the basis that will help our vital tourism industry, sustained by the related glories of the Niagara River, the Escarpment and our unique agricultural lands.