PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY
( PALS, Established 1976)
August 15, 2006
Box 1090 St. Catharines, ON
L2R 7A3
The Honourable David Caplan
Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal
4th Floor, 777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5G-2ES
Dear Minister Caplan:
On behalf of the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society, I am requesting that you disallow proposed Regional Niagara Plan Amendments 170 and 161 as violations of the Growth Plan for the Golden Horseshoe. This plan represents provincial policy and all planning decisions that are commenced after June 16, 2006 must be in conformity with the provisions of this plan. According to Regulation 311/06 commencement for an official plan or an amendment to it, is defined as the day the by-law adopting the plan or amendment is passed. Both of these by-laws have not been legally adopted.
Under Section 2.29 (3) or the Growth Plan, new multiple lot estate development is to be directed to settlement areas and is not permitted in Rural Areas, unless the area has approved zoning or plan designations that permit this type of development by plan of subdivision and invariably involving multiple lots. This requirement was inserted for the purpose of prohibiting the designation of new lands for rural estate development in official plans and zoning by-laws. The regulation was developed in recognition that unserviced rural estate sprawl is one of the most wasteful forms of housing development and therefore completely at odds with the conservationist thrust of the Growth Management Act and Plan.
The basic intent of both Amendments 170 and 161 is to permit two and a half acre lots serviced by septic tanks on lands currently designated as Good General Agricultural in the Niagara Regional Policy Plan. Both areas are in Niagara Falls in one of the greatest concentrations of remaining Carolinian forests in Ontario. These forests are not adequately protected by the planning policies of the Niagara Region, which allow encroachment onto such unique lands on the basis of developer initiated Environmental Impact Statements.
Amendment 170 involves a considerable area, some 507 acres. Of these 98 acres are significant Carolinian forests. PALS objects considerably to the attempt to justify development on the basis of 155 acres on existing scattered estate residential development, which was created on the basis of wills, before this procedure was banned by provincial legislation. The vast majority of the 507 acres is in agricultural
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production, mature forest, or lands that are in the process of re-naturalizing. This beneficial trend in one of the core areas of Carolinian forests remaining in Ontario, could be greatly disrupted by the 60 to 100 units in the combined areas of
Amendments 170 and 161 proposed for future Rural Estate development and a smaller adjacent area approved for development under Regional Amendment 113.
Your Ministry is to be commended for its refusal to “grandfather” the Growth Plan for the Greater Horseshoe. Such provisions would completely undermine the conservationist goals of the plan, by greatly adding to the amount of low density sprawl in the province. It is to be sincerely hoped that given the lengthy public consultations by which the plan was developed, you will take quick action to ensure, after, that it actually means what it says.
Sincerely,
John Bacher (PhD)
Researcher, PALS