Date: May 27, 2015
To: Ontario Land Use Planning Review
landuseplanningreview@ontario.ca
Attn: Ted McMeekin
MinisterMinistry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
tmcmeekin.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Re: Comments
and Recommendations with Respect to Enhancing and Strengthening the Greenbelt
and Niagara Escarpment Plans
Dear Minister
McMeekin and Ministry Staff:
Doing Nothing is an Environmental Policy in Itself
Thank you for this opportunity to
provide input into the review of Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment plans. Unfortunately, we feel we must do this out of
necessity, given some of the inherent weaknesses of the associated policies and
procedures. This situation has become very clear in light of recent experiences
where the approval and enforcement systems have completely failed to protect
the natural environment in the Dundas Valley.
The public consultation documents ask,
“How can the plans better support the
long-term protection of agricultural lands, water and natural areas? Our comments will focus on a few themes,
including the need to:
·
Expand
the areas covered by the plans
·
Prevent
the fragmentation of natural areas already covered by the plans
·
Rigorously
enforce the policies and regulations contained in the plans along with any
related development approvals
Maintain
and Expanding the Areas Covered Under the Plans
During the
review of the plans, you will surely hear again and again from individual
developers and the development industry as a whole. Their arguments will likely focus on the need
to accommodate population increases and the market desirability for affordable
tract homes. Their economic issues will talk about the cost of land as the
plans seem to limit supply and the cost of development associated with the time
it takes to get approvals. Their
solutions, wrapped in sugar-coated words, will amount to saying: “let there be
more suburban sprawl and gut the regulations, so we can build what we want as
fast as we want”.
While there may
be a kernel of short-term truth in their arguments, on balance they are
self-serving and will not create a healthy and prosperous Ontario over the long
term. Every municipality covered by the
plans highlights the “quality of life” in their communities as part of their
economic advantage. Part of this
includes abundant and easily accessible natural areas.
Quality of life
is a necessary condition for attracting and maintaining a strong and talented
workforce. The enjoyment of nature
enhances a family’s ability to achieve a healthy and active life-work
balance. This in turn will nurture a
more productive workforce and create a true and sustainable competitive
economic advantage for the Province of Ontario.
To help strengthen the quality of life in our
communities, we recommend that the areas covered by the plans should be
maintained and enlarged whenever possible.
Fragmentation of the Existing Natural
Areas
The existing
natural areas are facing a death by a thousand cuts. The consultation documents note:
“The objectives of the NEC plan are to:
·
protect unique ecological and historic areas
·
maintain and enhance the quality and character of natural
streams and water supplies
·
provide adequate opportunities for outdoor recreation
·
maintain and enhance the open landscape character of the
Niagara Escarpment in so far as possible, by such means as compatible farming
or forestry, and by preserving the natural scenery
·
ensure all new development is compatible with the purpose of
the plan
·
provide for adequate public access to the Niagara Escarpment
·
support municipalities within the Niagara Escarpment Plan
area in their exercise of planning functions conferred upon
them by the Planning
Act.”
These are laudable objectives, and the
Escarpment Natural Areas and Escarpment Protection Areas goes further, with
the aim of maintaining “the natural features of the Escarpment and only allow
uses that support this goal.”
Additionally, the Niagara Escarpment Plan, along with
“consistent” municipal plans and policies, goes into great detail as it talks
about creating and maintaining critical masses of natural areas with associated
and protected wildlife habitats and corridors.
However, the
reality is that every property that is overdeveloped, in the plan areas, breaks
the connections between and across natural areas. Piece by piece, the natural areas are becoming
more fragmented. This creates real and
long-lasting negative effects on the natural habitats of local wildlife. The issue of unrelenting fragmentation must
be addressed as part of the plan reviews. Each development proposal must stop
being seen as a one-off project, being evaluated on a myopic stand-alone
basis. The larger, cumulative, picture
must be seen, understood and used as a basis for policy development and the
review of development applications.
We recommend that CUMULATIVE environmental impact
information:
·
Be collected and monitored with
respect to the amount and far reaching impact of development
·
Be used to formulate policies to help
re-consolidate natural areas and wildlife corridors; and
·
Be used to assess individual
development applications and minimize their short and long term impact.
Lax and Uncoordinated Enforcement
The public consultation
documents ask, “How can the
implementation of the plans be improved?”
The simple
answer is to use and enforce the policies, regulations and approval conditions
that already exist. To be effective, implement the plans and have a real impact
on protecting the environment – enforcement must be active, coordinated,
accessible, meaningful and equitable.
These points are discussed below.
Active: Enforcement activities which are predominately
based upon receiving a complaint about a development are inherently weak. This allows unscrupulous land owners and
developers to play the system and ask for forgiveness after the damage they
have caused has been done. The Province
and municipalities have a duty of care on behalf of their citizens, to ensure
that what is approved is actually built and done in such a way as to minimize
any collateral damage. We recommend that proactive inspections be
scheduled at critical points in the construction process. This would be particularly important early in
the process when site clearing and preparation occur. It’s at this point, that much of the
“accidental” environmental destruction occurs.
It’s also when the interim fencing that is supposed to be installed to
protect trees, naturalized areas and wildlife habitat is to be erected.
Coordinated: Very
recently, Minister McMeeken’s office wrote to a Dundas constituent in regards
to environmental concerns that they had raised.
They noted, “It is important to recognize that provincial policy does
protect natural heritage features, and that this protection is generally
implemented through local land use planning decisions.” It’s precisely this multi-player approval and
enforcement system that is part of the problem.
Inevitably, when you call to ask for enforcement, the first response is
that it is the other agencies’ lead or responsibility. At a minimum, this
creates a delay before the right inspector can attend to the development
site. Worse, it creates a situation that
unscrupulous land owners and developers can exploit. They know their bulldozers and chainsaws will
have a long time to act before the right agency shows up – too late and after
the fact. We recommend that the approval documents clearly outline which agency
will be the lead enforcement agency, how to contact them and set a service
level standard with respect to responding to complaints in a timely manner.
Accessible: The amount of time and effort
required for an individual to find and collect the policies, reports, drawings
and decision documents related to an individual development can be
staggering. This is only more
complicated when multiple agencies are involved. All of the information noted is not
confidential and is part of the public record.
Open access would allow interested parties to be better informed about
the limits of development and the conditions that are expected to control construction. We live in a digital age, and all the
materials related to a development are available in an electronic form. We
recommend that a portal/registry of development be created and that electronic
copies of the development materials be stored there for public viewing.
Meaningful: Just what inspectors are supposed to
enforce is too often subject to a great deal of bureaucratic
“interpretation”. This again creates an
opportunity for developers to circumvent the intent of environmental policies
and use bureaucratic inertia to de-facto amend what they are approved to
build. For example, NEC development
permits use municipal site plans to secure the conditions of development. In theory, site plan approval should provide
a level of detail necessary to ensure that construction conforms to and
respects environmental policies, but this also has proven to be flawed.
Environmental
policies talk about securing naturalized areas, habitats and wildlife
corridors. Site plan drawings seldom
show or label these areas. To the
Planners recommending approval, the policy intent is clear. However, an inspector does not see this
reflected in the drawings. We recommend that the implicit intent of
the environmental policies needs to be made explicit within the site plan
documents. How else will an inspector know that a portion of a site is
supposed to be naturalized instead of becoming a carpet of ornamental lawn?
Currently, site
plans are not subject to appeal by interested parties. We
recommend that the legislation be changed to allow for site plan appeals within
the Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment areas.
An enhanced level of oversight will help ensure that what developers
promise, with respect to protecting the environment, is fully understood and
ultimately enforceable.
With reference again
to the coordination between agencies, we
also recommend that it be made clear that all agencies are responsible for the
enforcement of municipal site plans.
Equitable: Developers
are paid to get the construction job done.
It’s their full time occupation.
The better ones work with and respect the established rules. Others are willing to promise virtually
anything to get a shovel in the ground.
Neighbours and area residents have other demands on their time and do
not deal with development, or approval agencies, on a daily basis. The deck is stacked against residents from a
financial, experience and time perspective.
In addition, residents have not had the need nor the opportunity to
establish cozy relationships with the development agencies. We recommend that an open,
transparent, understandable and reliable system be created that allows interested
parties a chance to have meaningful input into development approvals and their
oversight. This would go a long way
toward redressing issues of equity.
Urgent Action is Needed
There is no need to wait for the conclusion of the policy review to make immediate administrate changes with respect to improving inspection and enforcement practices.
Thank you for providing an
opportunity to have some input into the review of the plans. We trust that our comments and
recommendations will be given the serious consideration that they deserve.
Kyle Benham, MsPl, MCIP,
RPP Paddy Benham
975 Governors Road 975
Governors RoadDundas, Ontario Dundas, Ontario
L9H 5E3 L9H 5E3
Linda
Goessinger
11-11 Colmar
PlaceDundas, Ontario
L9H 4L1
Attachment: Lax Agency Enforcement is Putting Dundas'
Natural Environment at Risk
No comments:
Post a Comment