NEW: Submission on the Review of the Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment Plans


Date:  May 27, 2015
 
To:      Ontario Land Use Planning Review
            landuseplanningreview@ontario.ca

Attn:   Ted McMeekin
            Minister
            Ministry 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

 Many of us are asking whether this comprehensive policy review is coming too late.  Our neighbours in the Dundas Valley all seem to have examples where development was allowed to proceed, often in excess of the existing policies or development permits.  These developments have had a negative impact on the natural environment, wildlife habitat and corridors.  To illustrate this, we are attaching a copy of summary of what happened recently with respect to the development at 979 Governors Road in Dundas.  We do not believe this is an isolated incident, but is one of many examples.  Further evidence of what has been happening can be found at:


 and
 

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 Road
Dundas, Ontario                                                      Dundas, Ontario
L9H 5E3                                                                    L9H 5E3

Linda Goessinger
11-11 Colmar Place
Dundas, Ontario
L9H 4L1 

Attachment: Lax Agency Enforcement is Putting Dundas' Natural Environment at Risk

 

No comments:

Post a Comment