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GREENBELT: FIVE YEARS OLD & DROWNING
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by
Don McLean
March 11 - 17, 2010 |
Ontario’s Greenbelt celebrated its fifth birthday last week with initial opposition largely dissipated and several efforts now underway to expand the protection of agricultural lands. Hamilton unsuccessfully fought the plan in its early years and continues to joust with the province over whether other foodlands should be urbanized for the aerotropolis.
“There was much shouting and screaming at the time — most notably from certain developers whose fury knew no bounds — but half a decade later, the wisdom of the move has been widely acknowledged,” commented Toronto Star columnist Mike Hume. “As for all those bottom–feeding local politicians who would rather ignore the greenbelt and its restrictions on development, they have to no choice but to go along with it. It’s the law.”
In late February, Toronto city council voted unanimously to have the Don River Valley and the Humber River Valley added to the Greenbelt protected area. Expansion efforts are also underway in Markham, Mississauga and Oakville.
“Oakville sees great value in permanently preserving our green spaces,” mayor Rob Burton told the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance on Sunday. “The Greenbelt is an invaluable policy tool that with our own 900 hectare Natural Heritage System will ensure our natural systems have a permanent place in the future of our town.”
A study released the same day by the Canadian Institute of Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP) compares ten greenbelts around the world and concludes that Ontario’s “is underpinned by one of the strongest legal frameworks, impressive political commitment, a clear diversity of benefits, enthusiastic community organizations, and a supportive public.” At the same time, the report warns of the dangers posed by aggregate extraction and transportation corridors in greenbelts, and calls for enlargement of the protected area in Ontario to counteract leapfrog development in places outside the Greenbelt such as Brant County.
“Greenbelts will become increasingly vital to society in light of changing global conditions such as climate change impacts, water scarcity, rising oil prices and food price inflation,” notes the report. “Provincial and municipal governments should take advantage of opportunities to expand the Greenbelt in order to protect prime farmlands, significant natural features and environmentally sensitive lands currently outside the boundaries of the Greenbelt.”
That idea was raised in Hamilton by Brad Clark in 2008, but not taken up by city council. Clark argued some of the city’s 7500 hectares of rural land not already in the Greenbelt should be added to it – echoing an earlier recommendation from Environment Hamilton.
An opposite position has been voiced by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, who have argued that all of those rural lands outside the Greenbelt should be earmarked for development.
Shortly after the Greenbelt was established in 2005, the city took the province to the Ontario Municipal Board in an unsuccessful battle to include protected fruitlands in the Stoney Creek urban boundary expansion. More recently, the two governments have clashed over how much agricultural land around the airport should be earmarked for industrial development as part of the aerotropolis.
The province appears to be prevailing in that clash as well, with the city now proposing that 156 hectares be developed over the next decade, followed by 504 hectares after 2021. Earlier city plans had called for the aerotropolis to consume over 1200 hectares of agricultural land not currently protected by the Greenbelt.
City staff will seek to formally establish the aerotropolis through an Official Plan amendment at a statutory public meeting expected in late April. The city has also indicated that it expects to eventually covert over 1100 hectares of rural land in Elfrida to residential uses.
[DON MCLEAN]
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