2010 The Other Side of the Podium

Greetings Ward 1

The Other Side Of The Podium
Personal reflection by Bonnie Littley

Province just says “NO” to Regional Growth Plan
I am very pleased to announce that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) has responded unfavourably to the Region of Durham’s Growth Plan as submitted.

Through various attempted amendments and motions, I warned Pickering and Regional Councils’ that the proposed recommendations did not conform to the Provincial Growth Plan, “Place to Grow”. The projected population and employment numbers along with new urban boundary expansion lands proposed just didn’t add up.

The Region’s final plan recommended that 1,200 hectares of farmland containing the headwaters of Carruthers Creek in northeast Pickering become a community for 30,000 people. An updated watershed study had not been done, nor a fiscal study on the costs of infrastructure and services to determine if “growth will pay for growth”. Additionally, Pickering’s Downtown Core is identified in the Provincial Plan as an “Urban Growth Centre”, and we haven’t even started Seaton with a goal of 70,000 people and 35,000 jobs.

So, why would we want to add new urban land now that would be a disincentive to achieving our goals for Seaton and creating the vibrant Downtown we are all envisioning?

In last fall’s newsletter I reprinted an article I wrote for the Greenbelt Alliance on the controversial “Growing Durham Study”. I discussed how my colleagues and I with the Rouge Duffins Greenspace Coalition (RDGC) continually cling to a “sense of hope” for an attitudinal change toward more sustainable land-use planning practices. Once again, we were disappointed with municipal decisions and were left “hoping” that the province would stand firm on their planning policy reforms.

As a member of RDGC, I was responsible for researching and collaborating with other “think tanks” to author RDGC’s policy position papers to various planning reform documents that have come out of the province throughout the last decade.
Of particular note is the award-winning Provincial Growth Strategy, the Places to Grow Act. It’s designed to manage urban growth more effectively. Basically, the goal is to create complete communities that are transit and pedestrian supportive, that can utilize infrastructure and public services more efficiently and save tax dollars. In other words: Planned growth instead of run-away sprawl that costs big bucks, and environmental and social decline.

Highlights of the Provincial Comments:

• A key concern is that the land budget overestimates the amount of land needed and is based on assumptions inconsistent with the Growth Plan’s policies;

• Employment numbers are in excess of what is forecast in the Growth Plan. (yet employment numbers for Seaton are lower than what is allocated in the Central Pickering Development Plan);

• Certain existing and approved residential and employment lands have been excluded from the land supply analysis (yet recommending more land be added);

• The proposed proportion of low density housing (approx. 70%) in designated greenfield areas is high, unable to achieve a compact, transit supportive, built form;

• An infrastructure and fiscal analysis of the growth scenario has not been completed.

The Province does not support the proposed urban boundary expansion into the northeast Pickering. Seaton is to have the appropriate allocation of 35,000 jobs. They agree that over designation of land would be a disincentive to achieving our goals. Politicians can’t continue to add more urban lands at their leisure without justification - so, the Growth Plan is working as intended.

I’m determined to change the mind-set and build consensus within Councils as municipalities are required to reform from traditional “business as usual” to “sustainable” development practices. Looking forward, I believe that is the right attitude.