Ontario – you need to do better

AWARE News Network

From AWARE Simcoe’s submission on the 2015 Coordinated Planning Review

“While well intentioned, the Growth Plan, Greenbelt Plan, Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and Niagara Escarpment Plan have not served to adequately protect water, food land and ecological health in Simcoe County to date as witnessed by the unfortunate Special Rule allowing the loss of 300 hectares (so far) of prime farmland in the Midhurst Secondary Plan.

“AWARE Simcoe would like to emphasize that the Greenbelt urgently needs to be expanded and must include Simcoe County. Failure to do this now will create significant and irreversible planning and environmental problems in the very near future due to leapfrog and low density development.

“Protection of water, food security and environmental health for the long term must take precedence over all other land uses. Development interests that deplete food land and threaten water and ecological health must be curtailed starting now. Failure to protect our essential-to-life resources for future generations would be a tragic abdication of our responsibility.”

Download the full AWARE Simcoe submission.

Comments are due tomorrow, Thursday May 28 2015. We encourage you to let the Ontario government know what your priorities are. You can submit by email to landuseplanningreview@ontario.ca  or through the Environmental Registry. You can put in your own submission or endorse the one submitted by  AWARE Simcoe. The AWARE Simcoe board has endorsed the submission from the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance OGA final plan review submission.