North Gwillimbury Forest Alliance files OMB appeal over Maple Lake Estates

By Heidi Riedner Georgina Advocate

An appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) filed Thursday morning is the latest attempt by an environmental group to save significant wetlands from development in Georgina.

The North Gwillimbury Forest Alliance has always contended the town’s official plan is “flawed”, leaving the door wide open to paving over provincially significant wetlands on the Maple Lake Estates property owned by DG Group (formerly Metrus) in the north end of Keswick.

According to the alliance and its supporters, allowing the development of a 1,073-unit subdivision in the heart of one of the 10 largest remaining forests in the Lake Simcoe watershed would divide the watershed in two and deal a huge blow to the already fragile Lake Simcoe ecosystem.

Disappointed that York Region council endorsed Georgina’s official plan last month, the alliance filed an official appeal of the land use planning document with the OMB, stating amendments are required to make the town’s plan consistent with provincial policy statements and the region’s official plan policies.

Specifically, the alliance wants the proposed urban residential area designation removed from wetland areas on the property, an environmental protection area designation in its place and the area placed within the province’s greenlands system.

“There are no applicable transition policies permitting this inconsistency and non-conformity,” the alliance submission states.

The town has steadfastly contended, however, the lands were exempt from all the wetland policies under provincial policy statements up to and including the Greenbelt Plan, which designated the land towns and villages, and, in so doing, exempted them from the natural heritage system that is the backbone of the Greenbelt Plan and its policies.

In a nutshell, the province’s tool to create a protected greenlands system recognized the proposed development.

Pursuing a land swap, facilitated by the province, that would see DG Group’s development approvals in the North Gwillimbury Forest exchanged for equivalent approvals on other lands that it owns south of the forest, was considered by town council as the best option that strikes a middle ground between protecting a wetland feature, while honouring existing development rights that date back to the mid-1980s.