Ontario issues special orders to approve developers’ plans and quash opposition

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark

By Jeff Gray Globe and Mail May 26 2020

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government has issued a series of special orders to approve a handful of plans from prominent Toronto-area developers and quash any potential opposition, saying the projects are needed to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Known as minister’s zoning orders (MZO), they allow Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark to make a final ruling on how a piece of land is used in the province with no appeals, such as those from citizens or environmental groups before Ontario’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

In just over a year, Mr. Clark has issued eight new zoning orders, more than his Liberal predecessors did over their entire last decade in office. He issued four orders in one day alone last month, including one to okay the destruction of three small protected wetlands to make way for a large warehouse and distribution centre in Vaughan and another to allow a retirement community to be built on farmland in Markham and Whitchurch-Stouffville.

The Ford government started issuing MZOs last year, after it scrapped a contentious bill that would have allowed municipalities to request the right to pass “open for business” bylaws exempting local projects from various provincial rules, including environmental laws and those protecting the development-free Greenbelt area.

Some critics charge the moves are rewards for well-connected lobbyists and Premier Doug Ford’s PC Party donors. The directives, they say, unfairly circumvent the normal planning process and override the province’s own policies – and are being misused while public attention is focused on the novel coronavirus.

“It looks as though the provincial government under Doug Ford has found them to be somewhat of a magic wand that they can wave when their friends come calling for a special favour,” said Taras Natyshak, the Opposition NDP’s ethics and accountability critic.

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