Jobs key to growth plan in Simcoe County, says province

By Phinjo Gombu Toronto Star October 28 2010
The province has unveiled a plan for Simcoe County to create a major employment zone along Highway 400 in Innisfil, which it says is necessary for job creation in tough times.
But critics say the plan will contribute to urban sprawl.

The proposal, which goes before the public for 90 days of consultation, backs themunicipality’s plans for an employment area on both sides of Highway 400.
“It’s going to be for employment,” Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli said Thursday, adding there will strict guidelines on what will be allowed. “It’s not going to be your typical string of shopping plazas, big-box stores in typical urban sprawl.”
Environmental Defence has lobbied against leapfrogging development over the Green Belt. Executive director Rick Smith said the province shouldn’t have opened a new front of development in Simcoe County when land is available in the GTA.
“It’s disappointing and not in keeping with the more intelligent approach that the government has adopted elsewhere,” said Smith, who fears it is the start of a sea of sprawl from Bradford to Barrie.
“It’s a long way from being a done deal. It’s a complicated question and we are a long ways from seeing the end of this.”
The plan builds on the approval of a controversial employment zone in Bradford West Gwillimbury through a rarely used Minister’s Zoning Order. Critics said use of the order caved in to development interests and countered the province’s regional growth plan.
“We have a pre-built Highway 400 and this plan takes advantage of that,” Chiarelli said, arguing that building employment zones along a major transit corridor is “absolutely the right place to put it.”
Innisfil’s development is part of a larger strategy for the county. The plan also creates several other employment zones in the northern part of the Simce County and confirms that in addition to Barrie, Alliston, Bradford, Collingwood and Orillia, there will be new “urban nodes” in Town of Midland and Town of Penetanguishene.
To control runaway growth in Simcoe County, and under huge pressure from developers who seek cheaper land, Ontario allocated a population cap to Simcoe of about 677,000 people by 2031, a 52 per cent increase from the county’s 437,100 population in 2006. Development interests have plans for more than 1 million people.
Smith said it is wrong to set population targets for the area before understanding the capacity of Lake Simcoe to support growth.
But Innisfil’s mayor-elect, Barb Baguley, said the employment zone is great news — not just for her municipality but for the entire region.
“It allows local employment and an opportunity to able to work in their home communities and in the region,” she said. “It improves so much of society when people can work locally.”
When the growth plan first came out, the province opposed the employment zones along Highway 400 because they ran counter to the effort to curb non-contiguous urban expansion.