New breed of councillor emerges in 905

By Phinjo Gombu Toronto Star November 28 2010
Regional councillor-elect Deb Schulte belongs to a group called Sustainable Vaughan and loves to garden. But please don’t call her an environmentalist.
Schulte, who fought to preserve the valuable agricultural and natural heritage lands, does not want constituents to think of her as a “tree-hugger.”
Tony Lambert, a councillor-elect in Milton, wants developers to pay a greater share of the costs associated with future growth.
He argues that infrastructure such as wider roads to avoid congestion must be built before homes go up and be paid for by developers, not taxpayers.
In Pickering, regional councillor-elect Peter Rodrigues says bluntly that developers don’t pay enough. He looks to Oakville and Halton Region as models.
“I’m not against housing, but every time they build a house, (developers) don’t pay enough development charges,” says Rodrigues, a self-financed candidate who raises chickens, hang-glides and hates high property taxes.
All three rookie councillors are part of a new breed on local and regional councils that appeared as the ballots were counted Oct. 25. They represent a wave of upheaval that went beyond the unseating of well-known mayors such as Vaughan’s Linda Jackson and Oshawa’s John Gray.
Their victories hint at an emerging movement in the cities around Toronto, where the development industry once ruled. It’s the rise of hard-nosed community activists, who believe in environmental sustainability but also use the language of lower taxes and greater fiscal accountability. Often, they’re adding to their voter credibility by snubbing corporate donations to their campaigns.
Schulte, whose first motion before council will be to revisit the controversial decision to expand Vaughan outwards, knocked out long-established regional councillors such as Joyce Frustaglio and Mario Ferri. Lambert, who is proud that fast-growing Milton elected an Afro-Canadian councillor, thrashed 33-year incumbent Brian Penman; Rodrigues unseated longtime regional councillor Rick Johnson.
While it is too early to tell if this swing represents fleeting defiance at the way we have planned and built communities or a permanent reordering of our priorities, people on both sides of the issue say something has shifted.
Stephen Dupuis, president of the Building and Land Development Association, acknowledges that change is in the air in Halton, Durham and Simcoe County, but comforts himself with the thought that the regimes in York and Peel, where much of the region’s growth is still centred, have “been relatively stable.”
“I get that feeling every four years,” he said of the election results. “There’s a lot of anti-development rhetoric. Nobody wins on a pro-development campaign.”
And Dupuis challenges the premise that growth isn’t paying for itself, insisting that well-managed growth is still the best way to keep property taxes low.
Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence, argues the election upsets seen across the region are an indictment of past planning transgressions.
“The platforms were of people typically in favour of protecting natural heritage systems, quality of life, protecting water quality, standing up for the case that badly planned suburban sprawl has to come to an end,” said Smith.
“I think the admittedly important mayoralty race in Toronto and the incredible scrutiny of it has obscured the fact a lot of environmentally minded candidates won.”
The trend emerged first in Halton Region during the last municipal term. It was there, under the leadership of regional chair Gary Carr, that councillors really started to stare down developers. They fought for, then enforced, increasingly larger development fees — upfront, under the mantra that growth must pay for itself, a model pioneered by Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion.
(York Region models a more traditional way of doing business. It faces a $1 billion debt, the highest in the GTA per capita, and accumulated thanks to a policy that sees the region paying a large part of the costs for infrastructure, such as sewers and roads, in new neighbourhoods. The region assumes it will later recoup the money, with interest, from developers.)
With the Oct. 25 election of Burlington’s Rick Goldring, a former Green Party candidate who campaigned for the mayor’s seat on a platform of fiscal responsibility and accountability, three of Halton Region’s four mayors are now considered broadly “green.”
People connected with the development industry and watchdog groups such as Environmental Defence note that the trend isn’t limited to the GTA. Well north of Toronto, in Simcoe County — where hundreds of hectares of farmland will be the stage for the next round of development battles — change came in a big way.
Take Robert Keffer, a soft-spoken farmer who has raised concerns about the destruction of prime agricultural land. He was elected deputy mayor of Bradford West Gwillimbury in an upset. During the campaign, he spoke out against an employment zone proposed for the area around Highways 400 and 88 — a forerunner of “leapfrogging” development above the protected Greenbelt — but talks tough on taxes and the need for jobs in the region.
Also in Simcoe County, the Guergis brothers, Tony and David, both cousins of Independent MP Helena Guergis and mayors respectively of Springwater and Essa, were tossed out. Critics attribute that result to their support of Site 41, a controversial landfill project that a coalition of residents, environmental activists and First Nations people fought on the basis that it would pollute an aquifer of unusual purity.
Major battles loom over growth issues, as the newly elected crop of politicians prepares to take office in the weeks ahead:
How will local councils react to the province’s attempt to manage sprawl and implement ambitious plans for regional transit?
What position will prevail as a review of the Greenbelt legislation looms in 2015: Should the protected area be rolled back or expanded?
And expect heated discussion on whether developers should pay more to municipalities through development charges placed on each home built. With a new crop of councillors trying to balance financial and environmental interests, it could be a tumultuous four years.