AWARE Simcoe comment on Simcoe County Official Plan

AWARE Simcoe August 14 2012 updated 

This document has been prepared with input from Environmental Defence (ED) and Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition.

We have set up a petition with some of the key points from this document. We want Simcoe County to know that many people want our Official Plan to protect the land and water we all count on – and we want a say on what the final version of the Official Plan will mandate. Please sign the petition NOW! The county is has set a deadline for comment of August 22 2012.

 

To: Simcoe County Clerk Brenda Clark August 20 2012

We consider Simcoe County’s draft proposed modified Official Plan, presently being reviewed by local municipal councils and county council, to be a fundamentally flawed document.

This is the 2008 Official Plan that failed to gain provincial approval because it promoted sprawl. Four years have passed since there was any public consultation. Now, in the wake of deeply inadequate provincial legislation (Amendment 1) the document has been modified by negotiation between County staff and provincial bureaucrats and the plan is to adopt it without any further involvement of the public. That’s not good enough. 

County leaders should be bringing the modified plan to our communities and explaining to our citizens what the implications are for them. An invitation to submit written comments by August 22 was issued in the absence of any debate or engagement of the public at a time of the year – the middle of the summer – when it’s notoriously difficult to contact people. 

Our species’ relentless quest for growth has had a profound and negative impact on the climate, the ability of renewable resources to renew and is leading to the rapid decline of economically accessible non-renewable resources. The authors have concluded that overall, the cost of growth outweighs the benefits. We therefore challenge the implicit assumptions of the Official Plan – that growth is either beneficial to communities, both economically and socially, or is inevitable. 

We do envisage change that employs our land base more efficiently through intensification and new (or old) technologies, and by encouraging and attracting enterprises that add to the well-being of society. To ensure that this happens, proponents of development should be required to demonstrate how the community as a whole will benefit. Presently, the onus for demonstrating harm all too often falls on citizens as municipal governments cite fear of lawsuits for failing to defend communal interests. 

Some corporations and individuals benefit from growth. Citizens pay the cost. Taxes do not go down in communities that grow. They increase! Development charges do not cover the total cost of development and do nothing to address the continuing expense of maintaining new infrastructure and providing additional services. Those cost increases are shared by existing taxpayers and newcomers alike. Ensure development charges cover the full capital and infrastructure costs of development and be based on actual rather than projected or allocated costs.

The population targets of Amendment 1 (legislation specific to Simcoe County that was enacted by the province seven months ago) and the Official Plan are based on past growth patterns, projected into the future. Within the last 50 years, we have seen rural municipalities in the GTA grow from populations of 15,000 or 20,000 to become large cities with a collective population of 4 or 5 million people. 

The authors have an alternative view of planning. Instead of looking to past trends that have had disastrous effects, we urge instead that population targets be based on the carrying capacity of the land, to ensure communities that are sustainable for the long term, and to preserve agricultural land and the environment. 

Lake Simcoe is already beyond the limit of its carrying capacity (the Lake Simcoe Protection Act requires a 40 per cent reduction in phosphorus discharge, but approved new development is projected to increase phosphorus by 18 to 25 per cent). The Nottawasaga watershed needs at least the same protection as Lake Simcoe. 

Three years ago, the provincial government promised to undertake research into carrying capacity in Simcoe County. That has yet to happen. Pipelines and other expensive engineering projects to move water and wastewater long distances in order to facilitate poorly sited development should not be considered. But Simcoe County’s recent Water and Wastewater Visioning Strategy is a blueprint for such ill-advised projects. 

Population allocation must be tied to some clear rationale that addresses carrying capacity. Policy 5.3 of the Growth Plan calls for implementation analysis, and specifically sub-area assessments, focusing on: regional economic analysis and employment areas, implications of growth on water and wastewater servicing, transportation, identification of natural areas, agricultural areas, and aggregate resources. None have been completed to our knowledge. Thus we find no acceptable justification for the allocation of population or employment areas to the areas proposed in Amendment 1. 

Places to Grow and the Lake Simcoe Protection Act were laudable provincial responses to inept local planning that was consuming farmland and natural spaces and degrading our watersheds. Many excellent principles were articulated in a series of provincial plans and legislation over the past six years, and some of those principles are reflected in the Official Plan. Unfortunately, Amendment 1 came with loopholes that threaten to turn the county once again into the Wild West of development in Ontario.  

They include:

– Section 6.3.2.1, that allows municipalities to approve development in excess of population targets – totally undermining the plan to direct growth to seven primary settlement areas. 

– Section 6.3.2.2, that allows rural and agricultural lands within settlement areas to be designated for urban uses. 

Canada’s fertile food land base is shrinking. More than half of its Class 1 land is in Ontario. The Ontario Farmland Trust notes that: 

Climate change and rising energy costs will revolutionize how and where Ontarians get our food. It is woefully shortsighted to use agricultural land – in close proximity to a huge metropolis that may increasingly depend on Simcoe County for food and other resources – as a cheap and profitable alternative to the plentiful supply of approved development land within the Greater Golden Horseshoe. 

The Official Plan pays lip service to the importance of agriculture. But on the issue of designating agricultural land for urban use it fails to set clear criteria, opting instead for a list of possible criteria to be considered by municipalities (Table 2). This is just one example of legislation that leaves too much room for interpretation and no mechanism for even-handed control. Flexibility has been trumpeted as a positive feature of Amendment 1 and the draft proposed modified Official Plan – but it is in fact bad law, and will allow influence to trump sound planning principles. 

Urban growth targeted for Simcoe County could be planned and designed to have far less impact on Lake Simcoe and the Nottawasaga by reducing water consumption, sewage treatment effluent, stormwater run-off, and energy consumption.  If successful, such a standard could guide all new growth in Ontario.  

We propose that the County reward environmental leaders by setting a green building standard, and requiring new development on Greenfields to conform. Alternatively, the selection of successful development applications could consider the environmental impact of the development, using this standard as a guide.  

 

We can decrease the phosphorus going into water bodies, reduce energy and water consumption by 50 per cent, and save precious farmland with modest changes to the way we plan Greenfield development.  

 Our simple solution requires two very small changes to the way we design new “Greenfield” communities: reverse the urban vs. suburban standard to allow 55 per cent private use of land, and reward communities that can meet  the transit oriented  (or transit “dependent” as we like to call it) density of 75 R&J/H:  

 

1. Build new communities according to a pre -set standard (see attached checklist) and design roads, schools, parks, etc. at an urban standard vs. suburban (45% vs. 55% typical public space set aside); and,  

2.   Create a greater incentive for higher, smarter densities, cap levies on new lots/units at the target density e.g. 50 residents and jobs per hectare R&J/H   allowing green developers to save levy charges above the prescribed density target; and allow developers meeting the Greenfields Standard to access a 10% Tax Incentive Financing for innovative stormwater management, green roofs, high efficiency appliances and other green building and community design amenities.  

Below is a brief outline of a proposed greenfield standard:

1 Phosphorus reduction in Lake Simcoe and conformity with Lake Simcoe Protection Plan

2 Density of up to 75 residents, jobs and services per hectare, an excellent transit supportive density

3 Cap development levies at density targets e.g. 50 jobs & residents/ha; let developers keep profit and plow profits into green building technologies and design

4 Reverse Rural-to-Urban Standards: more land for development, less land consumed by infrastructure, roads,  school sites, etc.

5 People friendly streets: require single loaded roads  adjacent to natural features and parks; reduce block dimensions e.g. no side longer than 250 metres to encourage pedestrian activity; and reduce road widths, adopt new lane designs & mandatory bike lanes; add green linkages

6 Reduce area of traditional turf and lawns, and limit surface impermeability, e.g. no driveway on any lot can be larger than 50% of the lot frontage, and encourage of on-street parking to minimize paved surfaces on each lot 

7 Identification: Designated Growth Node

8 Mixed Land Uses that encourage live/work, walk to work and less traffic

9 Efficient use of public infrastructure (e.g., hospitals) e.g., green roofs or other measures to mitigate heat island effect

10 Water conservation/efficiency (target: reduce demand by 50%)

11 Energy conservation/efficiency (target: reduce community demand  by 50%) including ground source heating and cooling, LED street lighting and Zero-Net Energy by 2017; orient streets north-south and lots east-west to optimize southern solar gain and to minimize western solar heat gain to dwelling units

12 Prohibition on road salt, replaced with  locally sourced or grown de-icing/traction alternatives

13 Tree standard: 25 trees per acre; encourage tree canopy over all road surfaces to minimize heat island effect, and minimum 10 cubic metres of top soil for each tree planted

14 Green Building and Design: indoor air quality; green roofs, water and energy efficiency

15 Use Local Materials: Green Gravel, Stone and Brick; Green Cement and Concrete (See SERA: Socially and Environmentally Responsible Aggregate, http://www.seracanada.ca/)

16 Innovative stormwater management, including design features such as bio-swales 

For more information please contact Claire Malcolmson at cmalcolmson@environmentaldefence.ca 

They are unnecessary and will lead to further sprawl and unsustainable development. The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area already has 30,000 acres of unused and approved employment land and there is only a need for another 10,000 to meet demand for the projected growth. This can easily be found in the Whitebelt south of the Greenbelt – nearer important services like transit, rail yards and airports.

 

Roads are expensive to build and to maintain, fragment agricultural business operations and wildlife habitat, act as vectors for invasive species, make previously less accessible land vulnerable to development, and promote the use of fossil fuels. Intensification of population in the primary settlement areas should be paralleled by increased investment in public transit. This is an essential part of building complete communities and moving away from a lifestyle in which a car is needed to work, shop, access services and enjoy recreational activities. Planning for a public transit network should be at the heart of the Official Plan and should be completed before there is any consideration of the new roads outlined in Schedule 5.5.2.  

 

Planners use the Canada Land Inventory to determine the quality of agricultural land (there are 7 classes, with Classes 1-3 considered most worthy of protection). But this inventory is old (dating back to the 1960s), outdated and in many cases completely wrong because of the methodology of extrapolation (the scale of the survey is one inch per mile or 1:63,360, which allows for significant variations to be missed in the mapping). 

The Inventory does not reflect improvements that have resulted from modern farming practices, nor does it allow for recent re-evaluation of certain types of land (pasture to produce healthier and more productive grass-fed beef, for instance).  Scientists at the University of Guelph, as well as the land planners at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs acknowledge the inadequacies of this system of guidance for land acquisition and use. The Official Plan should mandate site-specific soil studies before allowing any redesignation of agricultural land.

Quantity Unprecedented low water levels in Simcoe County’s creeks and rivers as well as in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay are just one symptom of a loss of recharge capacity – due both to excess water withdrawals and a hotter, drier climate (nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000). Simcoe County’s good fortune has been an abundance of water. But it is easily squandered. Golf courses and quarries withdraw millions of litres of water a day. Low water levels affect drinking water, firefighting, crops and livestock, tourism and industrial activities. Section 3.1.3 of the Official Plan stresses the importance of these issues but Section 3.3.6 provides for development within 50 metres of fish habitat, significant woodlands, significant valley lands, significant wildlife habitat, and significant areas of natural and scientific interest. We think this is a significant failure to apply the precautionary principle. The Official Plan needs stringent provisions to protect recharge of watersheds and mitigate this looming water crisis.

Quality Current development plans will negatively impact Lake Simcoe’s water quality. Population allocations must consider the assimilative capacity of the receiving bodies of water, and must not result in an increase in Phosphorus to Lake Simcoe;

• The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan calls for a 40 per cent reduction in Phosphorus loads to the lake by 2045, from about 72 tonnes / year to 44 tonnes / year. 

• In September 2010, the Louis Berger Group wrote “Estimation of Phosphorus Loadings to Lake Simcoe”, a report published by the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority. It describes the results of modeling scenarios designed to measure the impacts of development in the Lake Simcoe watershed, based on adopted and draft official plans. It found, with business as usual practices; growth from these areas in Simcoe County will add approximately 4,576 kg/year of Phosphorus to the lake. The same level of growth, with selected agricultural Best Management Practices applied, will add 3,210 kg/year of Phosphorus to the lake.

• To resolve this contradiction development must conform to a standard that results in no additional Phosphorus loads to the lake, or the Province will be neglecting to follow its own Lake Simcoe Protection Plan.

The population or employment area allocations have potentially enormous and expensive implications, particularly in the area of water and wastewater servicing, with pipes running many miles across the County. In an era of fiscal restraint it is irresponsible to not do the analyses outlined in section 5.3 of the Growth Plan before making population and employment allocation decisions. Further, by not doing them, the province is in violation of its own Growth Plan regulations.

For example, if approved expansions to wastewater treatment plants prove to be an economic burden to ratepayers, this could lead to additional pressure to develop Greenfields to pay the costs of building and maintaining the expansion, putting further strain on the fragile Lake Simcoe and Nottawasaga ecosystems.

Extend the requirement under the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan to undertake environment assessments on supporting infrastructure before approving land use designations, to all of Simcoe County (Lake Simcoe Protection Plan policy 4.1).

Don Morgan, AWARE Simcoe chair

August 20, 2012

AWARE Simcoe is a citizens’ group that works for transparency and accountability in government and to protect water, the environment and health. This document has been prepared with input from Environmental Defence (ED), a Canadian environmental action organization that works to challenge, and inspire change in government, business and people to ensure a greener, healthier and prosperous life for all, and from Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition, which represents thirteen local member groups, and focuses on promoting dialogue between citizens and their governments around the lake.

 

Links to other comments on the draft proposed modified OP

Alec Adams AWARE Orillia – Endless growth in a finite world is impossible  

Sandy Agnew AWARE Oro-Medonte – Ultimate population numbers will depend on the carrying capacity of the land 

Bill French AWARE Springwater – Lack of clarity and specific control and guidance which allows the sprawl and loss of valuable farmland

Bernard Pope Ontario Farmland Preservation – Prosperity, not growth, should be the mandate of the Official Plan 

David Strachan Midhurst – Glaring errors which seem to have been overlooked 

Sierra Club Ontario – No intrabasin transfers of water in the Great Lakes