AWARE Simcoe calls on province to plan for real sustainability
AWARE Simcoe news release
AWARE Simcoe is calling on Ontario to plan for finite, sustainable communities. The underlying assumption of the current planning regime is one of perpetual growth, with no community ever deemed to be complete, no level of population ever enough.
“In our view this assumption is perverse and irrational,” AWARE Simcoe states in its submission to the ministry of municipal affairs
The organization, founded in 2010 to protect water and farmland, draws examples from two recent high-profile local planning controversies – the 10-fold expansion of Midhurst and approval of the new Simcoe County Official Plan – to make a number of recommendations, including:
– A ‘Net Benefit’ standard for all new development.
– Growth must pay for growth; under the present system, it doesn’t.
– Improved measures to ensure the informed involvement of local citizens when major community change is being contemplated
– Progressive legislation such as Places to Grow should be enforced. Recent amendments, the result of lobbying by the development industry, should be repealed.
– The farm sector is one of the main drivers of the Ontario economy. Farmland is employment land and should not be converted to less productive and less important economic uses.
– The Ontario Municipal Board was not part of this review, but this unelected body with a clear pro-development bias, should have been subject to evaluation.
The Municpal Affairs ministry solicited comment on land use planning, appeals and development charges. Comment closed January 10.
Links
Land use planning review – AWARE Simcoe comments
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