Let’s grow the Greenbelt in Simcoe County
Letter to the Barrie Advance
Re: City has grown 560% in 40 years, study finds, April 7.
Your article was staggering. What was more jaw-dropping is what has been sacrificed to support Barrie’s previous love of sprawl – 154 square-kilometres (26,000 football fields) of natural and semi-natural space, mostly forest.
Forests and natural spaces aren’t just wasted space. They are irreplaceable systems that filter our water and air as well as support our tourism and recreation industry. In fact, those green spaces have been linked to an increase in residents’ mental health and they make our communities more liveable and happy.
Unfortunate as it is that Barrie lost so much to sprawl, there is hope the city will act more responsibly to preserve its natural environment going forward.
With Simcoe County slated to grow to 667,000 people by 2031, there is an increased demand to grow our communities. At the same time, the county needs to preserve its beaches, forests, farmland and rivers for our health and economy. I believe the Ontario Greenbelt can help achieve that balance.
Tell your local council, MPP and the premier that we want the Greenbelt to grow in Simcoe County.
Margaret Prophet – Co-Chair, Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition
Barrie has grown 560% in 40 years: Statistics Canada
By Jenni Dunning Barrie Advance April 7 2016
The City of Barrie grew by a staggering 556 per cent in 40 years, according to a new Statistics Canada study.
The report is the first of its kind by the national research organization to examine census metropolitan areas between 1971 and 2011.
During that time, Barrie also lost 154 square kilometres — equal to about 26,000 football fields — of natural and semi-natural land, such as forests and pastures to mostly suburban settlement.
“This is an interesting study of the period during which Barrie went through super-rapid — some would say largely uncontrolled — growth,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman. “A 40-year period is a long time, but it shows how, in the space of two generations or so, Barrie has gone from a small town to a medium-size city.”
Barrie’s built-up area went from 24 square-kilometres in 1971, to 155 sq.-km in 2011, read the report. Of the natural and semi-natural land that was lost to settlement during this period, about 64 per cent was forest, 15 per cent was pasture and 21 per cent was categorized as “other.”
In our Watershed Trust submission to the Municipal Act review, we said that local municipalities must have the right to resist population growth estimates from the Ontario government in favour of sustainability. That is, if the municipality feels that projected growth is unsustainable against benchmarks of maintaining natural heritage or biodiversity, the province should be obliged to revise the growth estimates.