Policies & Threats Related to Greenspaces
At Environment Committee, May 19, 2015 The Greenspace Alliance’s submission (May 19, 2015) The City’s new proposals and decision (October 2016; updated February 2019) ECO calls on the Province to lead stormwater funding reform (November 2016) Province proposes runoff volume control targets (July 2017) What Waterloo, Victoria and Halifax are doing About rain gardens and road run-off
In late February, word came around that the newly created Support Centre to help communities in provincial planning matters would shut down by June and would not take on any new clients. Since it opened its doors in April, it has dealt with 570 requests from 168 communities! What better proof that this kind of help is badly needed. So we’re not taking this lying down: Here is a press
In preparation for the next revision of the Official Plan, the City has launched the Beyond 20136 Sounding Board. Around 50 representatives from a wide spectrum of organization and interests, public, private and from civil society have been invited by the City to advise it on how to frame and position the next revision of the Official Plan. What approach should it take? What kind of public engagement? Clean slate
New updated content: 2019-02-25 08:51:32 The City has followed through with the settlement measure that was discussed at our September 18 2018 meeting with them. They have agreed to show the greenspace linkages, established in OPA 76 as a result of an earlier settlement of a GA appeal, in a new non-binding Annex 16 to the Official Plan. This satisfies our settlement proposal and we now await formal documentation and
After a summer of reworking its Spring proposals, on October 3, 2016 the City tabled its revised recommendations. The slides used by staff at the October 18 Environment Committee meeting are here. Earlier, the City issued a What We Heard report about the Spring consultations. Find it here (1 MB). Following the Environment Committee meeting, the Clerk’s Office made a 74-page file available containing submissions from 50 citizens, redacted for
The Ontario government tabled a Bill on December 6, 2018 that would make dozens of amendments to many provincial acts “to stimulate business investment, create good jobs, and make Ontario more competitive by cutting unnecessary regulations”. Included are changes to the Planning Act (Schedule 10) that would enable municipalities to pass “open for business” bylaws that would suspend the application of environmental protection and normal due process (advance notice, right
Background on Development Charges (DCs) To find out what happened in 2014, please go here. To find out what happened in 2014-2018, please go here (the untold story!) In brief: + Development Charges pay for a lot, but not all of the infrastructure cost of growth. A reasonable guess is that DCs cover 60-70% of the true cost of growth. Any gap is funded by all property tax payers. + Despite
A most interesting discussion panel was assembled for an NCC Urbanism Lab on November 20, 2018. The event took place at the new headquarters of the Canadian Geographical Society, 50 Sussex Drive (the former International Pavilion). It was co-sponsored by the Canada Green Building Council and the Embassy of the U.S. Speakers were: + Doug Farr (Farr Associates, Chicago, a company that bills itself as “a firm of optimistic architects and planners
New updated content: 2018-02-26 18:01:19 We wrote indicating our interest and seeing if there was anything we could do to contribute. There will be an open house held this Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. updated content: 2018-10-29 14:33:13 The Environment Canada team leading the ORWS issued its first report, with a deadline for comments submission by October 31. This led to a very good discussion by members, with
A plethora of unsavory bills (Oct-Dec 2022) Ontario Elections, June 2 2022 (April 24, 2022) Don’t Shut Down the Local Planning Appeal Support Centre (Mar-Dec 2019) Bill 66, Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act (Dec 2018/Jan 2019)
