[getsmart-l] A space to grow without sprawl

[Janet May]

 <http://www.thestar.com/default> 

A space to grow without sprawl TheStar.com - columnists - A space to grow
without sprawl 

`We're going to be living a little closer together': Minister



February 19, 2007 

Christopher Hume



Don't look now, but the landscape of Ontario has changed.

Recent amendments and additions to the legislative framework of the province
mean that the rules governing planning have been rewritten. On paper at
least, the bad old days of endless sprawl are over, replaced by a new regime
that values higher density and higher quality development. It will take time
before the results of the changes are visible, but they will happen.

"It's a 25-year plan," says David Caplan, Ontario's minister of public
infrastructure renewal. "What we have put in place is a blueprint for how
we're going to grow over the next few decades. The first thing we've done is
say where you don't want growth to happen - that's absolutely critical -
then we've said where we do want it to grow."

Caplan is referring to the province's plans for the greenbelt and for
growth, which seek to protect environmentally sensitive areas such as the
Oak Ridges Moraine, the Niagara Escarpment and the Rouge Valley, and
concentrate development in designated "nodes" such as Barrie, Mississauga,
Markham, Kitchener/Waterloo and, of course, Toronto.

"We want to make it so you don't have to get into your car for two or three
hours daily to go to work or to shop," Caplan explains. "Many people have
told us this should have happened 20 years ago. We're going to be living a
little closer together. It's about greening as well as growth."

As Ontario's minister of municipal affairs and housing, John Gerretsen,
points out, "It's about controlling gridlock as well as sprawl. It's easy to
do greenfields development; municipalities like that. But what we're talking
about is greater intensification along transportation routes. Farmland has
to be protected. So now the province has set the ground rules for
development. It's up to municipalities to update their Official Plans so
that they're in line with the new provincial policies."

At the same time, cities in Ontario have been given more control over
planning, though this must be done within the rules established in the
growth plan.

So, for example, by 2015, a minimum of 40 per cent of new housing must be
constructed within the existing urban footprint. In most jurisdictions in
Ontario, the current rate is 15 per cent. In Vancouver, it's 70 per cent.
The difference is what we call sprawl.

In addition to this, cities now have the power to get more specific about
the form that growth will take. This also means architectural control
implemented through mechanisms such as a design review panel.

Though the Ontario Municipal Board stays, its mandate has shifted in an
important way. Whereas in the past, the OMB was required to "have regard to"
municipal decisions, it must now "be consistent with" those decisions. This
may sound pretty dry, but it's one of those changes that has the power to
alter the course of development in Ontario. This is something that
desperately needs to happen, and now the process has started.

So far, local reaction has been muted; as so often seems the case, foreign
response has been more enthusiastic. Last year, the American Planning
Association gave the Daniel Burnham Award to Ontario's Growth Plan for the
Greater Golden Horseshoe.

In other words, now we are at the point where we will see just how committed
Torontonians and Ontarians are to sustainability. We're still not paying the
full cost of the services we consume, but the days of $2 a litre gas, and
road tolls and the like, aren't far away.

Resistance will be stiff but ultimately futile. Indeed, when future
historians look back at the last half of the 20th century, when vehicular
addiction spiralled out of control, they will shake their heads and wonder:
What were they thinking?

Indeed, what are we thinking?

Regardless, the days of reckoning are finally upon us. Think of it as the
calm before the storm. By the time the clouds have cleared, we might just
have our house in order. Canada, or at least our part of it, might no longer
be a dinosaur. 

chume at thestar.ca

 

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