PRESIDENT'S LETTER
SPRING 2008
Dear PALS Supporter,
What an up and down few months we’ve had. As you can see by recent press reports, the down is for tender fruit and grape growers, first with the cancellation of Labrusca grape contracts, then the threatened closing of the CanGro canning plant ; and finally, the bank foreclosure of the co-operative winery- the Twenty Bees. The up- news, which preceded all the bad news, was the promise (as reported in our last newsletter) by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to proceed with a Ministry-led study of the use of restrictive covenants to protect the tender fruit lands “permanently.”
Nevertheless, even this latter initiative is not clear good news, as the promised study work has stagnated, with no word of its commencement three months after the fact. Of course this is most likely linked to all of the foregoing difficulties faced by the industry. Somehow, it is all quite reminiscent of the late 1980s, when government actions and extremely bad weather left tender fruit farmers ‘out on a very fragile limb’. At that time, drought, a winter deep freeze and hail, were followed closely by Free Trade, which cancelled out tariff protection - a factor in to-day’s CanGro situation, where there is no protection from fruit coming from very far away e.g. China, and any company wishing to carry on the business will have to compete for large contracts with companies from around the world. e.g. the huge U.S.A Dole company.
While this time round, the weather has not been as evident a factor for fruit growers, many Labrusca grape growers are again pulling out vines (as in 1988-90) , but this time without large payments from the Provincial government and only a small amount from the Federal government. Due to the over-planting of the less hardy wine varieties in the last several years, we hear the Grape Growers Marketing Board is not asking for replant money for farmers, but rather compensation . Meanwhile, of the tender fruit growers who supplied CanGro with pears, clingstone peaches and cherries some have found other markets, some will be working hard to switch to the fresh market varieties of peaches, some will receive company settlements and some, without a company contract or track record with CanGro, are left without anything for all the labour and investment they have put into their crops. So far no-one has managed to come to the rescue.
It was this very kind of situation that the successful ( and then cancelled ), PALS initiated, Provincial government Tender Fruit Land Program of 1994 was answering to, and why so many farmers signed up to place restrictive covenants on their land in return for government payments over the next several years. We hope we can be part of a solution for Niagara fruit farmers this time round. However, given the huge economic difficulties the whole province faces these days, one can only wonder what lies ahead for them.
In the meantime, we urge you to join PALS as we continue our 32 year endeavor to promote the farmer, the excellent fruit and the importance of land preservation. We also ask you , and everyone you know, to buy local fruit and support the farmers who grow the fruit!. Also, send your local MPP a letter showing that many Ontarians care about the rare and endangered land and farmers. Together we just might make a difference.
Val O’Donnell
ACROSS THE PROVINCE -John Bacher
Ecological Farmers Call on Government to Expand Greenbelt
At a recent 2007 meeting, the respected farm organization, the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, urged that the Ontario government expand its Greenbelt. The resolution read, “We are quickly losing prime farmlands in Ontario because of the lack of adequate provincial farmland preservation policies. The Ontario government must recognize that the Greenbelt proposal has already and will continue to impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside the Greenbelt. We therefore call upon the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario, and to re-evaluate the zoning by-laws adversely affecting farmland already encroached upon by urban sprawl. “
In a commentary prepared after the meeting the Ecological Farmers explained that their resolution was passed, “due to concern by our members about the “leapfrog” effect of the Greenbelt. The continued expansion of cities and the expansion of highways are eating up prime farmland. Developers are quickly gobbling up farmland in Brant, Simcoe, Wellington and Waterloo counties in particular. Superhighways such as the Niagara-GTA and 424 will cut through prime farmland and promote urban sprawl. We ask that the Ontario government recognize that the Greenbelt proposal has already and will continue to impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside of the Greenbelt. We also ask that you to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario”.
Save the Maskingonge Tackles Core Environmental Problems
Since 2002, the small environmental group, ‘Save the Makingonge’, has been fighting the biggest environmental threat to southern Ontario - the noxious combination of urban sprawl and expressways. This group is currently fighting at an OMB hearing to stop a proposed Keswick Business Park which is planned to be built adjacent to the river. The proposed business park, like most controversial land use planning battles in Ontario, is part of the “white”, or “black”, belt areas just outside of the Greenbelt. (see brief re Greenbelt Expansion )
Save Maskingonge members are also fighting the extension of the Highway 404, which will pass over the remains of a native long house along the river. Urban sprawl has so dried up its watershed, that in 2002 and 2007, the river, which flows into Lake Simcoe, has been dry for part of the summer.
Lake Simcoe Threatened by Urban Sprawl
Half of the watershed of Lake Simcoe is protected by the Greenbelt- half has been left outside. This reality shows the half-hearted attitude of the Ontario government when it comes to stopping urban sprawl and saving Ontario’s waters. A government serious about saving Lake Simcoe would put its watershed entirely in the Greenbelt and pay farmers to make environmental improvements on their farms such as buffer strips along streams. This is simply not happening because of the power of developers and the fear of many to confront them.
Pollution problems in Lake Simcoe are so severe that Lake Trout cannot survive without massive annual stocking. The fact that four trout a year are able to be reproduced naturally, have been used by opponents of tough measures to curb sprawl to trivialize the environmental problems confronting the lake.
Elsewhere on Lake Simcoe, environmentalists opposing the proposed Big Bay Point resort on Lake Simcoe were hit by multi-million dollar SLAP suits. Four separate suits have been filed totaling $90 million and $3.6 million has been sought by the developer from the opponents for OMB costs.
Government funded studies have tended to disguise the impact of urban sprawl on Lake Simcoe. In 2006 at the cost of $1.5 million a Lake Simcoe Assimilative Study was conducted. It was supposed to examine how much development Lake Simcoe could handle. It backed off of this issue and instead recommended a phosphorous loading plan, which did not take into account expected declines in annual precipitation expected from global warming.
AROUND THE REGION -John Bacher
North West Niagara Falls Faces Urban Expansion.
The Niagara Falls City Council recently voted to have the Niagara Region consider an expansion to its urban boundaries on 150 acres of predominately Class One agricultural land. The proposal is located on the south side of Mountain Road, west of the Queen Elizabeth Highway, immediately south of the border of both the Greenbelt and the Niagara Escarpment Commission Planning area.
In its brief to Niagara Falls City Council, PALS pointed out that, “To the north of Mountain Road, agricultural land is in high quality grape production and intensive horticultural operation. Mountain Road is not a division of agricultural micro-climate or soil type. It is however, the boundary of both the Provincial Greenbelt and of the Niagara Escarpment Plan area. Within this area, applications for urban development are not permitted until at least 2016. This would be only the beginning of the start of a process, which is expected to drag on for several years before any construction could actually begin. South of Mountain Road, the area where this proposed urban planning is taking place, the lands are either vacant, or are rented on short term leases for cash cropping.
PALS pointed out that, “ if the land use planning system is strong enough whereby it is clear to landowners that excellent grape land will not be paved over, then these lands will attract considerable investment in estate wineries.” The best example of this is the large estate winery in St Davids, Chateau de Charmes. The subject lands were vacant and owned by speculators for many years but became the site of an estate winery after it became clear that the urbanization of the site was unlikely because of the strict planning control administered by the Niagara Escarpment Commission.
PALS also pointed out that our opposition to the proposed urban boundary expansion was supported by a City of Niagara Falls Planning Department report prepared by UrbanMetrics. It concluded that, “on our review of these planning submissions and the extent of residential land development and redevelopment opportunities that exist inside the existing urban boundary, we do not believe that alterations to the urban boundary are critically required at this time as a means of effectively managing future growth. In fact we believe that growth outside the urban boundary in the near to medium term may if fact have damaging impacts on the take-up of more centrally located residential infill and re-development opportunities in the city”, serving to “undermine development of other lands in Niagara Falls where residential uses area permitted as of right.”
Urban Metrics warned that Niagara Falls may soon be deluged with development applications for urban boundary expansions, as far away from the current urban boundaries as the Lyons Creek area of the city. This is because the North West expansion is serving as the “proxy”, “for all other development applications outside the urban boundary.”
Regional Population Debate. (See Quotables article)
Developers who hope to justify sprawl in Niagara outside of the provincial Greenbelt, are placing their hopes on the debate on the region’s population projection. They are attempting to do this by disputing the population estimate given to Niagara by the provincial government. This is done by claiming that their will be migration to Niagara as a result of planning controls in other communities, and by the impact of the mid-peninsula expressway. Since this debate has received no comment in the media, it is important that your concerns be addressed to the Niagara Regional Planning Department.
Province Plans Battle to Uphold Growth Management Plan.
On Monday, April 14th the Province Ontario will be engage in a battle to uphold their Growth Management Plan through an Ontario Municipal Board hearing at the Niagara Falls City Council Chambers which is expected to last at least three weeks. PALS, along with Jean Grandoni, will be participating in this hearing, where the province has appealed to the OMB official plan amendments approved by the Niagara Falls City Council and the Niagara Regional Council. These would allow rural estate development on two and a half acre lots, on an area of around five hundred acres in the former Township of Willoughby in Niagara Falls. New re-zonings for such development are not permitted under the provincial Growth Management Plan. Both PALS and Jean Grandoni are participants at the hearing in support of the province and have submitted witness statements.
PALS Works to Protect Forests
Ably assisted by Jean Grandoni, PALS has worked diligently in recent months to protect forests in Niagara Falls, threatened by urban encroachment. In the case of the Warren Woods subdivision, the developer asked the City Council to address our concerns when we pointed out
that two ten acre forests, which are protected as provincially significant wetlands, were not properly identified in a proposed zoning amendment. In the case of the proposed Thundering Waters application, we supported comments by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority based on its newly approved Land Use Policy, which for the first time recognizes the importance of Locally Significant wetlands. This concerns a very large 180 hectare Carolinian forest, which is a rare Pin Oak swamp ecosystem and an important deer wintering yard.
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PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY
Working to protect the best farmlands in Canada since 1976
Box 1090 St. Catharines, ON L2R 7A3
March 22, 2008
The Honourable James Bradley
Minister of Transportation
Dear Minister Bradley,
Our congratulations on your appointment to the post of Minister of Transportation. The work that you do will have many important ramifications related to urban sprawl and the protection of prime farmlands, the unique fruit lands and natural areas such as the Niagara Escarpment, a rare and much treasured World Biosphere Reserve. .
PALS is certainly pleased that the Niagara to GTA Corridor is undergoing a full scale Environmental Assessment. Nevertheless, our researcher, John Bacher, who sits on the EA’s public advisory committee, has drawn an important matter to our attention in this regard.
It is of some significance, that although the Environmental Assessment is going to identify local use of east-west corridors, such as the QEW, as a factor in congestion, it is not planning to identify any solutions to this problem, deeming it to be in the jurisdiction of municipal governments. This means that methods of reducing heavy local QEW use in Hamilton-Burlington and St. Catharines, that in the past have been cited as points of congestion on the QEW, will not be addressed.
Both Dr. Bacher of PALS, and the City of Burlington planners have noted the heavy local traffic on the QEW near shopping malls, such as the Fairview Mall, as causes of severe congestion, and have raised the failure to undertake local transportation studies as a problem with the Niagara to GTA corridor plans several times over the last few years.
As you are aware, there is quite an area of shared jurisdiction between the provinces and municipalities and in the past there have been several joint projects. For instance, in 1964 the Province provided substantive funds for the St. Catharines Transportation Study document. Unfortunately it is still the only such overall guiding study for the City, and has now become obsolete because, among another factors, many of the excellent grape and tender fruit lands which were slated for urbanization in that report, are now protected by the Provincial Greenbelt.
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PALS feels that it is not enough just to identify a ‘peak-demand’ factor caused by local use of east-west corridors in St. Catharines and Hamilton-Burlington. Rather, the Niagara to GTA Corridor Environmental Assessment exercise should look at strategies
by which this congestion can be minimized , thus removing an excuse that the congestion necessitates a new expressway.
Additionally these traffic-reduction strategies would also help tourism and the shipping of goods along the QEW and be an important factor in the reducing the overall human impact upon the environment in the study area, especially in terns of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We thank you for considering our concerns and look forward to your thoughts on this important matter.
Sincerely,
Val O’ Donnell, President
PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY (PALS)
‘Working to Protect the Best Farmlands in Canada since 1976'
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
14th Floor, 777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5G-2E5
Brief re: ‘Growing the Greenbelt: Draft Criteria for Consultations
Dr. John Bacher PhD. March 25, 2008
Introduction- Strengths of the Greenbelt
The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society welcomes this opportunity to comment on the expansion of the Greenbelt. This is an important initiative by the government, and one that is needed to provide serious protection for our agricultural land base.
PALS believes that the establishment of the Greenbelt was a long overdue measure. For apart from the Greenbelt lands similarly protected by the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act - to the southern shore of Lake Simcoe - the Act provides the type of protections envisaged in the original 1978 Preliminary Proposals of the Niagara Escarpment Plan. In doing so, it provides protection to both the Niagara Fruit Belt, the most valuable farmland in Canada from the perspective of a microclimate to grow tender fruit and grapes and a great range of agricultural crops, and most of the watersheds that cross the Niagara Escarpment.
The Greenbelt Act also pioneered in developing a broader form of provincial regulation of the rural landscape, than the exclusively agriculturally orientated land reserves of British Columbia and Quebec. It protects not only valuable agricultural lands, but a range of environments, especially environmentally significant forests and recharge areas.
PALS recognizes the Greenbelt’s strength in two other ways. First, unlike any other area of the province, it provides permanent protection from urban encroachment, for the unique farmlands of the Niagara Fruit Belt and Holland Marsh. Secondly, it imposes on the rest of the province, a moratorium on all urban expansions until 2015.
Limitations of the Greenbelt
However, there are significant limitations in the Greenbelt. First, while the province’s best Niagara Fruit lands are properly part of it, the vast majority of the excellent Class One to Three agricultural lands in Ontario are excluded from its protection. Indeed many of the environmental features protected through the Greenbelt- the Escarpment, the Oak Ridges Moraine, and other forests and natural areas, tend, by their nature to be poorly suited for agriculture.
Secondly, in municipalities that still have agriculturally zoned land , only in Niagara and the City of Burlington, are the urban zoning boundaries right up against the Greenbelt boundaries. In all the other municipalities in the Greenbelt, there is a gap.
This has been termed the “White Belt”, by the Neptis Foundation, and the “Black Belt”,
by the late farmer Peter Grandoni, in recognition of the tendency for these areas to become engulfed by urban sprawl.
The first priority regarding the expansion of the Greenbelt should be to expand it right up to the urban zoning limits of municipalities where this does not take place. This includes, Hamilton, Milton, Vaughan, Markham, Oshawa, Pickering and Georgetown.
PALS is not convinced by the arguments that have been used to exclude lands from Greenbelt in the “white”, or “black” belt. Part of the problem is the refusal of the province to accept the City of Toronto’s goal to accommodate more than its provincial growth projection allocation of 500,000 people. Another problem is that the over zoning of industrial land has not been recognized. Such over-zoned lands over time are largely converted to residential purposes, but the failure to recognize this is a major contributor to sprawl. There are also, as Neptis points out, lands which over time tend to be converted to urban purposes e.g. quarries, golf courses, and most significantly brownfield sites. While PALS has seen figures of the total acreages of brownfield sites in various municipalities, we have yet to see a single example of these lands being taken into account in developing estimates of land need.
The Need to Expand the Greenbelt on Prime Farmlands South of the Canadian Shield
Regarding the extension of the Greenbelt outside of the “black belt”- in effect to other municipalities- PALS wishes to stress that in principle, the Greenbelt should be the norm in determining urban boundary expansions throughout the predominately agricultural privately owned rural landscape of southern Ontario. These lands are different from the predominately crown land pattern of ownership characteristic of the Canadian Shield. Essentially, therefore, there should be a Western Greenbelt east of Kingston, defined by the fertile land south west of the Canadian Shield, and an Eastern Greenbelt for the agricultural lands of south eastern Ontario.
The Need for Orderly Land Use Mechanisms for Agricultural Land Protection
It is important to consider the major difference between the protections of the Greenbelt and that afforded by the Planning Act to agricultural land. The reformed Planning Act now, for the first time, imposes a five year freeze on any re-zonings of agriculturally- zoned land, requiring that such changes be part of a comprehensive municipal plan review. It also gives the additional protection that an individual municipality has the right to refuse such requests, without the ability of developers, as in the past, to appeal these decisions to the Ontario Municipal Board. (OMB.) In turn, what the Greenbelt does is require (outside of Niagara) that any such changes wait till 2015. This is just two years longer than the freeze imposed everywhere by the Planning Act.
Our suggested expansion to the Greenbelt simply ensures that the review of urban boundary expansions by a provincial tribunal, will be more orderly than the process of OMB hearings on applications throughout Ontario on a case by case basis. Such a process, in PALS long experience going back to our founding in 1976, will be one that will encourage urban sprawl, based on the opportunistic use of population projections. A comprehensive review will be the basis of more realistic projection, where there will be just one estimate for the province. This would replace the current use of projection figures, which if combined, would exceed the actual growth in a population by a factor of ten.
Support for Our Recommendation
There may be a tendency to regard PALS’ request for an extension of the Greenbelt to be based on extreme views, unappreciative of the sensitivities of farm residents. In this regard, we wish to draw to your attention a recent resolution passed by the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, which reads, “We are quickly losing prime farmlands in Ontario because of the lack of adequate provincial farmland preservation policies. The Ontario government must recognize that the Greenbelt Proposal has already and will continue to, impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside the Greenbelt. We therefore call upon the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario, and to re-evaluate the zoning by-laws adversely affecting farmland already encroached upon by urban sprawl.”
Conclusion
Finally, PALS notes that in the proposed criteria that the government has suggested for Greenbelt expansion there would only be one area, where the Greenbelt- base would be able to expand. This is the Region of Waterloo, one of the municipalities least in need of such protection, because of its strong zoning policies for almost 30 years. While Guelph has requested to be in the Greenbelt, according to Draft Criteria #3, it could not be, since it is not adjacent to it.
PALS’ recognizes that the criteria proposed for Greenbelt expansion will be pleasing to many municipal governments. It is not however, what is needed to protect the farm community from sprawl, or to address the serious environmental problems of the province caused by it, some of which, notably the threat to our watersheds, now have dramatically increased because of global warming. We hope your government has the vision and courage to take a decisive step toward the province becoming an authentic model for environmental sustainability.
“Response to the Proposed Regional Niagara Growth Strategy,
By Dr. John Bacher (PhD), Researcher February 8, 2008
1. Thrust of Niagara Growth Management Strategy is to Undermine Intent of Provincial Growth Management Plan
Although disguised as a seemingly reasonable “medium” growth scenario, between two other “low” and “high growth”options, the basic result should the Region accept the proposed Niagara Growth Management Strategy, by Dillon Consulting, would be an undermining of the orderly planning process sought in the Provincial Growth Management Plan. This is contrary to both the Places to Grow Act and the Planning Act, which seek to ensure to control sprawl by ensuring that realistic population projections are employed by municipalities.
To be effective in its basic goal of encouraging good planning, the Growth Management Plan requires the province to allocate population from a provincial estimate. This is done for good reasons. In the past, as was shown in the 1992-94 review of the Planning Act, municipalities would commonly come up with growth estimates that, if combined, would be about ten times the actual total growth of the province. This would be a major factor in encouraging sprawl, since re-zonings of agricultural land for urban development, especially in industrial-commercial areas, would be far in excess of what was actually needed.
In this case, if the Niagara Region was to actually adopt the suggested population projections, it would be defying Provincial Policy. This would result in Regional efforts to approve urban boundary expansions, which would naturally be appealed by the Province, and subsequently defeated at the Ontario Municipal Board, since the Government’s purpose is to ensure that its policies are actually implemented. The result would be a futile waste of public expenses on land use planning in Niagara .”...
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4. Too Much Stress is Place Upon Niagara GTA/Corridor as Growth Stimulant
PALS challenges the assumption, repeated numerous times in this report, that the Niagara/GTA corridor will be a major growth stimulant, with the power to reverse declining trends in the manufacturing sector. This is because there is a major stretch along the QEW in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie, which if these assumption were correct, (ie,. “access to major markets”) would be receiving an increase in manufacturing activity. Instead it is experiencing an industrial decline, which is likely more severe, than the rest of the Niagara Region. This has lead to major re-zonings of formerly industrial land close to the QEW in Niagara Falls, to accommodate both tourist commercial and residential development.
Given the report’s flawed assumptions about growth in other parts of the GTA hitting a wall of planning controls, the Niagara/GTA corridor, rather than a source of employment, appears to be a place for commuter travel to employment opportunities in other areas. If it was done in such a way as to increase the urban zoning envelope, such unwarranted growth would have harmful environmental impacts, but these drawbacks appears to be an unstated assumption in the report.
While the poor state of manufacturing in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie shows that there is no boom in manufacturing here, the boom for residential development on formerly industrially- zoned lands in Niagara Falls, shows that a mid-peninsula expressway, could indeed attract commuter- driven residential development. Just as the QEW assists commuters to Niagara Falls today, a mid-pen expressway would help in the future for such development in Thorold, Welland, Port Colborne and Smithville. The additional negative pressures on the environment such development would bring could very well harm tourism, by putting a negative image on a Niagara brand that is based on images of clean air, streams and a green countryside. “
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