Mayor’s Monday Mailbag – Feb. 7, 2022 – As Burlington’s Mayor, What Are Your Thoughts on How Halton Should Accommodate Growth?

Mayor's Mailbag
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Welcome to the Mayor’s Monday Mailbag, an initiative Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward and the Mayor’s Office has launched to share weekly answers to questions from the public we’ve received through our main email inbox at mayor@burlington.ca or the Mayor’s social media platforms.At the end of the month, we’ll publish a roundup of those most pressing questions we’ve received in the weeks prior.Mayor’s Monday Mailbag – Feb. 7, 2022QUESTION:“As Burlington's Mayor, what are your thoughts on how Halton Region should accommodate growth and any potential boundary expansion in Burlington?”ANSWER:Burlington Mayor Meed Ward recently published a post answering this specific question -- click here or see further below.Analysis & Opinion – We’re in the midst of a robust debate about how to accommodate growth in Halton of 1.1 million people and 500,000 jobs between now and 2051. That’s an increase of 479,000 people 221,800 jobs.Halton Region’s draft plan proposes to expand urban boundaries in Halton Hills and Milton. No expansion is proposed in Burlington and your City Council has reaffirmed the City’s longstanding commitment to a firm urban boundary, and embedded permanent protection of prime agricultural land in our 2020 Official Plan (Sec 1.4.2(b) and 9.2.1(a)ii).No boundary expansion in BurlingtonBurlington City Council also unanimously supported the two early Halton growth concepts that would see minimal or no urban boundary expansion (options 3A/3B). In January, council received staff comments on Halton’s new Draft Preferred Growth Concept, stating it “attempts to balance the needs of four diverse local municipalities” but is “not in alignment with either 3A or 3B.”I’ve heard the concern from our community that if we don’t approve urban expansion in Halton Hills and Milton that means more highrises where we don’t want them in Burlington.Alternatives to “tall” or “sprawl”We have to move beyond the false choice of “tall” or “sprawl”.We can do that by exploring alternatives to accommodate growth within existing urban boundaries, without succumbing to inappropriate development. In fact we are required under provincial policy to take an “intensification first” approach to accommodating growth before considering boundary expansion.Burlington’s share of growth under the draft plan is 70,830 people and 26,600 jobs between now and 2051, which we can accommodate at our planned growth areas: our Major Transit Station Areas around our three GO stations; retail plazas and malls; along major roads like Fairview/Plains; in existing approved development areas in Alton, Tremaine and Aldershot; and other planned growth areas. We can also grow through “accessory dwelling” suites in established neighbourhoods, and some have suggested accommodating lot severances, semi-detached and townhouses where appropriate in existing neighbourhoods – the “missing middle” of housing. Staff noted there was “not significant” variations among the draft concepts for Burlington.In the last few weeks I’ve dug into the issues raised by the hundreds of residents who’ve contacted all members of City and Regional Council, to look for alternatives to accommodate growth without urban boundary expansion. I listened in to the Stop Sprawl Halton event,  have met with City and Regional staff, spoken with fellow Mayors and Councillors, met with staff at Environmental Defence, and met with the consultant from Hemson Consulting who prepared the Draft Land Needs Assessment (LNA) which is driving the proposed boundary expansion.The bottom line from these consultations is this: I don’t believe we’ve done enough to explore every option to accommodate growth inside existing urban boundaries in Halton. We’ve got more work to do.

The bottom line from these consultations is this: I don’t believe we’ve done enough to explore every option to accommodate growth inside existing urban boundaries in Halton. We’ve got more work to do.

Options to considerSome of the options we need to consider include increasing density in already approved growth areas in Halton Hills and Milton, and getting shovel in the ground on already approved development areas, including the Milton Education Village and Vision Georgetown.We also have to consider that if an urban boundary expansion is approved, what prevents development happening immediately to these new areas, using them up in a few years, and landing us right back where we are now, facing pressure to expand our urban boundary once again, well before 2051.The appetite for land for residential development is voracious. It’s accelerated by a directive from the province to provide a “market” based mix of housing in our growth plans. They also shifted the planning horizon out 30 years, from 2041 to 2051.Forecasts can be wrongThere’s a formula for determining the market mix, based on people’s previous buying habits, and projections over the next 30 years. Using this formula Hemson’s LNA determined that Halton is short 15,500 singles, semi-detached and row houses. To accommodate these units, the Region needs an additional 1,050 hectares of Community Area (i.e. mixed use residential), with 700 ha in Milton and 350 ha in Halton Hills; and a further 1,070 hectares for Employment Area uses (no residential), with 670 ha in Milton and 400 in Halton Hills.Should we trust these forecasts and assumptions about jobs, housing mix and choice out to 2051? Forecasts have been wrong before, especially in Burlington.We met our growth forecasts for 2031 of 195,000 people two years ago – and have been assigned additional growth of 22,830 under the draft plan. We’ll now grow to 217,830 by 2031.Sacrificing agricultural land on assumptions and forecasts that may be wrong is too high a price – and is irreversible if (when) they turn out to be wrong.More support for agricultureWe also can’t just stop at saving farmland. We need to do more to support agriculture in Halton. We’re required under provincial policy to support and enhance the long-term viability and productivity of agriculture by protecting prime agricultural areas.However, we aren’t scheduled to receive our agricultural policies till 2023. This work needs to come before any consideration of urban boundary expansion onto farmland. Last week, I attended the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) annual conference and the universal message was that the first step in supporting farmers is protecting prime agricultural land. The next is developing an agricultural strategy, which in our case must address the unique challenges of farming near rapidly growing urban areas.We’ve got time to get this rightWe’ve got time to get this right. Official Plans have to be reviewed every five years. We’ll be back at this very soon, and multiple times before 2051, with better information based on the reality on-the-ground, not supposition. We can and must respond to the call for more supply of housing without sacrificing agricultural land.We also need a national housing strategy from the federal government, given they have doubled annual immigration levels into Canada from about 200,000 to over 400,000 – the highest levels since 1912. We welcome newcomers to our country. We also need all levels of government working together to ensure everyone has affordable and appropriate housing, without sacrificing the land that can feed us.I’ve heard the concern that if we don’t approve our plan by the July 2022 provincial deadline, the province will impose the plan on us. Possible – but not probable. There’s an upcoming election, which gets underway in April, and this will be an election issue, with hundreds of people across the province speaking up that they are not on for urban boundary expansion into prime agricultural land. Further, this government typically issues Minister’s Zoning Orders at the request of  local councils, not as an override.We can show good faith to the province by advancing items that don’t involve urban boundary expansion – for example employment land conversions within existing boundaries. We’ve already taken this approach with ROPA 48 – which last year advanced a number of Halton priorities ahead of the main Official Plan work, including Burlington’s request to shift the Urban Growth Centre and Major Transit Station Area designations from downtown to the GO station. We can advance other OP priorities in our Halton municipalities while we take the time to do our work to find alternatives to accommodate growth to 2051 inside existing urban boundaries.Next StepsOur next step in this process is the Feb. 9 Regional Council meeting. I want to thank our Regional Staff who responded to the concerns of Council members and residents, and changed this meeting from a decision on the draft plan to a workshop. This will allow council to ask questions and suggest alternatives for staff to take away and explore. No decisions will be made. There are no delegations at workshops, but residents can tune in to the live stream on the agenda page below.New background material was just released yesterday for this session. You can find it here: Regional Council Feb. 3We all need more time to review and digest this new information – which totals more than 900 pages. Staff at our local municipalities should have an opportunity to review and comment on this material before any decisions are made at Regional Council.Thank you!!I invite you to stay involved in this conversation, as we have more work to do. Thank you to everyone who has contacted me.  Myself and my team won’t be able to respond personally to every phone call and email that has come in due to volume and time, but we’ll do our best to respond where we can, especially to Burlington and Halton residents who’ve reached out with personal messages. If we miss you, please reach out again. Please feel free to share this post with friends who are interested in this issue. I’ll continue to post here and on social media as we move through this process, so you can continue to stay informed every step of the way and have opportunities to provide input.BackgroundAll municipalities are required to update their Official Plans every five years. Halton Region is conducting a Regional Official Plan Review (ROPR) to update our Plan. The results of that work will result in one or more Regional Official Plan Amendments (ROPAs). We must accommodate new growth as part of the update to our Plan, and are doing that by developing an Integrated Growth Management Strategy (IGMS). The IGMS work has resulted in a Draft Preferred Growth Concept, which arose from several concepts explored over the past year. A Land Needs Assessment (LNA) was developed to support this work. The Preferred Growth Concept will be discussed, but not voted on, at the Feb. 9 Regional Council meeting. The terms ROPR, IGMS, ROPA, LNA and Growth Concepts are different aspects of the same process, which is an update to our Regional Official Plan to accommodate growth and update a range of other policies.The current ROPR began in 2014 with directions, followed by discussion papers (completed in 2021), followed by policy directions, underway now to 2023.Background articles related to the Region’s ROPR are here:

See Item 2, under highlights of the new Official Plan in the article below:

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—*Posted by John Bkila, Mayor’s Media and Digital Communications Specialist 

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