Regional Council Approves Preliminary Growth Scenarios for Halton's Municipalities

Jun 3

Written By

At our Regional Council meeting on May 20, we approved a staff report outlining preliminary growth scenarios for Halton's municipalities.Council's recommendation:

THAT Report No. LPS41-19 re: “Regional Official Plan Review – Progress Update on the Integrated Growth Management Strategy and Preliminary Growth Scenarios” be received for information
THAT staff be directed to advance the Growth Scenarios that represent the ‘Local Plans and Priorities’ (Scenarios 1B, 2B, 3B and 4B) as the foundation for analysis and refinement to develop four Growth Concepts as outlined in Attachment #1 of Report No. LPS41-19
THAT the Evaluation Framework outlined in Attachment #2 of Report No. LPS41-19 be endorsed and that staff be directed to undertake an evaluation of the four refined Growth Concepts as outlined in the Report.
THAT the Regional Clerk forward a copy of Report No. LPS41-19 to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Conservation Halton, Credit Valley Conservation, Grand River Conservation Authority, the City of Burlington, the Town of Halton Hills, the Town of Milton, and the Town of Oakville for their information.

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Burlington Growth Scenarios for 2031:Feedback from the City of Burlington to Halton Region:The input from the City of Burlington, as outlined in Report PB-82-19, expresses the opinion that all of the criteria in the proposed Evaluation Framework, related to the comprehensive list of 19 policy objectives, are important to Burlington, and they should all have an equal weight and given the highest consideration from a weighting perspective in the evaluation of the Growth Concepts.As explained in Report PB-82-19 endorsed by Burlington Council, Burlington staff noted that the proposed Evaluation Framework was developed around the land use policies of the Provincial Policy Statement, Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Regional Official Plan, and took the position that the framework is not intended to be discretionary, but applied holistically to ensure the evaluation of the Growth Concepts istransparent and relevant to decision makers, stakeholders and the public.The 19 Objectives identified in the IGMS Evaluation Framework include:

Support Regional and Local Urban Structure
Protect Overall Employment Land Supply
Provide a Range of Identifiable, Inter-Connected, Complete Communities
Provide the Opportunity to Develop Healthy Communities
Provide a Range of Choice for Housing, Jobs and Leisure
Optimize the Current Infrastructure Capacity
Cost-Effective Replacement and/or Expansion of Infrastructure
Sustainable Long-range Financial Planning and Asset Management
Support Regional Planning (Infrastructure Projects)
Sound and Sustainable Infrastructure Planning
Protect the Integrity and Minimize Impact on the Agricultural Land Base and System
Enhance the Natural Heritage System to strengthen Key Features and Areas and Reduce the Impact of New Development
Reduce Carbon Emissions and Address Air Quality
Maintain Resiliency to Impacts of Extreme Weather Events
Consider Impacts on Region’s Mineral Resource Areas
Promote Transit Supportive Densities
Promote Multi-modal Transportation Network that Supports all Modes of Transportation
Facilitates Goods Movement
Ensure the Availability of Sufficient Lands to Accommodate Forecasted
Employment Growth

MY TAKE:I'm looking forward to continued public input on the different scenarios. We know we're planning to accommodate additional growth around our GO stations and we'll assess the scenarios for Burlington based on our criteria that City staff included in our feedback to the Region.

Regional Council Approves Preliminary Growth Scenarios for Halton's Municipalities

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