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LETTER: Save, don't Pave. Expand the Greenbelt into Wellington County

Reader suggests we need more SmartGrowth and less urban sprawl to protect farmlands, wetlands and natural areas
GreenLiving
Public view of eco friendly block of flats in the green park with blue sky with few clouds

Wellington Water Watchers Executive Director, Arlene Slocombe, submitted the following letter to the editor to say the Greenbelt should be expanded to include more areas of Wellington County.

In the wake of that week's media flurry about the Greenbelt I feel a renewed imperative to call on all candidates in the coming Provincial election to insist on expanding the Greenbelt boundary to include the 'Bluebelt' in it's entirety as advocated by Wellington Water Watchers and over 100 other community and environmental organizations across Ontario.

Our water resources are finite, irreplaceable and invaluable. Here in the Grand River watershed, our ecosystems may not have the capacity to be able to meet our anticipated growth levels unless we better protect source water features such as our river corridors, significant wetlands, moraines and headwater areas.

I was relieved that what came to light in this media flurry is some facts about housing needs and housing prices:

1. We are not running out of development land - There is already more than enough land designated in southern Ontario to accommodate growth to 2041 and beyond. Tens of thousands of hectares of land - enough to settle millions of new people has already been designated by municipalities eager for growth. The 2017 Growth Plan even has an excess lands policy “in excess of what is needed to accommodated forecasted growth to the horizon of this Plan.” Some planners worry there is already so much land set aside that we have an serious over designation of land. Thus there is certainly no need to develop any lands already included in the provincial Greenbelt.

2. Rising house prices in the Greater Toronto Area are NOT because of any perceived shortage of land. The issue is housing supply not land supply. According to the Neptis Foundation, there is no shortage of land on which to build for decades to come. Rather, new home construction is being delayed due to rising costs, profiteering, and slow provisioning of infrastructure services. Many traditional developers have also be slow to change or adapt to new market desires - still only building expensive, inefficient sprawling, single-detached homes when many buyers are seeking a greater variety of more affordable and dynamic townhomes, lofts, condos, along with more mixed multi-use development styles.

We need more SmartGrowth. We need to build better, offer more housing variety, and choices in compact, walkable communities with active transportation options, trails and accessible, frequent public transit.

The more we pave over, and the greater the loss of farmland, wetlands and natural areas, the greater the increase of flooding and with time this will likely lead to an increase in costly expenditures/lawsuits/claims for municipalities and Conservation Authorities for mismanagement of storm water - not to mention the loss of farmland, local food, wetlands, forests, wildlife and clean water.

For our waters,
Arlene Slocombe
Executive Director, Wellington Water Watchers