Environmental and conservation groups across the province are expressing cautious support for the provincial Greenbelt plan and are urging people to attend the community consultation meetings that run till the end of November.
In the Hamilton area, there's a consultation set for Tuesday evening (Nov. 16) at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and on Thursday evening (Nov. 18) at LIUNA Gardens at 826 Winona Road North in Stoney Creek. Both meetings run from 7 to 10 pm and will allow presentations by citizens.
The Greenbelt will protect one million acres stretching around the golden horseshoe and across the Oak Ridges Moraine north of Toronto . It's been applauded by the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance, a coalition of over 60 environmental, health and community groups. " The creation of the Greenbelt will improve air quality, curtail the obesity epidemic, decrease traffic accidents and fatalities and alleviate mental health problems related to sprawl", says Dr. Riina Bray of the Ontario College of Family Physicians, one of the Alliance participants.
However, member groups are also raising concerns about allowing new expressway construction in the Greenbelt , such as the proposed Mid-Peninsula Highway . The Sierra Club also says the plan "leaves too much greenspace and farmland for urban sprawl in sensitive headwater areas", and Ontario Nature is calling on McGuinty to impose "a freeze on urban boundaries and new highways".
In Hamilton , a vast area of prime agricultural land south of Rymal Road has been left out of the greenbelt and appears designated for more sprawl development. The Pleasantview area of Dundas has also been left unprotected, despite a mid-1990s OMB decision to block urbanization of this last rural landscape in Dundas .
On the other hand, city council and local developers are upset that the provincial plan permanently blocks urbanization of fruit lands in Stoney Creek and Winona. The LIUNA Gardens meeting is located in the middle of some of these lands whose owners have been counting on selling them for urban growth.
Some developers are arguing that the greenbelt will drive up the price of housing but this is disputed by a report released last week by Environmental Defence and supported by the co-chair of the National Housing and Homelessness Network. "Greenbelts do not raise housing prices," Michael Shapcott says. "Destroying green spaces costs all of us."
