Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our special council meeting that we're having, and I know there's a lot of people online as well, so I would like to start off our meeting with our land acknowledgment, and that is that we would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is part of the treaty and territory the Mississaugas of the credit.
Are there any disclosures of pecuniary interest, conflict of interest,
that the records show that there isn't?
We do have a lot of delegations, well, get into the delegations a little later on.
But first I would like our acting CAO, Chris Mills, to say some opening remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
As we do have a lot of delegations, I will be very brief.
I just wanted to start by saying that this report that you have in front of you is a culmination
of hundreds of hours of staff time in meetings, doing research, reviewing, material, and writing,
ultimately the report. And I've seen firsthand how much work has been put into this, and I
personally want to thank John, Bronwyn, and the entire policy team for their dedication and hard work
on this file.
The planners have an obligation to consider a wide range of inputs and also
the legislative framework that they work under and ultimately is set by the province.
So this process that we have in front of us today is very much a top-down process in which
the province has set very specific population and employment targets for Hulten region
which then needs to be distributed to the local municipalities and one of their obligations
as professional planners is to ensure that they are meeting those objectives.
In my opinion, this report balances the need to provide housing and employment through both
intensification and a modest green field expansion. And it would also see significant
wait belt lands stay within the agricultural system to 2051. So with those opening remarks,
Mr. Mayor, I know John has a few things to say and then we will start with the presentation.
So thank you, Mr. Mayor and good afternoon, good afternoon to members of Council and all the delegates.
So as Chris alluded to, we do have our report before you this afternoon dealing with the Halt and
region official plan review and the five growth concepts that the region has developed that
look to see how growth could be distributed amongst the four local municipalities to
the 2051 planning horizon. We thought though before hearing from the various stakeholder
delegations this afternoon as well as before council considers our report, we thought it would
be helpful if Mr. Lowe's from SGL planning could provide a recap of some of the key points
that were included in his June 21st presentation at the Special Counsel workshop.
As a reminder, Mr. Lowe's is an experienced land use planner who does do a considerable
amount of planning work throughout the greater Golden Horseshoe, and he is the lead on the
South East Georgetown secondary planning exercise that is now underway.
With that, I will now call upon Mr. Lowe's from SGL, again to do a recap.
Thank you.
Good
afternoon and welcome Mr. Lowe's good
afternoon Mr. Lowe's good afternoon
sorry I was having audio audio problems I'm not connected we've all been
they were believe me I couldn't I couldn't hear anything you were saying so I
know I'm not connected we're just gonna show you my screen and I'll start the
presentation if that's what they Mr. Mayor yep that's fine thank you
we all see it
Yes, we can.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
So, I'm going to do, Mr. Lindhurk, probably indicated, I'm going to do an abbreviated presentation
from the presentation that I gave at the Council Workshop, just as a refresher to Council.
I'll be trying to be fairly grateful.
We saw a few slides to go through, but I'll go through them a little quicker just to give you a refresher and a little bit shorter of a presentation.
So, I want to talk about eight themes, I'll give an overview of the Houghton Regions
IGMS.
I'll discuss the farmland, mounts in Houghton Hills and the implications for farmland.
I'll go over the intensification implications, employment implications, discuss briefly
community facility implications, I'll turn over to Watson Associates to talk about the
financial implications, and I'll summarize with some key takeaways and just highlight the
next steps for the halton region process.
So in terms of the IGMSO overview, as we all know, and I'm sure you all know, there are
four options with a fifth called Concept3B, just very brief overview of those four options,
which are called concepts, I should say. Concept 1 calls for a 60% densification and a
moderate greenfield expansion. Now, others are probably wondering what
does densification mean. And in the region's work, densification means it's
means 50%, which is generally held constant through the concepts. 50% of all
growth will occur as intensification within the built-up area and the built-up
area as the area the province defines as what was built upon when the growth plan first came into
effect in July of 2006. Then the additional densification occurs the other 10% in terms of what
concept one occurs in the designated greenfield area and the designated greenfield area means the
the area that was vacant in your urban area in 2006.
Some of that has since been built, such as self-George now.
50% of all residential growth is going into your build-up area, and a 10% additional growth beyond
what is already planned will go into your designated greenfield area. And you see at the bottom
of that slide under concept one, that 10% additional is generally all apartments that will
go into your designated greenfield area, so 10% of all units will go into your designated greenfield
area. So I just wanted to provide those overall concepts. Concept 2 is 70%
densification, so a higher densification. Only half the amount of the new
community doesn't agree in field areas. Concept 1 and 17% of all units will be
apartments as densification in your existing designated green field area.
Concept 3 has 80% densification with a smaller employment expansion. No
community expansion, I should maybe just clarify what community expansion means.
That means land for residential, commercial, institutional land,
climate expansion means
more traditional employment areas.
So there are no community area expansion and concept three but there would be a small employment
expansion.
Concept three B is no employment expansion or community area expansion and 24% of all units
would be through a densification in the designated Greenfield area after 2031.
Concept 4 is 50% densification, very low densification in existing designated Greenfield area,
and has the largest share of both community areas and employment areas.
Just briefly, we'll go through each of those concepts.
Concept one, as I said, which is 50% of all new housing in the build-up area.
The graph, I think, shows the graph.
A donut.
The more clearly, you see the build-up areas in the blue.
The existing doesn't have green field areas.
So these are lands that are already within your urban boundary.
These are lands. I'm going to turn off my camera just because it's showing as a little
unstable so hopefully everybody can see and hear me. The build-up area is there in blue.
As I said, the orange is the existing Desi Greenfield area. So that's existing lands within
your existing community. This includes vision, Georgetown, both East Georgetown, Stuarttown,
on all those areas that are yet to develop.
And so that's why you see 29% of the future growth
of current those areas that are yet to be developed.
7% would be additional high density units
in the existing designated green field area.
And you might say Paul, why is it 7% less than 10%?
Well the pie chart is looking at everything
growth from now to 2051.
Whereas the densification is occurring from 2031 to 2051.
So 10% from 2031 to 2051.
When you take it from all the housing growth
from 2021, the overall percentage drops slightly.
And then you see that the yellow is a new designated greenfield area of 14%.
Results in at the bottom, you see the resulting expansion, employment expansion of about 680
hectares, which is actually slightly greater than option 4, and community area expansion
of 740 hectares.
When you look at the overall pie, and I'll show these pies for each option, overall pies
174,000 new households from 2021 to 2021 have to be accommodated in the region as a whole, of course.
And slightly more than half of those would be an apartment. The other less than half would be
ground-related, which includes singles, detached homes, semi-attached homes, townhouses,
anything as walk-up, accessory apartments are all ground-related, so it's a large grouping of them.
And we see the expansion areas in the color of the orange as the community and the dark
blue as the employment area.
The orange community area represents about two vision Georgetown's.
If you could put that into perspective.
And then you can see the blue as an addition to the premier gateway and up along Winston
Churchill.
So, on sub two, we see again looking at the donut graph, slightly more than 50% is intensification
in your buildup area, 30% sure existing greenfield areas, again vision Georgetown, Southeast
Georgetown, slightly more additional greenfield, high density apartment units in your designated
greenfield area, and 8% would be a new greenfield area, so that new expansion would be slightly
smaller.
And if you remember the last workshop I talked about is where those additional high-density
apartment units can go and your dozen greenfield area and your dozen greenfield area is not
that large and vision Georgetown has been appealed to the OLT, it's got about a thousand units
and that it would be additional, mostly additional to that and since it's been appealed there's
not a lot of opportunity to reopen that.
So as I presented the last workshop, really, the only opportunity you have is on existing
commercial areas and the only person area you have in your designated Greenfield areas,
the one at Mountain D Road and Argyle between Argyle and Dambi.
So that's really limited opportunities to come at additional units that you show in gray
additional high density.
For this expansion, you see that the employment expansion is about 500 hectares at the bottom
for Holton Hills and the communities is smaller at 330 hectares. Again, looking at the chart
on household units, now getting mostly about two thirds would be apartment units. One third
would be ground generally, one third ground related units. And we see the expansion again.
And orange, these are just potential locations, not the final location for any of these options.
for the orange and the dark blue in employment.
And this orange represents generally one,
same size as one vision george town.
Concept three, we see with the 30% densification,
we see that it's like the over 50% on the
demonic graph is intensification of the build area
between 2021 and 2021.
30% of your existing doesn't even feel there.
16% of that pie gets larger on the additional high density units in your existing designated greenfield area and no additional community expansion lands.
So you see at the bottom 450 hectares for employment and zero hectares for community and in home hills.
and we can see in the pie chart where the housing
household units grow, gain the apartment units are getting
pie across the whole region, getting larger,
almost up to three quarters of their world housing units.
Little more than a quarter would be the ground-related
housing units.
And these are new units, I should read.
And then this map just shows where the potential
for the employment could go in the dark blue
and no community expansion lands.
three B is is similar to three except except that there's no employment expansion. So all the part
the graphs are the same numbers are the same except for a zero employment growth and you see no
expansion for employment in this map. Lastly concept four is 50 percent of intensification so that's what
With the growth plan requires, there is no additional, a very small amount of, as you
see, 2% additional high density in the dozen greenfield area.
Slightly less than 30% are existing dozen greenfield area, and 20% would be new units
in your expanded community lands for settlement expansion, and you see at the bottom, 670 hectares
for employment, which is slightly smaller than option one, and the largest amount of community
lands, it's almost 1,400 hectares.
We see in this chart that slightly less than 50% are apartments and slightly more than
50% are ground related housing units.
And this map shows where those expansion areas could go, and just to give you a context that
Orange area, the community expansion area represents about three almost four vision
Georgetowns and then the employment area gained along the premier gateway and up along Winston
Churchill.
So just to give a little idea what the housing means and I want to talk and I talked about
at the council workshop about the shift in market is required to just to meet the growth
plan and additional shift in some of these options.
And this graph in that the table is really useful because this is from Hempson's land
needs assessment that they've done for the region.
And we see that the market-based baseline forecast, which what that means is market-based
baseline forecast, it means that if all things are equal, if people could just choose what
type of housing they wanted to live in, this is what the percentage of ground-related
versus apartments would mean. That would mean that about a quarter of all new units would
be apartment buildings, three quarters would be ground related. That's without any
policy shift, but just to achieve 50% intensification, you see that there's a significant shift required
in people's housing preferences to get up to 50% intensification. And the graph at the
bottom, start showing that in terms of percentages of what's required for the build-up area, the
dark orange is in the build-up area, so that's the intensification, and that's the amount of
apartments required in the build-up area, I should say the percentage of apartments.
So you see that most of the moving forward, most of your intensification, this is region-wide,
most intensification region-wide would be in apartments, generally around 90% would be of the units
would be apartments in the build-up area through intensification.
And a little higher shift is required in concepts 2 and 3, then the yellow shows the amount
of apartment percentage of all units in the designated green field area.
So this is the densification shift, and you'll see that that ranges from fairly low on option
option 4, about 10%, moving up to almost 40% of all new units and additional units in
the doesn't green field area being apartment, so you're looking at 40% in concept 3.
So quite the significant shift particularly to achieve the additional densification in
the doesn't green field area.
This table and graph shows the implication for halton hills itself, the former was for
or Hulton region, and the tables, the graph is broken down by the different geographic areas.
So the blue on the graph is the existing delta area, which is where the intensification
goes. The orange is existing designated greenfield areas, so Vision Georgetown, Southeast Georgetown.
The gray is the additional high density development in the current designated greenfield area,
and then the yellow is a new doesn't agree with the area.
And so with this, the two bars are showing
as the units that are going into ground related
then units and apartments.
And you can see that the majority of the build-up area
is apartments in the Hilton Hills.
There's a little bit of ground related
that can still be accommodated through intensification
in your build-up area.
But the majority of that will be apartments slightly higher
in Concepts 2 and 3. Your existing designated greenfield area is primarily ground-related.
It's not all singles, it's singles, townhouses, accessory apartments.
And then you see the difference in the gray, which is the additional high-density apartments required
in the designated greenfield area. So you see it's larger in Concept 2 and Concept 3 overall.
and then you see the the orange the light yellow is a different amount of new
community lands primarily again ground related so that's for your community
expansion areas.
I just want to talk briefly before we move to the next section
about compact development and development of new communities. Your green
development standards have noted there's opportunities for development of low
carbon communities in greenfield areas. So it doesn't mean that new greenfield areas cannot be
developed such that they are
carbon low carbon areas. And the concept really for new greenfield areas is to try to achieve
a 15 minute neighborhood. What does that mean? You say, oh, well, what it means is really the
ability to get all your daily needs. And I mean, daily, so that's getting milk, going to go
restaurant, going to recreation, going to your schools, get those daily needs within 15
minute walk of your house. That means a compact transit supportive development. And this type
of development in a greenfield setting can address their climate change impacts.
Can some significantly reduce climate change? It's more transit supportive. It requires
more compact development, but also requires making sure we have those community uses,
We'll play in a mixed-use setting that are walkable to residents.
And achieving this type of development at the region's target of 65 persons and jobs
per hectare can achieve that 15-minute neighborhood.
It's just an area just to touch on if you recall away at the workshop we worked on farmland
We have this graphic showing.
Which I'll accommodate, but occupies about 30% of Houghton Hills. 23% is Whitebelt area, which
is the gray, which I think is the last time we should be white. We didn't fix it, but that's
the Whitebelt area. People say, what is Whitebelt area? Well, Whitebelt area is commonly referred
to a planning term referred to as areas outside the urban area and outside the Greenbelt. So it doesn't
have the restrictions of the Greenbelt or the Oak Ridge or the Marine or the Niagara Scarman. It's
just farmland outside the urban area.
So 83% total is total rural agricultural areas
in Holton Hills.
15% is your urban area made up of acting in Georgetown
and then additional 2% is near Gwendolyn's area.
We look at what the means in terms of the concepts.
We see that the total white belt,
looking first at the white belt area,
total white belt areas, about 6,400 hectares.
So the amount remaining in the white belt
is shown in the second row for each of the concepts.
So ranges from concept 4, almost 70% of the white belt
area would be remaining up to, of course, concept 3B
with no expansion, 100% of the white belt area
will remain outside the urban areas
part of the white belt.
And looking at what these concepts mean in terms
of the overall size of a potent hills,
we can see in the last row, the concept 4
occupies about 7%, concept 1, about 5%, concept 2, 3%, concept 3, about 1.6%.
So concept 2 and 3 are one slightly larger than, oh well, anyway, they're about the same, one's slightly larger than the middle.
So now I just wanted to go over quickly on the intensification implications.
The Hemson did a work for you back in 2019, it was a market assessment, and they found
that intensification in the last five years, 2016-21, averaged about 100 units per year.
And we compared that to the official plant target of 5,100 units by 2031, they indicated
that target is unlikely to be achieved, just because the intensification target in the
past five years hasn't been as strong as it was originally anticipated. The HEMS and
IGMS has looked at, of course, for this report, is identified need for 50% intensification,
and so that will require much more intensive development. And that averages to achieve the
intensification in either the concepts for HALT and HILLs require somewhere between
225 units per year starting in 2021 to 2021. If that's a little slower to start with,
then it means the later years will need even higher number of units per year. So we're
looking at a doubling of what the average has been for the last five years. This is going
to require a significant shift in the pattern of housing choice. And I'm going to go over
that just a little bit here.
And just to look at, that was the overall intensification and just
breaking it down by apartments. We can see the top graph is the apartment completions in
Halton region which have fluctuated quite substantially. But the second graph shows the ones in
Halton Hills. And really, there's only been two apartment developments in the last 10 years that
that have occurred in the, in the build up areas,
intensification and whole nils.
That's 109 units, which averages about 11 units per year.
And if you can, that, that is about,
see the picture of Amical, that's slightly less than 100 units.
So what we're, what we're looking for in the future
is a 200 with when you add in the amount of apartment units
is required in the, doesn't a green field area,
you're looking at a requirement for about 220 to 300 units per year depending on the four concepts.
So that's about two to three Amico's developments per year, every year from 2021 to 2021.
And if we look at what the preference has been in the completions, what we've seen in the past
number of years for housing completions, the donut graph on the left and the chart on
the right, show that the vast majority of your housing completions since 2011, so almost
this is data up to 2019, so a few years previous, but almost 10 years worth of data, shows
that almost three quarters of the housing completion have been for singles and semis, a little
over 20% for a row, so that's townhouse, and apartments about 6%, that's remained fairly
constant over the last 20 years, what the difference is what you've seen slightly is a slightly
increasing amount for rows and townhouses, and apartments is actually slightly declined
in this time period. And we look at where people want to live or just looking at, for instance,
looking at apartments. We see a crossholt and the pie chart on the top left hand side. And what it
shows in the medium color blue, the 29% are one family household. So these are who are living in
apartments in 2016. So 29% were 1% households. 16% in the green were a non-family 2% households.
That's two people unrelated living together. 47. So almost half were 2% households. This might be
a couple that are married. It might be a single parent and a one child. And so the 50% are 2% households.
and then the darkest blue is 8% are family households of three-plus-person households.
So it could be parents and one child, more than one child. And then if we compare that
to the growth, the pie charts, the bottom of the page, we see that the growth of households,
almost 40% will be family households. So that, if we're thinking of the amount of apartments,
we need to achieve and some of those earlier graphs that showed 50% to almost 75% of the new dwelling units
from 2021 to 2021 will be apartments. Shows there's going to be a significant shift in the
preferences of families to live in apartments. And I ran through with you some of the cost
implications of that at the workshop in that apartment construction is more expensive than townhouses
for instance, and you get a smaller amount of floor area in apartment than in a townhouse
with the same price. So there's that implication that has to be addressed.
And this table just summarizes the amount of apartments and intensification that's required
in Hilton Hills. We see for each of the concepts ranges from about 6,300 total units for intensification
in concept 4, up to 6,700 in concept 3, and then shows the amount of apartments after that,
the amount that has to be apartments. We see a range is from about 77% in concept.
One of those intensification, I have to be apartments up to 83 and 84% of all the intensification units
after the apartments in concept 2 and 3. So the IGMS intensification rates will require
aggressive redevelopment of sites to achieve these intensification targets and aggressive
change in people's housing preferences to get more families into apartments.
So it's going to be a challenge on any of the concepts, really.
So I just wanted to cover off briefly the employment implications that we discussed at the workshop.
We see this is from Watson's Employment Land Needs Study that the end of took for the
municipality. We see that many manufacturing and
significant employment categories, employment
land demand is really driven by both manufacturing and logistics and get into
that a little bit in the next slides.
And Watson identified that North
Holtman is really best suited to accommodate that sector,
that North Holtman being Holtman Hills and
Milton, particularly along the highway 401 corridor.
The knowledge-based or creative class economies are also in demand and a growing end-demand.
But when you look at that in terms of major office, South Houghton is best suited to accommodate
the major office development, and I'll go through that, too.
So from the 2011 to 2019, period Watson identified that Houghton region accommodated one-fifth
of the overall DJ industrial development, so very strong industrial sector in Houghton
region. And the employment lands really provide the opportunity for export-based employment.
And export-based employment is very important. It really helps feed an economy.
And those export-based jobs really need to be accommodated employment lands. They're
quite attracted to areas along the 400 series highways. They can't be accommodated, for instance,
in the MTSA or downtowns. That's more for office development. And Watson also identified that
advanced manufacturing requires fairly integrated campus style settings, which integrate their
office, their warehouse, their manufacturing, their training, all in one building or a series
of buildings. And those require a fairly significant area of greenfield lands.
They also
identify logistics. Goods movement is evolving. We all know that with e-commerce.
Frankly, employment lands in the GTA have actually been on fire the last couple of years.
There is such a need for employment lands. It's driven by logistics, also driven by employment.
and they require a large tracts of land.
The 400 series locations are what they're seeking.
And these are not the same old warehouses
with very low employment that you saw in previous years.
These logistics operations that have sort of involved
any commerce have a fairly significant employment
function to them.
As they move the goods through very quickly,
it's not like a whole store if we saw them
warehoses in the past. Nonetheless, your economic development staff, through their foreign
direct investment strategy, their economic development tourism strategy, are looking
at other industries to attract as well, high density, high employment industries to attract
to your primary gateway. And they also, Watson noted that there, and Hemson did, too, in their
IGMS work, that there's limited opportunities to increase intensification of employment
land in Holton Hills.
In terms of the office market, 9 million square feet of office development
is located in Holton region. 97% of that is in the south part of the region along the
QDW corridor. The demand for office development, though, is in the last 10 years as shifted
to downtown. It's been office growth and the downtown has been very strong and compared
to the outer GTA. Now that may change with the pandemic, and we may see more office development
being located closer to home. We'll have to see how that pans out, but that has been the
trend for the last 10 years. But we've also seen office development in the past decade in
Holton region in more low and mid-rise scale developments in our employment areas. It's really
where the vast majority of office growth has occurred is in the employment lands and
these pictures are just a couple of examples of office development.
These are standalone office or they're integrated in multipurpose buildings with manufacturing
or warehouse operations attached to the building.
The MTSAs, I should clarify for the public MTSAs are major transit station areas, so areas
around, for instance, the GO stations. Those have potential for some office development,
but it's relatively limited. We're just going to see those more go to around the major
transition areas, the GO station locations, down in Oakville and Burlington.
So, in terms
of the need, Watson concluded that there's a need for additional employment lands. They
identify there's a little less 400 net hectares. This is not gross. Some of the other members
here are grossment net hectares. Designate available employment lands in the municipality.
Most
of that is located in the premier gateway. However, there's only approximately 100 gross
hectares shovel ready. When we teach shovel ready, that means they're serviced. Somebody can
the industry can come in right now and get a building permit and build. So that's a significant
impediment on getting more employment growth is really need to improve that so we're ready to
supply. And Watson identified that the employment needs over the next, they looked as to 2041,
but they identified that significant exceeds supply and they updated their numbers to be
approximately 445 gross hectares are required to 2051 and that compared you see
So, both HEMS and Watson are fairly consistent on that lower end of the range of HEMS' number of what's required to 2051.
And just lastly on the employment, we need to discuss the implications of where the employment is and where people live. Because that's a big driver commuting is a big impact on climate change. And we see in this,
um, uh, graph that 42% of the labor force is commuting outside of
fault and hills for work. Um, that's, that's significantly higher, um, than
the Ontario average. It's actually lower than Milton, but, uh, it's still
quite high. And what we need to look at is how do we try and
and provide more jobs so there's more live work opportunity and
in a municipality, that can help reduce climate change.
So when we look, during these large scale planning,
we need to think about that out when we provide more jobs
so that people live in our community
can work in our community.
Now, we're always being part of a large metropolitan area.
You're always going to have people commuting
over the board, people commuting
into Holt and Hills commuting out.
But the more we provide more jobs,
the more we can try and get that number down,
which can address climate change.
Lastly, before I turn it over to Watson, just want to briefly touch on community facility
implications.
And if we recall, I talked about this at the Council workshop.
There's going to be a number of community facilities needs.
You have communities now, even if you don't grow at all, but any growth, both intensification
or new expansions going to require more community facilities.
These include community centers, schools, parks, hospitals.
There's a difficulty in cost of finding sites and already developed areas.
As you're aware, your parks department is looking for another town-wide park.
Just to meet your demand to 2031.
They'll likely have to be accommodated outside your existing urban area.
The new hospital is identified that they're going to need a new redeveloped hospital.
likely that won't occur on existing site and they need to look outside Georgetown
current boundary for a hospital site and even with people looking at
option three or two or three where we're looking at increased intensification
we've seen through the pandemic the significant need for Parkland for people
live in apartments and the increase in amount of apartments we're going to need to
provide more parkland. And that's difficult to provide parkland in an already developed area.
And it's just not small parks. It's, you know, if we're getting more families living in
intensification and apartments, we're going to need to provide family-related parkland,
which is play structures, which is recreation facilities.
So with that, I'm going to turn it over
to Jamie Cook to go through to start with financial implications.
Great. Thanks, Paul.
and good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of Council.
As Paul mentioned, I'm going to provide a brief overview of the results of our fiscal
impact analysis that we carried out in the winter of 2021 of this year.
My colleague Andrew Grund is going to speak to the actual results of the fiscal impacts.
I'm going to just provide a bit of a broad overview of the three growth concepts that we looked
at and exploring the fiscal impacts.
So just to recap on some of the information that was provided to the workshop on the
later last month. We provided three overall growth scenarios. The first was growth
scenario one, which was derived from Halton, the Halton IGMS concept three. So this
scenario considers no future residential expansion, or employment area
expansion. It's a residential intensification focused scenario. So no future urban
expansion of this scenario.
Scenario 2 is derived from Halt9GMS Concept 2.
So this option also explores a residential intensification focus, but it does allow for
a limited greenfield expansion in the community area of Georgetown.
It's approximately about 330 hectares of additional community area land that would be planned
in this area, and as Paul mentioned, community areas would reflect residential and mixed
use areas, but not employment area. There is also the employment area expansion that's
anticipated within this scenario. Again, in keeping with the IGMS concept, and in this case,
it's more reflective of concept 3a. Through our FIA analysis, we took a look at the work that we
conducted back in 2020 through the employment land strategy and we updated that work with
respect to the land needs for employment land within Halton Hills and we've identified
a need for about 445 hectares of additional land which again is fairly consistent with
concept 3a and concept 2 when we compare that back to the IGMS and then lastly we looked
at a hybrid scenario under growth scenario 3 this scenario is a hybrid of 1 and 2 so in
In this scenario, we have a residential intensification focus, again with no community area expansion,
but we did consider in a planetary expansion consistent with scenario two under this scenario.
So again, we'd be looking at about 445 or 450 roughly hectares of additional employment
lands.
Just a couple of themes.
I just wanted to just reiterate with these three concepts.
One is on the issue of housing choice and affordability, and Paul's spent quite a
at a time that accounts a workshop
and today just talking about this,
just want to re-emphasize that each of the scenarios,
the intensification forecasts are ambitious,
and under our analysis that we conducted,
would be rather difficult to achieve
relative to historical trends
and anticipate market demand for intensification.
So in the absence of future greenfield expansion
and understand there's one and two, these options, sorry,
snare is one and three, these options would provide less
opportunity for grade related housing forms over the long
term. That's important to provide those options to, again,
to accommodate market demand anticipated within the family
demographic component that we would anticipate to be
accommodating over the next several decades. So it's important
for the town to accommodate a broad range of housing options
across all forms of housing structures to accommodate all anticipated residents by income
and age group.
It's also important to note that providing more high-density housing is not necessarily
a solution to solving affordability challenges.
More work would need to be done to look at the type and tenure of those units.
More emphasis would be need to be placed on purpose-built rental housing.
and more emphasis would be needs to be placed on smaller units that are more affordable which
also poses some challenges with respect to accommodating families which would require more space
and more bedrooms. Just one last point to point out with respect to complete communities and climate
change resiliency.
When we look at scenarios one and three, and particularly scenario three, these
This area has provided, in my opinion, the last opportunity for more complete and balanced
communities.
Again, with the challenges of achieving that level of intensification, even with a strong
demand for intensification, if there's no additional community area lands provided, it would
put more pressure on intermuting into the employment areas in existing and potential
expansionaries in the primary gateway area which obviously from a climate change resiliency
perspective would not be a desirable outcome. So I would just conclude that scenario 2 does
provide a more balanced approach with respect to live work. I, Andrew.
I'm sorry, slight change in scheduling, Sean Michael, Stephen, Watson, and I thought
So, with regards to the physical impact assessment that has been undertaken, it has looked
at the physical impacts of each scenario, both in comparison to each other to assess
the relative impacts of each scenario, but also in looking at what the implications are
on existing tax rates within the town and so what's important to note is that in comparing
the fiscal impacts of the new development within each of the three scenarios that were
assessed to the current tax rates, we want to recognize the fact that current tax rates
are not sufficient to fund the full state of good repair of existing assets that are required
However, when we're looking at the costs of new development within each of the three scenarios,
we are considering those full capital costs of the incremental infrastructure that are required.
So in assessing the fiscal impacts of new development to be fair to those and transparent to those fiscal impacts,
We want to look at what those implications are on current tax rates, as well as current
tax rates that would be required to fund the full lifecycle needs or the state of good
repair of existing assets.
And so within the table presented on the slide, we can see that current capital funding levels
in 2021, the residential tax rate is roughly 0.36% with to move to a full state good repair
of existing asset funding that would require without any additional development or assessment
growth that would require a 29% increase in current tax rate, so an increase to roughly 0.47%
percent of the residential rate. And then when looking at the three different growth scenarios
that were assessed, in scenario one maintaining the existing residential boundaries and without
any further employment area expansion, there would be at the full buildout of that scenario
of 2021 that would have about a 25% increase in current tax rates associated with that scenario.
But what we see is that in comparison to the tax rates that would be required without any growth
to meet the state of the repair of existing assets, it's slightly less at 25% versus 29%.
So providing some marginal positive fiscal benefits in comparison to no further growth at all.
In scenario two, which looked at having some community area, Greenfield residential expansion as well as employment area, expansion, we can see the positive fiscal impacts of that future development are much more significant requiring only a 4% increase in taxes over that period of 2021.
I mean, the full cost of new development, as well as funding the state of good repair
of existing assets.
And then in scenario three, with only expansions to the employment areas and no further green
bill community area expansions, there would actually be a net decrease in tax rates and residential
taxed by 2021, with about a 6% decrease to 0.34% of the residential tax rate with that much
greater positive financial impact being driven by the employment area expansion and the associated
tax revenues from non-resident, financial development relative to the limited services that are
required.
I think that's my slide. Thanks very much for that physical overview guys. So I
just wanted to cover off one last item before we do a brief summary update. And that's
the implications of delaying settlement expansion, which we've heard. There's requests to delay
for 10 years settlement expansion. There are some implications to that that council should
be aware of. The IJMS is to 2051, so growth decisions will be locked to that 2051 period.
It will be updated continually, but what will be happening based on that 2051 is that
population will be have to be allocated to different areas. The allocated to your intensification
areas will be allocated to existing greenfield areas. And the different studies will have
to be updated. The regional best planning estimates which provide the basis for infrastructure
and transportation planning will have to be updated accordingly. The regional master plan
will have to be updated. The servicing plans will need to be updated. Whoops. All right.
Backup page. The development charges will need to be updated. All those will need to be based on
on 2051 planning forecast and where growth is to be allocated, it won't be possible to
reverse those decisions in 10 years of 2031.
As I indicated for, for providing housing for families, providing a full range of housing for families, we'll have implications on housing affordability for families.
Parements provide great housing affordability for those with one and two person households for small units. It doesn't provide a housing affordability for large units that are required for families.
lack of shovel ready land. Employment land will be a
disincentive for industries to come in to locate in Holton Hills.
They want to have land available now so that they can locate now.
They don't look ten years out. And lack of new employment land will
result in an increased outcommuting because although there's
holding off settlement expansion, you still have significant
growth in your misspelled occurring through intensification to meet these
intensification targets of the growth plan. And as well as the densification that
Halt and Region is proposing in your existing designated greenfield area. So
that increased population will need to find jobs somewhere and not providing
additional employment land will resulting increased outcommuting and
commensurate impacts on climate change. So just like to quickly summarize the key
takeaways.
Halton Hills has passed has been predominantly been family-oriented and the
housing in Halton Hills has been predominantly family-oriented as we can see from the previous
graphs that have provided to you. Department growth in Halton Hills has been quite limited
in the last 10 years, averaging 11 units per year and greater apartment development
what his report require a significant shift in housing
preference of families because that's where a lot of your
growth is going to become at 41% of the growth to halt and
region as a whole will be from families. Hilton Hills people
moved to Hilton Hills for family housing, families moved
to Hilton Hills. So that's an even greater shift is going to be
required for Hilton Hills compared to these other
municipalities. And the cost per square foot does not favor
apartments over ground-related housing for families. The costs are much cheaper for town houses
on a first-wear-foot basis.
The future areas of intensification or past areas have been largely
ground-related. The future is going to be predominantly apartments. That's where your intensification. Those
big sites for ground-related housing are vast disappearing. It's really going to be a small site
transportation, existing commercial plazas, and those will be developed as through apartments.
And just because you have a supply of intensification sites does not necessarily lead to intensification
happening.
Just because there's quite a range, there's a number of factors that have to come into play
as I went over in the Council workshop, both on the supply side, which means that landowners
holders holding those properties, such as a commercial plaza, have to see a significant
uplift and value, in order to, for go that annual money that they get in from renting
out commercial areas, that uplift will have to occur for them to want to redevelop.
And then there's the demand side, as we talked about, the demand of people wanting to shift
their demand to apartments, with the densification and the intensification together, increase
is they require department absorption to 220 to 300 units per year. That's a significant
increase from your current 11 units per year on average. So intensification, I should
say the DJ will be a challenge due to a limited land availability in your design greenfield
area, more so than the challenge of intensification. And as I talked about communities, new greenfield
communities can be designed with 15-minute neighborhoods, they have to be properly
defined, but they can be designed to reduce the impacts on climate change and to be low
carbon communities. In terms of employment, the demand for employment land in Houghton Hills
is quite strong for manufacturing, for logistics, hospitality, recreation uses, but the supply
is quite limited, particularly shovel ready sites are limited. The Highway 401 location
is desirable for logistics, is desirable for manufacturing, is desirable for those
integrated facilities that have offices and manufacturing where I was in together.
And there's limited opportunities and intensified existing employment lands, which is very different
and employing intensification employment lands
from intensifying residential lands.
You're seeing some of that along Burlington Oakville
where some older industries are intensifying
with office development, but it's too early
to see that in Holton Hills.
And there's some opportunities for office in your MTSA,
your major transition area,
around your two ghost stations,
but those opportunities are limited.
They cannot accommodate all the employment demand
until 2051. And as we said, the office demand in Halton Hills is largely for the smaller,
multi-unit, multipurpose development where we've got an office and employment used together.
And lastly, on the employment, both Watson and Hemson identified a need for additional
employment lands by 2051. And under community facilities, there's difficulty finding sites for
large community facilities and that's that's currently you're having
difficulty finding sites for a town white park and that's just going to
increase as you're going to need more parkland not only for your new
cellmate expansions if you go that route but also for and more so for your
intensification. You need a new town white park by 2031 and additional
town white parks by close 2031 also your hospital is looking for potential
new site.
In terms of the financial impact
Increased tax rates are required over the period of 2015 to maintain a state of good repair of existing assets, future growth within current residential employment boundaries, I scenario one has a minimal effect on mitigating those tax increases.
Expanding the residential employment boundaries in scenario two and three provide fiscal benefits that offset all or most of those tax increases that are required to maintain a state of good repair of your existence.
assets. And the positive and financial impacts in scenario two and three are
driven by expansion largely of the employment lands. That's really what is
helping to pay for your state of good repair and the growth that you see from
that employment growth. And then finally, on addressing the last matter, I
talked about waiting 10 years till next and in CR for a settlement expansion is
not a prudent strategy in our opinion. Growth decisions will be starting to be locked
in, your DCs, your transportation master plan, the infrastructure master plan, and the
lack of future green children land will have implications on housing affordability families.
It will have impact on your ability to attract industries, and it will result in greater
outcommuting, which will impact on your climate change.
Just finally, very briefly, next steps in terms of the region's next steps, the preferred
concept, regional staff of indicated preferred concept will come back to Regional Council
for Decision this October, October 2021.
After that, they will prepare the official plan amendment, called in the region called
the Ropa regional official by the amendment that implements that expansion and other related
policies.
And that will come to regional council for approval in February of 2022.
With that, that completes my presentation and my show.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Paul, Jamie and Sean for your presentation, so do you have some hands
up?
questions from Councillors, so I will recognize Councillor Johnson.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm not sure who can answer this, but I basically one of the takeaways
that I got from all those presentations put together was that basically we're not building
enough apartments in Haldon Hills, but they're too expensive to build and no one wants to
live in them anyway. So what is a community to do when they've designated quite a few sites
and I can think over the years we've had sites that were designated for eight and ten
story buildings. I can give you the Mackenzie was one which is downtown. Matame was one at the
corner of Maple and Mountain View and the developer you know sort of came to us crying that oh nobody
wants to live in apartments so let us build townhouses. So we've lost those opportunities and there's
others that are I can think along Mountain View at the ghost station area. There's like
think 10, 12 story buildings that have been designated for gosh five, 10 years and nothing
has happened. So you know it kind of all this sort of makes me feel like you're you're you know
shaking your finger at us because we're not doing enough apartments but nobody wants them anyway.
So I guess I'm feeling really conflicted about your message.
So you, Mr. Mayor, to Councilor Johnson, maybe I can help to address that.
That's OK?
Yeah, that's fine.
Please do.
So we're certainly not waving my finger at you to saying you're not doing enough, and I'm
not saying that no one wants to live in those permits.
I think what we're trying to identify for you that it's going to be a challenge.
It's a challenge now.
And your intensification target through just through the growth plan requirements is going
to increase.
So, the province is requiring you and other misspellies in all the reason to do more.
But it's a challenge because it's not a field of dreams.
You can't designate the sites.
You can't build the sites and hope that people will come.
Some people will.
And some people are attracted to apartments. There's no doubt about it empty nesters those that the kids have left
They want to downsize. They want to get rid of that for bedroom home with the three bathrooms that they have to maintain that huge yard
They're they're going to be attracted to that type of living young young young couples don't have kids are certainly going to be attracted
That that that environment the challenge really is the families
and for Houghton Hills, that's who's driven your growth as families.
They come to Houghton Hills for that ground-related housing.
And so the challenge is to get those families into apartments
and what we are identifying is the challenge. Sorry, my phone's ringing.
Okay. I'll try to ignore that as I finish.
So that is really the challenge.
And you know, you have developers that say we can't build them,
But you have to hold on those sites really have to hold on those sites because if you don't hold on the sites
There's no way you're actually going to get that in
Tensification target. I think just the key takeaway must be that it's going to be a challenge to get those numbers
It's a particularly a challenge to encourage families to go into that housing farm
Not for all others
Follow up to that then is we just finished a three to four-year process with
A big table of developers and citizens and staff to figure out how we can build a livable
community in the vision Georgetown lands, walkable, you know, all those things you described
where everybody would love to live.
And now we're at Ontario Land Tribune, only want to decrease the density.
And it, both, forgive me if I'm cynical, but so how, where does the Ontario Land Tribune
I'll sit when we are trying to do what you're asking us or the province is asking us to do.
And then I know the decision isn't there, but invariably we lose at the Ontario
Land Tribunal and get what we didn't really want in the first place, which we would have
actually liked more mixed use in vision, Georgetown, but we settled, and now it's still not
good enough.
So can you comment on that?
Yeah, because if we say we make a decision today and we say that this one's going to be
really even more compact and lots of apartments than we may end up with a sprawl again and it's
out of our hands.
So you're Mr. Mayor to Councilor Johnson.
What you've got on your side is that any decision of the OLT now, former LBOT, has to conform
with the growth plan.
And the growth plan is requiring you to provide more density, requiring you to provide
more intensification.
So they cannot appeal on saying, well, we want lower density than the growth plan allows
because that just doesn't conform with the growth plan.
So you have the policy strength, the province has given you the policy strength, given you
the tools and the region, the tools through this process to identify what you want in terms
of density and what you want in terms of intensification.
But my understanding is that the growth plan under which the vision charge term was planned
has now been densities and the jobs per hectare have been decreased.
So every four years or plus we get a new government that it's a moving target and again we lose.
It's pretty much a measure to Councillor Johnson.
It has decreased it, but what the halton region is proposing is a minimum of all options
is 65 persons in jobs per hectare and there doesn't a green foot area moving forward.
And so, again, at your side,
It's a proof set. There is no going back from that. Your secondary plans will have to conform with that. So any new secondary plan has to conform. They can't appeal it on that basis. They might appeal at the saying that they were for doing this housing type for that, but they can't appeal it in terms of meeting those density targets. That's that's a given. Okay, I have I think one more question and that is about the employment. You said 42% or two more questions. 42% of people in
in the Hilton Hills Commute Out,
but I know that there's a lot of people
that commute in to the Hilton Hills too.
We didn't hear that number.
I know there's lots of people from Milton who work
in those jobs long for a one,
lots of people from Mississauga.
Why didn't we hear that number as well?
Through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councilor Johnson.
Yeah, that's what I indicated with a large metropolitan area.
You're always going to have commuting across the border
because I like that job over on the cell side of 401
versus the job on the north side of 401.
So it's always going to happen.
What you want to do is run maximize your employment
lands to try and reduce that of commuting as much as possible.
So the really goal is basically one job for every two
residents, which is largely most labor forces around 50%
of the population.
So you want to target about that amount of jobs
for population.
if you can get that, then the large majority of your population will be commuting in your
municipality, not commuting out, but you're always going to have that cross-border commuting
in and out in a large metropolitan area such as since the GTA.
Okay, and last question is about taxes. And you mentioned, you know, sort of worst-case scenario,
if we do this, it's going to be that, if you do that, it's going to be this. So, and I can't
I remember exactly what scenarios,
but one of the most 25% tax increase.
Is that up to 2051?
That's not 25% now.
That's over 30 years, right?
So that's like less than 1% per year.
In my calculation, maybe I'm not doing that.
That's a Shawn Michael question is
available.
Could you repeat, I could cut out there
for a moment, do you repeat the last question?
Yeah, so just using the scenario
that caused a 25% tax increase,
because it was a bit of a scare tactic when you see those numbers is that but is that over up to
20 51 so basically that's 30 years from now that's that's a 1% per year less than that or is
this 25% every five years or what you didn't say you basically you set out to 20 51 but you didn't
say per year. Yes so that is a cumulative impact so that's the total impact by 20 51 so
So to your point, less than 1% a year.
OK, and then a follow-up to that.
So that was a bit of, I think, well,
I'm not saying it's misinformation,
but it could be interpreted as a really scary number.
And now I'm not afraid at all.
But the other thing about that, so say we pick a scenario
where there's only a 5% tax increase,
so that sounds way better.
and then the next council, you know, goes to 2061, whatever, whatever.
In the end, the white belt is full, and there's no more growth, and then what happens?
Basically, then the existing community has to pay for everything, state of good repair, et cetera, et cetera.
And I know that happened in Mississauga a number of years ago.
They posted along with 0% tax increases that got the mayor reelected
for, you know, 100 years and then all of a sudden they were full and the taxes went way
up, way up, way up. So that's the end result of this, isn't it for us?
Yeah, I think potentially what you want to be, the town wants to be cognizant of as they
develop, is that they have, you know, you have continued objectives not only to meet
your, um, to provide the existing levels of service, but to also make sure that you are funding
the full, uh, capital costs of your existing future assets and that you're not, um, you know,
just pushing that burden down hell to a point when, um, it may become a bigger issue with that.
You're continuing to, um, you know, to meet those needs and to continue to progress your
asset management plan policies and increasing levels of service and meeting climate change, um,
objectives as well. Well, but still in the end, the people who live in the now
full community have to keep paying through their taxes to keep every, keep the
drinks open and the roofs on and and the roads plowed and and so on. So I guess
not really a question except that that's my point that eventually the growth
the assessment growth stops and does it stop now or does it stop in ten years or
or does it stop in 100 years, like I don't know,
but any council that reaches the end of the road
has to deal with the fact that, okay, we're done,
there's no more assessment growth.
So that I just wanted to make that point.
That's all Mr. Mayor, thanks.
Thank you, Councilor Johnson,
and if I recollect,
Mrs. Saga also used a lot of their reserves
to keep their taxes at 0% as well.
and then they got the big surprise when the new mayor came in and as you said,
they went from 0% to 6.5%, 7.5% increases and have been.
Thank you for your questions. I have Councilor Somerville.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would much rather have a tax increase of 0.25 per year instead of 1%
over 20 years. That's just me though. Maybe I don't want to see my taxes drop.
So I guess the question I would have, and I'm not sure if it's for Paul or Sean Michael or for Jamie,
But it's unemployment lands and Councillor Lewis and I this morning happened to meeting to be meeting with a a farmer down in the in the 401 quarter area for lack of a better one who also has a business in Milton has most farmers do they they have a something else that they have to do to pay to pay the bills.
But this one was saying about the lack of 100,000 square foot buildings he said the problem that they're find that he was finding.
is that a lot of the buildings that end up going up are the large, larger,
logistic ones that are 750,000 a million square feet, and there's a real
difficulty to find smaller ones, whether I don't know if you want to call that
industrial condo style, but he said especially for manufacturing, not for office
one. Is that something that you have found as well, that there's a
a different quality to find like that niche size around.
It was asked Jamie Cook to respond to that question.
Mayor.
Thank you.
It's an interesting question.
It's been a little while since I looked at it,
but I would say that I think it's probably a bit more
of a heightened issue in places like Hall of Males
and maybe the lesser, well, I think not lesser than equally
in the town of Milton because just the overall market
to demand for large land extensive uses to accommodate that logistics sector.
So I would say that it's probably been more of a challenge because the developers in
the market has been more catered to those large scale developments and consolidating lands
to provide for that type of use.
So I think probably the best defense to that is to ensure that you are providing a plan
that ultimately delivers as much market choice as possible to allow for a broader range of
uses by location, designation, zoning, price, accessibility, visibility. Within the various
employment areas, if you have in the premier gateway area, in active and in Georgetown, and I think
by doing that, that's probably your best approach to accommodate the broader needs. You also need to
be working with a broad range of landowners and developers to try to ensure that you are
achieving that broader mix of types of fun and areas.
So that's my answer.
No, thank you. And actually your answer was kind of what I had in my head that
might be the reason that if it's a lack of supply or there are bigger companies that are building.
So, you know, your answer does actually quantify kind of what I thought it was.
So I guess the other one is option 3B, the regional option 3B, I've never supported.
I didn't support us ever looking at it because in my mind, it was never realistic to not
have the employment land to be added in because we find that in Houghton Hills.
We have very little land that you mentioned and it was only 100 or so acres that we actually
have readily available now.
But we've also seen in Milton their council position has been to adopt option four to going for the maximum amount of employment land and the maximum amount of residential land as well.
And is that something that if Hilton Hills did look at and didn't designate enough industrial land?
And because there could be so much more, many more options available in Milton, we would
actually lose out on those.
It's a great question to you, Mr. Mayor.
Great question, so, Jayden.
So we've tried to look at this issue in other places by looking at the broader market.
Sometimes they call it market saturation analysis and it gets in different terms or coins.
But I think I think to Paul's point earlier, like the GTA is it's the third largest industrial area in all of North America, it's huge and they can see right throughout all time lows.
The demand for industrial space is really at all time highs.
I don't perceive too much of a risk in,
you know, not losing too much market share from Milton.
and if they were to provide an option that would accommodate concept 4, I think it's something
that maybe did monitor and be aware and be looking at how those lands are phased over time.
I do think there's some need to establish priorities of where growth is going to be
located and serviced over the next three decades. So it's definitely something to consider.
I haven't done a full analysis of the entire region.
So it's a little hard for me to fully, you know,
point on this, but I would say that the demand is quite strong.
I would say that both consultants are coming to a conclusion
that there's definitely a need for a sizeable amount
of urban expansion from planning areas within the region.
John Lynnhart, our planner would like to make a comment.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
And through you to Councillor Somerville,
So I think what you may be getting at is in terms of a regional supply, if the town chooses
a particular path on the employment side, and let's say for the sake of the argument
either taking less or not taking any, will Milton pick up the slack?
I think that's what you may have been alluding to.
And yes, I think we know historically that Milton has obviously been looking to plan out
their white belt and through the sustainable halt and exercise and through the exercise
we're going through now.
They've always expressed a concern that they have a sufficient supply of employment land
to maintain that 50% activity rate that was talked about during the presentation earlier.
So what the region is identified through the growth concepts is, I guess, a quantum of
regional supply that they believe is warranted through the work undertaken by Hampson.
and then there were varying distributions between Halt and Hales and Milton of that employment
land.
And really now I guess what the region is looking for is feedback from the local municipalities
as to how they see it and what their preferences are for their particular municipality.
So hopefully that helps.
It does help because I know Milton from speaking to a couple of Milton counselors, their goal
is to have a residential to employment land ratio of 66 to 33, which is awesome if
you could do it, because I know we struggled for a lot of years to get past 90-10, and
we have moved a bit past that, and I don't want to see us go backwards from that, I'd rather
see us go forward.
So, thank you so much for that, John, because that does help tremendously with that as well,
because, you know, my point is, we should try to end as much as we can because we won't get the
opportunity down the road. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Somerville and I have Councillor
Ingalls. Thank you, Worship, and thanks so much for the presentation. Second time to
research through drill in here a bit. A couple of questions. I'm hoping they can be answered
Wait, concisely, one of the things that was thought that all through that presentation
was a densification.
And the densification occurred on residential lands only, and to follow up, maybe on
Councilor Somerville's comments,
because there's a municipality have any tools to densify
employment lands.
for instance, on some of our, a lot of our employment lands and granted their logistical
and their big machinery around some for industrials.
But the offices lab in the beyond the same floor as the trucks come in, like, I mean,
Go up to go up three.
Employment lands. That's that's not mentioned at all in any of the reports that I've read.
I'll try and talk about Mr. Mayor through you to Council English. So there's there's no tools to require the densification or intensification of employment lands. You certainly through your official plan and zoning can provide the flexibility to allow industry.
the old factory wants to put up for story five story office building through your zoning
allowing for that height, allowing for that amount of development, you can do it in
that way. The biggest disincentive of course to intensifying for a higher density office
development is always parking and having to pay for the parking. So which it needs to be
a fairly high cost site, so land value fairly high to be able to start to
forward and then also then getting high rents, be able to start to forward
structured parking. So you might be able to do a four or five storey office
building, but most likely it would be with act grade parking. Once you get
taller than that, you're looking at structured parking and that's where you
need the rents to increase. So it's really, you need to provide the flexibility allowed
to happen, but it's really the market that's going to drive it where you're going to really
get that intensification. So people are going to want to build an office building and they're
going to want to build a taller one and get the market rents.
And thank you for that Paul. My next question, which sort of got up the top of the list
here is and you touched on it during your presentation was that the decision being locked
in until 2051. A number of people have commented to me there have been a number of e-mails,
a number of comments regarding why don't we just lock things down and at the five-year review
or the 10-year comprehensive update if things needed to change for a very urgent significant reason
the council of the day would be able to do that.
Now, can you tell me if that is a fact or it is false?
Through your Mr. Mayor to Councilor Angles,
so it is essentially false in that overall for the region,
they have to and the ministers already given the regional letter,
They have to meet the 2051 and accommodate the 2051 population forecast.
So in other words, the whole region cannot lock down and say, we're not taking any more
population.
It's not an option.
The province has said, the minister has said, you shall create an official plan that conforms
to the growth plan by allocating that population.
So if though the region chose no expansion, then all of that population growth is to come
has to be accommodated somewhere.
So if it's not to a settlement expansion, it has to be accommodated within densification
or intensification within the formless families.
Okay.
So if there is no urban expansion decision, if that was the decision to be made, that decision
would be locked in basically.
there would be no urban expansion period until 2051. Then they have to look at 2051 to 2061 or
2051 to 2071. Am I correct in that? It's important at 20.
The growth plan is reviewed
through you, Mr. Mayor, to counseling this. The growth plan is reviewed every 10 years
and the population will be updated. So I think the actual population is updated over five years.
So within five years we could see a new forecast to 2061 and at that time then the region then has to accommodate to 2061 growth.
So it's not that no municipal comprehensive review happens to 2051.
You will have to do another one in five to ten years to implement an updated growth plan with updated numbers that may go up to 2061.
Okay, follow up. I'm trying to do another story to interrupt one trying to get to the point if we lock urban boundary down where it is today or part of the decision come through that we that we lock it down today.
Is it locked down until 20 51 period?
It's locked down to 20 51 for 20 51 growth, but within 10 years you'll have to do an updated official plan to region well to extend it to 20 61.
Thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Those are my questions.
Thank you, Councillor Lawland.
Thanks very much, Mr. Mayor. And thank you very much for the presentation.
I'm feeling a bit like Councillor Johnson right now and I'm mildly conflicted about some of the projections and key takeaways that are being presented today.
And I appreciate that our staff and regional staff and consultants who have a huge amount
of experience have undertaken an exercise which frankly I feel is a bit of a fool's errand.
I think that the province in requiring us to project to 2021 has required us to kind
of tie ourselves in knots in order to come up with assumptions that have any validity
at all. I really don't know how we project 30 years in the future with any
surety at all. I mean given technical change, given things like COVID, given you
know all kinds of social changes, I don't know how we do this and I admire you on
one hand for giving it a shot, but I have to say that I have a huge trouble with accepting
some of the conclusions because I don't know how any of us can base these assumptions.
So anyway, with that pre-enable, I think that it appears to me that many of the projections
have to do with past practice.
So comments like housing in Holt and Hills has been
predominantly oriented.
And apartment growth has been limited.
And apartment demand will require a shift.
Well, I think that looking to the past is not a very good
indicator of how we should go in the future.
because climate change, because social change, because the requirements of our society
really, I think, require us to shift quite significantly in how we live our traditional
North American lifestyle and and so I think it's good that we should be shifting and sorry
Councillor Lawler is there a question because we do have a long list of delegations okay yes my
question is did you look at other communities such as Burlington such as Oakville such as
Mississauga, such as Brampton, where lots of families do live in apartments, and where
intensification of employment areas does occur, where yes, six-story housing and six-story
where housing does occur, did you look at those examples for projections into how
Holtz and Hills might unfold?
Maybe I'll start this, Mr. Marin, and Mr. Cook can add to it.
Three, Mr. Marin, the Chancellor of the Lawler.
Certainly both I and Jimmy Cook are very knowledgeable about all the municipalities around the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
We work in all of them for many of them.
What, yes, you're getting higher rates of intensification
in the order municipalities, Oakville, Burlington,
downtown Burlington, around the ghost stations.
But if you notice that slide I provide to you before,
even with that, only 8% of all the households
in Hulton region are families living in apartments.
If you look at the city of Toronto,
Similar, there are huge amounts of intensification of current and city of Toronto, incredible amount
of intensification of our high-density. Again, the amount of people that are families
is very small. Lots of empty nesters, lots of young people without families, and what
we've seen through the pandemic is without the restrictions of having to go to the office,
we've seen a fairly significant out-flight of young families with young kids moving out
of the city of Toronto into areas like Hulton Hills and even farther beyond for that ground-related
housing. So that's it. That's a shipment. And yes, to your point, we do definitely need to have
a shift. We have to have a shift. You have to have a shift. You're a misspellioceship just to meet
the growth plan target of 50% intensification. The question is, how much of a shift can you
who reasonably achieve in Hilton Hills.
In terms of an appointment, maybe Mr. Cook will add to this if he could, but yes, you're
seeing intensification in the QW quarter, but those are largely older industrial buildings
with lower ceiling heights that were built in a different era 30, 40 years ago.
They're not prime industrial space anymore, industries now on higher space.
what you'll see is they are more sea-spaced and they are the ones that are getting
redeveloped, torn down, demolished, and redeveloped for more intense office space.
Some with a larger manufacturing as well. You see that along the QW quarter and
that along the highway 400 corridor up through the city of Toronto and into
Vaughan. But your space is much newer and we're not seeing that. We might see that
in 30 years, but we're not going to see that the next 10 to 20 years.
for sure. Mr. Cook, do you want to respond to any add on to that? Sure, thanks, Paul. I guess
with respect to the residential market, as Paul mentioned, I do a lot of growth projections
work out across all of the GGA's and I would agree that it is very difficult to project long-term
population and housing and employment, but it is very critical to carry out these exercises for
the purpose of long-range planning and growth management, infrastructure planning.
So we have to try, but I do sympathize, and I do admit that our level of precision
is somewhat limited when we go out 30, 30 years.
But we have sophisticated models and a conference approach to try to tackle this.
And we've been doing this for a long time, and we've got a pretty good track record at
looking at the long-term projections.
I didn't prepare the long-term projections for the Holt and their Holt and Hills, but have looked at the employment.
I would just say on the residential, it is important to just always come back, I think, to provide some sort of balanced approach, I think.
I think to me, that's the operative word here, that any solution that is overly focused on one form of housing or one type of growth is likely not going to position the town in a positive way.
because there's just a broad range of demographic groups that are going to be looking for housing within
Hilton Hills. And for you to have success and to achieve a steady level of growth, you're really
going to be, and to play a role within the the the the GGation region to accommodate the population,
you are going to have to provide a broad range of housing types to accommodate first-time home buyers,
families, empty nesters, seniors, and all those. And apartments alone will not will not do that.
But there is a big challenge you have in front of you in terms of portability, I think
more starter sort of style of medium density housing is probably a good option to continue
to focus on, but it is definitely an uphill battle and rental.
I think you cannot ignore the need for more rental housing.
Just looking at housing formal loan is not going to provide the answer.
You need to look at tenure and there's going to be a tremendous need for rental housing with
that high density component.
And on the employment, to Paul's point, there are going to be opportunities for intensification.
We looked at that in detail.
I would say in fairly good detail in the employment and strategy.
We looked at a number of sites within Hilton Hills.
There's several dozen sites that we looked at.
It is difficult to project where opportunities are going to take place because we don't necessarily
know the intentions of landowners or businesses in terms of their needs to expand.
So we can look at sites that are underutilized and we did that, looking primarily in the older industrial areas and
Act and in Georgetown and we did identify a number of sites that had a high likelihood to intensify and most that's going to come through
Expansion of existing operations and maybe some redevelopment, but it was limited.
We looked at an overall target of about 7% of the employment would be accommodated with an existing spaces or an existing
already occupied lands. As Paul pointed out, in new areas
I'm going to be limited because there just isn't a lot of existing space to intensify in that area. So, I'll just leave it at that. Is there any further questions I'm happy to respond? Good. I did have one for the question, Mr. Mayor, if I may. And that is regarding climate change. And I did note that there was an analysis about GHG emissions and so forth. And the various scenarios
and how our climate emergency statement might be impacted by the various scenarios.
And I'm wondering if you could expand on that a little bit because I mean the numbers were there,
but there was no discussion virtually of what was behind that analysis.
this?
Certainly through you, Mr. Mayor of the Councilor Lohler. Yeah, I provided more
detail on that in the council workshop. I was going over fairly quickly today, so I missed
hitting on those points. Those are in the tables for each of the four options, five options.
And that work was done by a consultant for the region just recently in, I believe it was the
early June and they identified the the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would come from each
of the options. They did not look at outcommuting though as part of that. They sort of looked at the
options as is without considering in commuting or out commuting and the employment options. So the option
option 4 with the expansion had the highest amount. They're all within the 6
tons per person.
So we have option 3 being the lowest and option 1 and 2 in
between option 3 and 4. Okay and the ideal was was that 3 or? I don't recall
what an idea was. They were all in the same range of 6 plus, like 6.08 to 6.4 I believe if I recall
from memory, but it's in the slides. Okay. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you,
Councillor Lewis. And then after Councillor Lewis, I would ask if there are no other questions to
getting delegations from FAD people waiting since one o'clock. So we want to hear from our
delegations after Councillor Lewis. I'll we'll get into the delegations. Councillor
Lewis. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I don't know if this goes to Paul or to Jamie.
And again, I'll try to be fast. 93 times I have received the following sentence, which was
created by some of our, I'll just say some people around their table. And I just want
read it to you. The official plan is reviewed every five years with comprehensive reviews every 10
years. It would be a mistake to think that this is the only chance we have to open up the urban
boundary for the next 30 years. Hold the boundary now through review in 10 years. If what I understood
that you had said to Councilor Engels, that the 10-year opening is then to plan for 51 to 61.
So I'm asking here, one of you gentlemen made the same saying,
And waiting 10 years to the next review is, and I quote, not a prudent strategy.
I want to make sure I understand that correctly, Paul.
Certainly.
See you, Mr. Mayor to Councillor Lewis.
That is correct.
The next, it's the now the official plan calls for every 10 years.
And the region has to review their plan every time the growth plan is updated.
So we'll have a growth plan update in 10 years.
less than 10 years from the 2020, but they also sometimes update the population every five years.
So I just wanted to be clear it could be a little earlier. Then the region will have to update it.
But that update, and it will have to address the next population forecast. So it will have to go
to 2061, and that's what it'll be looking at. Once you've allocated your land to 2051, that is set.
You can re-look at it just as they're re-looking at it now for the next time period, but
that next regional official plan review will be looking out to 2061 and allocating that
growth to 2061.
Okay.
And then just from the personal perspective, I think that's one of the most important things
we learned today because what has been advised, what I received 93 times is not accurate.
it. On June the 21st, you made reference to sprawl, and you call it haphazard low-density
intermixed with rural and urban. And I'm just wondering, here, is there any change
in the language that you've given us relative to sprawl?
We're Mr. Mayor to Councillor Lewis. No, there's not. That is what sprawl is, and frankly,
you do not have sprawl and hold n' hills at the grant.
Thank you very much for the clarity. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you. Now we'll proceed to the delegations and I'd like to thank the
delegations for being very patient. She's been on since 1 o'clock but also I
think you've been all told by the clerks department that you're allowed five
minutes. We have 21 delegations and there will be questions after. So I'm just
going to ask everybody to have your five minutes and then they'll be it. So the first delegation
is Melanie Fraser from the Holton Hills Chamber of Commerce. Good afternoon and welcome.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much. My internet where I am is awful. So if I pop out,
I apologize. I have sent in the Chambers position on this to do the town clerk so you can take a look
at it that way. Good afternoon to you and to members of Town Council. We want to start by saying
thank you to town staff for their assistance in working with our board and committees to understand
the five growth options. I reiterate what was said earlier, there are you can see there are hundreds
of hours worth of work that goes into this and we do appreciate their assistance. I have a statement
that I'd like to read on behalf of our board. The Help Meholes Chamber of Commerce advocacy committee
Board of Directors have reviewed the five identified growth options presented under the regional
official plan amendment and extracted key elements that we believe to be fundamental to growing
the economy and the efficient movement of people and goods in our community. The following are key
takeaways from the five growth concepts presented. Expanded employment lands are required to support new
development opportunities in Halton Hills and to provide for expansion of our existing business
and tax base. Should this not be included, we risk losing this business to other regions.
Any growth plan must at the very least protect existing employment uses. The chamber supports
the focus of new employment lands along the Premier Gateway and Winston Churchill as opposed
to the Manswood area. Additional employment lands may need to be considered should the GTA West
Court or be approved. Intensification and densification of residential land and employment land use
and Houghton Hills will support some of this plant growth, but we recognize that intensification
is not enough to accommodate the growth needs.
Any future growth plan must include careful consideration to allow for affordable housing,
expansion, and act-in and Georgetown.
Consultation with our members tell us that access to employees is a significant concern.
Current housing trends in Houghton Hills are a barrier to attracting and retaining a wide
range of employment levels. Any planned growth must also allow for the continued preservation
of rural lands for agricultural and agri-business where possible. The Chamber supports a growth
plan that allows for moderate measured population growth that can be accommodated with a robust
transportation strategy and infrastructure plan. In closing, we at the Chamber of Commerce
appreciate the weight of this decision and we understand the considerations that must
come with all of the options before you. And we appreciate your careful consideration
and we thank Council for your efforts in this matter. And that's all I have to say on
that. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you very much. There may be questions of the chamber. Councilor Somerville.
I guess it's more to the clerk about the delegation for the chamber because I know it was indicated
that we had received it and I'm just wondering if that was in, in which of the emails
we would have had that because I don't recall seeing it but that could also be by the volume
we've had the last day or so.
That would be my first one and then a question to Melanie.
Well, thank you for being here Melanie and I guess the one thing that you have mentioned
Councilor Somerville just let the clerk let Valerie answer your first question about the
correspondence. Thank you, ma'am. Through you, Councillor Somerville, we just received
that today so that we'll be coming out to council later this afternoon.
Okay, thank you. I guess a question I would have for Melanie is about, you know, you mentioned about
modest employment or residential growth, but also about, you know, the employment land
growth. For the members of the Chamber, have they been vocal or expressing concern about
the lack of land to be able to use for employment purposes within the town? Has there been any
conversations on that to date?
Through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councilor Somerville, yeah, we do hear from time to time, most recently
for a couple of our larger employers that have had to actually move out of Paulton Hills
because there wasn't appropriate land for them to expand upon.
So I think the general consensus in town is that for any growth to occur, that we need
to see expanded employment lands.
And we would hate to see losing some of our larger companies
to areas like Milton and other regions.
And I guess the final one would be
as there's always been some of the members
of the Chamber have been about after transit and transportation
and being able to have both people and moved by not only
by buses but you know go trains and highways but also the transportation of goods. Is that still
something that has been top of mind for the members as well? Yeah through you Mr. Mayor
to Councillor Somerville that is a great question and it is one that comes up often when we pull
our members so we have to remember that our chamber members represent all different types of employment
within Hilton Hills so when we look at the different growth plans I know that one of the things
that our advocacy committee and our board both want to meet a to reiterate and to let
council know was that none of this works without a transportation plan to back it up.
And that includes a local transportation, whether it be buses or something of that iteration,
but also looking at other larger scale transportation issues.
We know that the majority of employment in Halton Hills or larger employment focuses on
we're housing and logistics and is not necessarily at a rate where the hourly rate is enough to
support a car for a lot of the employment that they would need to be attracting. So definitely
that is something that we'd like to see and I know that council has had this before them before
and that there are plans in place and we definitely would like to see that as a support for any future
growth.
Thank you so much. I don't want to hold you up because I'm sure you want to get back
to enjoying your vacation. Thank you. I do have Councillor O'Bano.
Thank you, Melanie. I'm just wondering in question during the discussions with chamber members,
is there going to be any conversation around the new hospital that could potentially be coming to
in our community? I just wanted if you had that conversation with your board
and the members. So it's for you, Mr. Mayor, to Councilor
Obano. I think that that's a fairly recent kind of public realization within
the community. So we haven't had any definitive talks about the new hospital.
It's certainly, you know, one of the worst kept secrets in
home hills that a new hospital is coming and I think everyone is aware that
there is in current space within Halton Hills as it stands right now without expansion of lands.
But certainly, you know, when I will add that any growing community, and you all know this,
that is carefully thought out, you know, we look at the 15-minute neighborhood,
you know, we need to have better healthcare within this region as we grow.
And I know that, you know, the talks that we have is that, you know, much like we talked about today
with the presentations is that growth is coming, there is little to no choice over expansion
of our population. So it's such a unique opportunity we have right now to actually shape
what it looks like and leave a better legacy for our kids and grandkids. And part of that
is as an expanded hospital. Thank you very much, Molly.
Thank you. I don't see any other questions,
so thank you very much Melanie for coming here today and your letter will be circulated.
Our next delegation is Megan Suttergaard and that's from Silver Creek Neighborhood Association.
Good afternoon Mayor Bennett, councillors and town staff. I wish to thank you again for the
opportunity to speak today. My name as you know is Megan Suttergaard and I'm speaking today as a
resident of the proposed Georgetown MTSA area and on behalf of the Silver Creek Neighborhood Association.
I'm basically
In the current GO Transit Secondary Plan, we're not anti-development of this area, or not anti-intensification. And we understand that the GO Transit Secondary Plan will take a share of the population coming to town, regardless of the growth concept that is chosen. We just want to work together with you in the town to make sure that we get this right. Before I start, I just want to quickly extend my very deep appreciation for the time that Councillor Johnson and Fogel and Mr. Lentard and town staff have spent answering my many questions.
by email and zoom meetings and answering questions that have been brought forward by neighbors and members of the association independently of my conversations. I know they've asked some as well.
It's very, very clear that you're listening to us and that you are taking our comments and requests and questions very seriously and so I really do want to extend my appreciation for that.
I have delegated this council before and so you might remember that my concerns pertain to the Georgetown MTSA.
So I understand that the proposed Georgetown MTSA is quite different in its current land use than the other proposed MTSAs in Halton region, with perhaps the exception of Acton.
And when I look at the MTSAs, I see that our neighborhood, which is a stable low density residential neighborhood, is located within the boundary line of the Georgetown MTSA.
And that represents a significant contrast to the other MTSAs, not just in Halton, but when
I look to neighboring region of PO, et cetera, I see that the low-density residential areas
of those other MTS have been carved out of the boundary.
After the many discussions that I referenced, I understand now that it appears a bit too late
to modify the boundary line, given that a short runway left in the rope of 48 approval process.
But based on my conversations, I have learned that there is a proposal under consideration
to add some specific language into Fort Rope of 48 that could direct the local municipalities
to implement the detailed official plan policies or specific area plans that could identify
more specific detailed land use policies and plan the most appropriate locations for intensification
in filling and redevelopment while also recognizing there will be some areas that have limited
opportunities for intensification such as stable low density residential neighborhoods like ours.
I'm so appreciative to learn that there is wording like this that is proposed and I know
it's not approved.
That could help protect this neighborhood.
That could be embedded right into the rope of 48 policy.
I also know that there is, well, I understand that there is a plan for a revision to the secondary
plan that will involve resident and public inputs.
In the members of the Civil Creek Residence Association and I really are excited to participate
in these discussions that could help to shape the land use policies and possible refinements
to our NTSA area. So thank you for that. So to that end, I'm coming before you today with
just two questions, and they actually are directed to Mr. Arlandt. The first one is, is the wording
that you're proposing into the region consistent with what I just mentioned? So should I ask my
Is that sort of the wording and is the wording public at this point where we can have a look and think about what it says?
Yes, through the Mayor to the delegation. Yes, rope of 48 a draft version is included on the regional council agenda for tomorrow.
And essentially, the region has done two things. And this is really based upon obviously the feedback that they've gotten from the residents as well as some discussions that I've had directly with Kurt Ben.
and regarding this particular matter.
So initially, the region talked about adding an objective
into role 48 and it basically talks about maximizing
the number of potential transit users
within walking distance of a station
while considering contextually appropriate
intensification opportunities
within stable residential neighborhoods
as determined through the preparation
of area specific plans.
Through further discussions with the region,
we also ask that there be a complementary policy that would work hand in glove with that objective
that refers specifically to the preparation of secondary plans or updates to secondary plans.
And that particular provision would enable local municipalities through those reviews to
specifically identify stable residential neighborhoods where only contextually appropriate
intensification opportunities and keeping with neighborhood character are contemplated.
So that is the language that has gone into the revised version of rope of 48.
Thank you. I appreciate that detail answer. So then my second question is when I hear those words,
I worry that they're not quite specific enough. And so, you know, and I recognize that there
might be an interim period where the rope of 48 is approved and the secondary plan has not yet been
revised or enacted or put into into official status. So I wonder are there planning risks that the
town and our neighborhood might face in that interim period between the approval and the secondary
plan revisions. For example, because Ropa 48 will take primacy, I worry that inappropriate development
applications could come forward in very short order or within that time period anyways.
That might require the town and the residents to then defend against these things with limited
kind of policy levers, limited opportunity for recourse. So I wonder whether there are interim
planning tools beyond just the language in Ropa 48. That could help protect the neighborhood
from something like this. I'm thinking my mind goes to an interim control bylaw.
Potentially could be put in place or could these levers be put right into the Ropa 48 language to
help the town and the residents to have something to stand behind should these should these occur. So
I guess my next question is can these tools like an interim control bylaw be enshrined right into
the ROPA-40 policy itself. And if no, is the town able to enact these of its own accord
in order to think about a whole area and how that might need to be revisited and reviewed,
not just in light of a specific application, but the applications that could come forward
to the area itself.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the in-term control by law, that is really, it's a local tool, not
a regional tool. And what it's designed to do is to allow for a pause for a municipality
to undertake a planning study. And typically though what it's designed to do is to
preclude for a one-year period a use that would be permitted as of right under existing
zoning by-laws. So in the case of the GO station area or military corridor we haven't
presumed any of the land uses within that area for more intense development.
So we would effectively, in my view, I don't know that or I don't believe that it is necessary
to pass an interim control by law at this particular juncture in time.
That's my take on it.
My second point that I will mention and in fairness, this is relatively recent information.
The region is also, and this may give the residents some additional comfort.
The region is now contemplating, pausing on the densities for the Georgetown and the act
in MTSA designations that were enshrined in rope of 48 in light of some of the public input
to allow for additional consultation as well so I think that actually may go a long way towards
perhaps addressing some of the concerns that you may have right now that the numbers going into
the Ropa that may lead to some applications quickly coming in and wanting to leverage that
particular number if you will. Given where the region appears to be heading and deferring those
particular numbers, I think there's a lot less risk right now in terms of the concern that you've raised.
So hopefully that helps.
And if I may because you've just spurred another question in my mind.
Is it possible then to revisit?
I guess there's two questions.
Just to clarify.
Can does the town have the ability to enact an interim control by-log?
Should it see fit to do so? That's one question.
And the other is if there's a potential to revisit the targets.
Is there a potential to revisit the boundary as well in the MTSA?
So through the matter there's two questions there.
One on the interim control by-law.
But yes, it is a tool that is available to the municipality.
Past discussions that we've had over the years with our solicitor, it's a tool to be
used sparingly, and it has to be done for very legitimate planning purposes.
So typically when something like that comes up, we would go away and do an assessment as
to whether it's warranted.
And we would also sit down with our town solicitor and sort of do, I guess, a risk analysis
and the pros and the cons before taking any such action.
In terms of the actual boundaries itself, the region is not proposing to revisit the
boundaries of the two MTSAs.
It is the two boundaries are largely reflective of work that the town has undertaken to
date through the Employment Land Needs Study and Complementary Work through the Intensification
Analysis.
I think as we have suggested in the past, we are actually seeing potential benefits for
residents within stable residential areas if they are sitting inside an MTSA because
the region is proposing that those MTSAs be protected in accordance with Planning Act provisions
and that would shelter those policies from appeals once the amendment is approved by the province.
and then similarly once the town completes an update to the GO Station secondary plan and it is approved by the region.
Any of those updated policies and heights will also be sheltered from appeals.
So I think from our perspective we're seeing advantages in terms of leaving the low density areas within the boundary.
Okay, so thank you. So I understand that the policy levers are municipal tool that could be enacted in a last resort type of way.
and I really do appreciate the thoroughness
with which you've answered my questions,
and I appreciate everyone's time today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon.
Our next delegation is Gary Gregoros
from Matamie Homes.
Your worships are I'm just hoping I'm online.
Yep, we can hear you, Gary.
Oh, perfect.
Good afternoon, Mayor and members of Council.
For those that don't know me,
my name's Gary Gregoros.
I'm a senior vice president with Madame E. Holmes.
I live in Paul Regen, I've raised a family here for many, many years.
I'm here to speak on behalf of the Joint Venture Partnership that owns 200 acres immediately
south of 10 side road situated between eight to nine lines, excuse me.
I'd like to thank Council for the opportunity to speak and I echo Mr. Mills' comments right
at the beginning that I commend staff as well for very well articulated, well-worded,
professionally written staff report. And I seek councils indulgence. I have not delegated
to a council in over 25 years. So I'm going to stumble and fumble, but I felt it was so important
because we were at such a crossroad, and I really wanted to bring a different perspective.
And I know Councillor Johnson's dying asked me a question about all that and stuff like that.
So, I'm ready and willing, and I'd also like to point out that Maddie takes a very
different perspective for growth and growth management in the region of
Hilton, and it's for obvious reasons. We started in 1978 as a custom home
builder in the city of Burlington, and we've built thousands of houses and
communities in all four locations, and either than us of today we still have
of low holdings and land assets in all four communities.
So our perspective isn't just honed in on Halton Hills
for this example.
It's on all communities and all desires
at each of those respective locations.
Council may not be aware as well
that we have a high density division.
And that high density division has been active
and builds mid rise to high rise apartments
from the city of Toronto.
So we currently, if I could take you around, show you six buildings under construction
today, four in Oakville, two in Milton, and several, several others planned.
And I guess also, just to that point, three of the six are currently being prepared to
be geothermal.
So we are also consciously aware of climate change as Councilor Fulgo may be asking me about
questions related to that.
I think the regions in a very unique situation, Oakville and Burlington have reached their
maturation points in time where they are appropriately and wanting to pursue higher
order density and proximity to its transit notes.
And kudos to them, intensification in the right locations is an appropriate planning strategy
and should be pursued. Milton, as I think one of the Councillors alluded to earlier,
is fully committed to pursuing its balanced growth for its community.
Houghton Hills is at a unique crossroads. This is the first time in its history where
Lake Bay Services will be at its front door. And my opinion, I think it provides the opportunity
for contextually appropriate intensification to pick up on Mr. Lynn Hart's words and without
sounding too presumptuous, some additional modest green field expansion. This is not
a one-size-fits-all. It has to be tailored, in my opinion, to the needs and the wants
of the community. And I know I'm under a time constraint, so I really can't get into a lot
of the details that I wanted to talk about with respect to immigration, planning policy
in climate change, I do want to point out that in the next three years,
So, I just wanted to highlight that and then I'm going to read what my final submission is. And it's my respectful submission that council should be promoting a shift for additional density and job opportunities within the existing built boundary through intensification.
Good development in the right locations, considering impacts to stable neighborhoods and local contacts supported by transit while maximizing existing infrastructure is prudent place making.
We support it and sound from the discussions today so it is most of the council.
Also, we submit that a modest expansion to the urban boundary is also prudent.
It represents good place making in locations that are logical extensions to the existing
urban boundary, whereby the utilization of existing and future infrastructure and has
transit opportunities like the land south of Tenside Road.
Furthermore, we believe a modest expansion is necessary for the planning of other essential
and required town facilities, including a possible new hospital site or new community
park plan, and Mr. Bailey's letter and Mr. Harris's letter aptly points that out.
Finally, it's our view that a minor expansion addresses the growth plan and will result in
a made in Houghton Hills planning decision.
To conclude our respectful submission that a modest urban boundary expansion consistent
Assistant with staff report recommendation provides the right balance to good place making for the town and should be approved.
I thank you, and I would be grateful to answer any questions.
Thank you very much for your presentation.
I do have Councillor Somerville first.
I have three quick questions, I hope Mr. Mayor.
So I will probably ask the one that Councilor Johnson was going to ask from having worked
on Vision Georgetown as well and over that time and we worked with the land owners almost
ten years and we got to the end and it is disappointing that it was appealed to what's
now the Ontario land tribunal.
And I just got asked if you have any comments on that because I know some of us feel frustration
that we did that work.
So we don't very often get to have people who are from that group here. So can you comment on that Gary?
Yeah, I guess I'm taking one for the team, but
so so my first my first
First, I'd like to state that I can only speak on behalf of that. I mean, I'm not I'm not here or
Able to speak on behalf of the landowners group or any of the other other landowners who may have issues and have different
And have their own appeals in place
And I know the matter as I'll do, that the matter's before the OLT, and I will respond
knowing this, meaning I'm going to be really careful just to be quite candid.
Councilor Somerville, we too are equally disappointed having worked with the town over
the intervening period as part of the Vision Georgetown planning exercise.
And I'd like to point out that any decision to appeal is not a decision that we took lightly
or flippantly without thorough consideration.
As you can appreciate in a most council can,
that we made significant investment
through the acquisitions that we've made.
And as council knows, this landowner group
committed to the region through the allocation program,
$150 million of prepaid development charge money
to extend this municipal services
to the front door of a vision Georgetown.
It doesn't make prudent business to commit funds
and delay community building
unless the impact was so significant
to justify the appeal.
So it wasn't as though it was done lightly.
And to Councillor Johnson's point,
I will answer it.
So what are the reasons for the appeal?
And I think there's some broken telephone going on here,
and I hope I'm wrong,
but I think there is.
Our fundamental issues, not in these fundamental issues, have been
consistent since day one. And there really are four core items. The first being stormwater
management and drainage channels with location, design, etc. Natural heritage issues,
buffers, width and extents, and densities. And I'm going to correct
Councilor Johnson's understanding that in fact, at least as it relates to the
Miami plan, we're actually looking to increase the densities, not lower them.
So, we're not trying to unravel the good work that we did with Vision Georgetown.
We think we needed more density, more flexibility of alternative bill forms to respond to the many
issues that are being raised as part of this discussion, including the need for densification.
I guess the last point that I'd like to raise is council has to understand that a lot of
these amendments or modifications were made by the region and they were made very late
in the planning process and we had little time to respond.
So our issues, for the most part, have little to do with the policies that were originally
adopted by this council and more to do with the policies that were in this case approved
through notice of decision by the region. So it was the region's modifications that drove
us to make the decisions to appeal in part, and there were some fundamental issues that
we needed answers for that simply we weren't satisfied with or were significant enough
to impact our land planning that we thought it was appropriate to appeal.
However, having said an answer to the historical question, can I talk more about the goal
for it?
Because really that's more important than where we are, it's where we're going.
And as I said, we're under LPAT and we've all got to be careful in what we say.
But this is public information.
At the first LPAT committee, we asked for mediation.
I've gone through mediation personally for many, many times, including Robert 38, which
has spent the extent of amount of time discussing with people across the table to narrow
our issues or eliminate our issues.
We still believe, quite strongly, that mediation, not litigation, will lead to an outcome of a
win-win.
So we're hopeful that the mediation request will be positively considered by this council at some point in time, hopefully in the future, and that we can sit around a table and talk about what these issues are and hopefully find some common ground.
Sorry, sorry for the long wind and answer.
No, you were, you must have anticipated the question because you were, you were prepared
and I know we can all follow up on the, on the, on doing, you know, the last piece that
you mentioned about the mediation. So the other one I would, I'd like to ask you are one
of the other ones is the intensification that some people are suggesting with 3B. Option
3B that would be within the current boundary. And I know you guys build everything from single
family to stack to towers and everything. What challenges and extra difficulties you
have when you're working in existing neighborhoods, it's a two-part, and the other one is the
regional allocation program, as it's set up today, is really geared more for single family,
as opposed to the high rises than that as well. So, would we have to do dramatic changes to be able
to even look at doing some of those.
Yeah, great, two tough questions.
So, Council, please bear with me.
So I'll answer the first question.
Intensification, as I said at the outset,
isn't appropriate and necessary.
It also is perhaps the most complicated.
And I think Mr. Lowe's touched upon it during his delegation.
Generally speaking, those properties are active businesses.
So trying to assemble a lands or acquire the lands requires some unique finesse in land
acquisition, and usually it requires assembly.
It also, in my opinion, having done this for a little while, is one of the most unpredictable
land supplies you could rely upon to plan your community.
Because none of it, in theory, is owned by the development interest.
It's all owned by landowners or active businesses that are there because they're making a profit,
and I would imagine, and are active in looking towards, you know,
staying there in those locations.
I also think you got to think about what happens in intervening periods.
When you're infilling and intensifying, some uses move out quickly and others stick around.
And so trying to intensify in these locations sometimes, not always, but sometimes creates land use conflicts.
Placing residential next to a tire shop or a gas station or a car body shop.
In your intervening periods there's lots of disruption to both business and a resident.
The other thing that always seems to be missing in the discussion when we talk about intensification
from my perspective is no one's done the land budget.
No one's said to us yet to date that you can actually fit all these units and these people
in these locations and what I mean by that is if we're building intensifying communities,
We still need parks, we still need schools, we likely need to retrofit for storm water
management ponds, roads still need to be widened, sidewalks still need to be built.
It takes much more energy, probably capital, to intensify in these locations.
So in my perspective, although intensification is something we should absolutely pursue,
It comes with its challenges, and as I set up the outset, for those reasons, as to why I believe it's an unpredictable land supply, and not something that I think you should be planning on solely.
I think it's important to plan for it, but you can't plan solely on it to deliver your housing needs.
So, now the more complicated answer, the Regional Halt and Allocation Program, and having
lived through them since 2008, there are many components to the Halt and Allocation Program,
but for those who don't understand it, it's really for the last go, the 2020, which is
where the landowner group took 3,000 units in this community.
It's a prepayment of your development charges.
So we've prepaid our development charges, which are about $40,000, an SDE for each unit,
single detached equivalent.
When the region struck this allocation program, it was predicated on exactly what you indicated
to Councillor Somerville, it being related to Greenfield development.
And the theory being is that the low-density housing providers were benefiting and were
in a financial position, I'll call it, to front-end finance their development charges.
The business model for high-density is very different.
And if you actually look at the way the allocation program is evolved, it's actually tried to
anticipate that shift in housing and even under the last program, the way in which high
density residential is actually dealt with is different than single detached equivalent.
They have a longer period of time in which to pay for their prepay for their development
charge. When you now put that into an intensification concept, none of the land is currently owned,
I would say in large measure by development interests.
So who in fact is going to front end the required improvements that you're going to need to
improve the roads, bit by the parks, build the school, buy the school sites, build the school sites?
I think there's going to be a disconnect between the allocation program that currently exists,
I'm not saying it can't be adjusted, but the one that currently exists and the one that's going
to be put in place in the future.
I believe that the region has a very, very appropriate program where growth pays for
itself.
And I think this reliance on intensification and this unpredictable land supply, I'll
go out on a limb and say it puts the region at risk financially.
I can't see how it all is to do it unless someone comes up with a bucket of money, or the taxpayer
in this case, front-end finances all that work, and I know that's a lightning rod, but I said it.
Well, that's okay. Sometimes lightning isn't bad, you know, as long as they're not playing hockey,
you just have to ask the mayor about that. Thank you for that for your comments, and I appreciate
you being up front with us as well. And I would love to see some of the high-rise
product that is being built at a, you know, an appropriate time when we can do a better
lap because I've seen, you know, the low rise, what you've done, the ego. I've seen some
of the stack. I would absolutely love to see what is being done with the high rise words.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. I have Councillor Johnson.
Well, Gary, you know me too well, I guess.
You hit the nail on the head there. So,
It was nice to hear you just reply that it was nothing to do with what we did, that it's all the region's fault, which I'm sure that, anyway, I'll leave it there. But I think I just wanted to put it put out there that some of the things you mentioned, natural heritage, storm order management, those are those are requirements, environmental requirements, and I know conservation. Halton was involved and probably credit valley conservation. So those are things that really have to be worked out.
and you know as well as I do that you can't cut corners when it comes to safety for the people
that will live there and sledding and all that sort of thing. So I just wanted to mention that,
not really a question because Councillor Somerville asked it. But I just wanted to comment to you
or clarify that when I said that madamee was decreasing the densities, it wasn't in Bishop George
but it was that site at the corner of Mountain View in Nicole that was designated for two 10 story apartments and now contains, I don't know how many townhouses, but certainly not the number of people that could have lived in those two 10 story apartment buildings.
So that was the site that I was specifically talking about. It's too bad your your high density division wasn't around then because maybe there would have been two really attractive buildings. I know you build a good product.
It would have been nice to have something there that would have provided that kind of housing
in a way that was attractive and people would want to live there.
And I think just a comment too, sometimes people don't want to live in apartments
because they aren't very attractive.
Everyone wants to live in a nice building or house or whatever they choose or kind of forward to buy.
So what they look what you know curve appeal I think is used by real estate
People and and that's what we would hope that could be provided in a high density situation
So I'm sorry
I didn't have a question because it was answered but I had to say my piece to Gary since he mentioned me. Thanks mr. Mayor
Mr. Mayor can I can I just respond quickly to to counselor Jones and so on that's because I just don't know what I had
Sorry, thank you. So I want to build on what mr. Lowes said and
Councilor Johnson, I think people will want to live in apartments.
I don't think that that's something that is never going to go away.
I think the challenge we have, and Mr. Lowes hit it right on the head, is how do we make
them attractive and how do we make it comparable from an affordability perspective to live
in the same square footage or near square footage.
And the only other dimension that I would add to the dialog on that is we fail to, if
you're talking about condominium apartments, we fail to build in and to the financing
of those or the affordability of those, the condominium component of it.
So on average costs of about 50 cents a square foot for a condominium fee.
So, on top of the unit being more expensive, there is also the additional cost of paying
the condominium fee.
And I think that really kind of tips the scales for some people to be, it just becomes
unaffordable for them.
Certainly people can and will live in apartments with families, where I'm not suggesting otherwise.
I think it's just going to take some time for us to get there.
and I just think it's going to be a slower take-up because I think people will drive till they qualify.
And as a resident of Houghton region, I always get concerned that they just pass by and through Houghton
and end up in KW and other communities because we can't have accommodation for our children or
our children's children. That's the concern that I have with any extreme position being way too
much boundary expansion or way too much of one housing form in this case apartments.
Okay. Thank you. Now I have calcifogal.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Gary,
for your presentation, making your debut appearance. That's good. You did well.
Well, one thing is I'm glad to hear that you've diversified and are now doing some high rise.
And you talked about energy efficiency for cooling and heating, which is great.
Like to me, that's part of driving down those condo fees is to reduce the carrying cost
of the building.
And I think that's part of the secret to this thing is that we've got to get that under control
because the cost of fuel is only going to go up.
So good on that. Are you saying or not saying that you're supporting the staff report?
I'm supporting the staff report and as I said, modest expansion option two would be my humble recommendation.
I just wanted to be clear on that. And the last thing is on the allocation program,
Do you know of any other regions that have an allocation program to finance their water and waste water?
I can tell you this because I negotiated this one as well, the region of Durham for the seat and community has a similar program.
But no other can you not shouldn't say that.
There's some communities in Cinco County, but generally the GTA communities, no one else has the program.
There's been a lot of discussion about it.
I know our neighbors to the east have considered it
by being peal, but no other community like York,
or big parts of Durham that I'm familiar with.
So the region was at risk with this program?
Yeah, and I gotta be careful,
because I'm not a fear monger, Councillor Foglioz,
you know, but what I'm saying to you is
When we've relied upon the development industry that have predictable land supply, predictable
timing that need the available services to deliver the Greenfield developments and in many
of the instances that we speak of, it becomes more predictable or manageable when we start
to retrofit into a built community.
It becomes more of a challenge because the A, the land mass isn't there, it may not
be owned by any development interests at the outset.
So who's going to front-end finance what may be extremely expensive retrofitting of
pipes, ponds, and roads?
And heaven forbid, no schools and parks are in proximity.
So, that is what I mean by there may be challenges and risk maybe too strong a word.
If you rely upon that form of housing or that type of housing, i.e. intensification, to
front-end finance the reagent's allocation program.
That's really my point.
So, we're changing from a changing situation because we've got Oakville and Burlington built
out.
like obviously if they keep building we need more capacity and we have to pay for it a different
way. Again there's smarter people who'll be thinking about this in different ways than me
but my gut tells me yeah that's that's exactly it. Councillor Folgo. Thank you very much for your
Your comments, kick it, sorry, your worship, can I answer council of four was one more question
because you didn't ask it, but I really wanted to make the point.
Yes, go ahead.
Sorry, and I don't mean to monopolize the time, but there's one thing that I put in my
submission that I thought was really important, I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else,
is that the Ontario Building Code and the National Building Code is going to be changed by 2030.
And it's going to mandate that zero-ready homes.
And so, what our point is is, in the Greenfield, we will be required by law call it
to actually build houses, communities that are net zero ready.
And I have not heard that at all in the dialogue, I am not sure if it is built in any of the
models regarded in greenhouse gas.
But I really thought that that was an important thing to point out.
Because I think it is going to do not everything, you know, build a 15 minute community as Mr.
those points out, certainly a lot of the federal government changes with respect to electrical
vehicles, fossil fuel change, climate change.
I just want to do to know and emphasize that point that there's more things that we can
do and we'll be doing to make these things more accommodating to deal with the real climate
change crisis.
Okay, so if I could comment on that, that's the first I've heard that there is any sort of
commitment to net zero by 2030 for the building code.
All I've ever had is the building industry fighting back
and others of us out there fighting to move it forward
and kind of inching along at a snail's pace
when we need to go away faster to provide homes
that are cheaper to operate.
And yeah, they're a little more expensive to start with,
I guess, but you do get payback on it.
And if you can get there, then, you know, it really does change the conversation completely.
So that, you know, I'm glad that you interrupted and said, yes, let me say this because I hadn't
asked it because that is the first I have heard of that.
And to what extent are you saying that it's guaranteed or expected or what language would
you use?
I would say it is certain. I mean, I think there's a lot of a lot more dialogue that needs to take place, but it is it is well underway.
I would also point out, Councillor Folgolette, in my submission, since 2006, madamey, at least, I can't speak for other builders have been building energy star compliant houses.
Over 20,000 houses were the largest in North America, which exceed current building
code standards, and so the way I understand the new code, there's going to be five tiers.
Energy stars at three, net zero, ready's five.
So we've got two more levels to go, and in fairness, like the auto industry, the industry
up. It's similar to the auto industry where they're going to implement net fossil fuel
ready car, no net fossil fuel cars by 20, I think it's 2050 ultimately, but it gives
the industry some time. So, I think the needle is going to move, Councillor Folwell,
and I think it's a good thing. I think you're absolutely 100% right? These houses can be more
energy efficient. Should be any cheaper efficient. And at the end of the day, the cost of these things
work becoming less and less of a barrier because it's becoming more mainstream.
That how you intend to build and vision Georgetown?
Absolutely. We would be building both energy star and I know that we've actually started
a utility company that's going to deal with our geothermal because all today, as I said,
three of the six buildings in Oakville. All three buildings in Oakville are being built with
geothermal.
Okay, so all we need to do is get the other developers on side to do the same thing.
I think there's I think some members of the group are there. I don't think that's the challenge.
Okay, well that's wonderful news. I know I've been hearing about the negotiations on our green
development standards. So I'm heartened to hear your enthusiasm. Thank you.
Yeah, Mr. Linner may have a different opinion, but I think we're going to get there.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you very much Councillor Fogel. So just to follow up a little bit from Councillor Fogel,
did I just heard you say that some Gary, that some of your consortium are looking at the
the building code standards or is that something that you would all be looking at if we went
with concept two or a variation of it?
Yeah, I can't correlate the two your worship because some of the land owner groups have no land
outside of the urban boundary. But what I can say based on the information that they've presented
it does, that they're going to be looking at alternative energy sources for the delivery
of their community.
I cannot say, as I said earlier, that I can't speak on behalf of the group, that all members
of the group are in the same space, but I do know that if the code changes, we have to comply.
So if by 2030 my predictions accurate and the code does change, all the development would be required to build to that standard.
It may not be capturing all of vision Georgetown, but certainly would capture perhaps some of it that occurs after that point in time.
Okay. Thank you very much for that clarification. I see no other questions. So thank you for appearing
before us. Our next delegation is Jay River Truestill from Smart Centers.
Afternoon, Mr. Mayor and members of Council. My name is VH Truestill. I'm the Director of Corporate
Affairs at Smart Centers for Real Estate Vesatrust. Smart Centers was founded with a vision of
And it's begun a transformation into a diversified real estate trust. We have active applications for over 10,000 new residential units just within the Greater Golden Horseshoe. And we have formed joint ventures of best-in-class operators like smart, soft, self-storage.
A cell storage company out of California and Rivera Senior Living, a top tier retirement home operator. We have also formed partnerships with groups like the YMCA integrating social infrastructure into our new developments.
Through COVID, we've offered up a number of our vacant spaces free of charge to help authorities
across the country for COVID testing and vaccine clinics. And we now have over 10 active
vaccine clinics across Ontario and the country. We're master planning our sites across Canada
to become new communities with a mix of housing types and convenient access to shops and services.
We appreciate the hard work that staff has done, working with the region, the development
industry, and the community, it really gains consensus around the options and recommendations
that are presented.
They are highly responsive, attentive, and very helpful with all of our questions and concerns
like the other delegations I want to extend.
My thanks to staff and commend the work that they have done.
The recommendation before you today is a result of these and other discussions and
in our view is highly supportable.
Gary's expertise, I won't repeat the things that Gary said, but he brought up a lot of
great points about why and how we need to grow and we need to be accommodating to the citizens
of tomorrow, people that are coming to join the community.
On set two strikes have balanced between urban expansion and increased density, which
will allow for all types of homes for all types of people.
We just have a recommendation and look forward to working together to help grow home responsibly
and bring new housing choices in the community.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And could you tell members of council and probably people from the public watching this how
How many, how much land do you own outside of the urban boundary and what's perhaps were your plans if we did expand your urban boundary?
Absolutely.
So we own about 52 acres at 9th line and 10th side road just across the street from the current urban boundary.
We have had discussions with staff at the town, and in my last delegation at the region,
they very clear that we're an open book. I mean, a lot of what I said about master planning sites,
we haven't done to this site. We don't know what the opportunities are, what the community need is.
So we are very open to working with Halton Hills on appropriate uses and densities for this site
if it's considered as part of the expansion, absolutely.
Thank you very much for that answer.
Are there any questions from members of council having none?
Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon and for your patients.
We'll go on to the next delegation.
And that is Sherry Thompson, who's a resident of Halton Hills.
Hi there, sorry about that delay there.
Not to worry.
My name is Sherry Thompson and I lived in my morning for 15 years.
What I had written to say today is really flipped on its head after watching these last
few hours.
I must say certainly a lot of information is now available that was not available prior
to the last year, but the last 15 for me but the last year for many.
So I just did, from what I'm hearing, I think it's just going to be really, really important
for Council to set some solid guidelines, whether they can, is there a way to make a mathematical
equation regarding land use and the amount of clearing of it that is required to use it?
because I know that the question is always when you see these beautiful pieces of land in
Holton, is there certain areas of trees that are gorgeous and then flat-led between them?
Is there any mathematical equation that would equate to say one acre of housing use has
to be produced by say an equal acre of forest that's taken?
If not, then it forces people to use less desirable land because they want to produce houses
or they want to produce multi-use or whatever it is we're trying to do.
The reason I'm saying it that way now it's a little convoluted is because it just can't
just as I was listening to you now because part of the reason that I'm in the state that
I'm in and all this has gone downhill is because current
And I mean, right now, as I sit here, there's seven hectares of forest that was cleared for 33 homes.
Now, I guess 10 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, that wouldn't have been a saw.
Nobody would have batted it on.
We're in a different space now.
All I keep here is climate change, climate change, housing crisis, housing crisis, housing crisis.
The development that was cleared seven hectares for 33 homes was partially owned by the town
if I'm to understand.
I don't even want to figure it all out yet.
But that kind of lend to me would be the perfect opportunity to put a high density of
power in building.
It's now walkable to the go-train.
I don't understand the thought.
I think there needs to be rules around land, as far as the amount of opportunity for
the community as a whole produced by its use. So I don't know if somebody can answer, is there
any way of implementing that kind of a strategy?
I'll just let John Lynnhart or planner
walk through. Thank you. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, and to the delegation.
Perhaps the answer lies in thinking about the region's natural heritage system.
And the region introduced a natural heritage system through the last review.
They refer to it as an enhanced natural heritage system.
You'll now see it in the regional official plan.
And it's basically made up of a number of elements.
There's what they refer to as key features.
so that would pick up things like wetlands, woodlands, habitat of endangered threatened species,
things of that nature, then there's the buffers that go around those features, then there's the
notion of linkages trying to connect the features, and then the last component is enhancement areas,
areas where they're trying to strengthen or grow the natural heritage system, and that's what
it's now comprised of, and it does incorporate a significant amount of the region and the town's
land base, so I think that's probably the answer that I would offer because it's required
to be protected and then integrated into local official plans and secondary plans.
So, and then on top of that, obviously the town has also been working on a local tree
study and potentially exploring a local tree bylaw in the future to perhaps provide a little
more control over some of some of the other tree clearing that you may see as well that
that's an ongoing initiative or complimentary initiative if you will and I think that that's
how we're looking at it and obviously through each successive official plan review we're
obligated to update our policies to reflect whatever direction is coming from the province
or the region and generally speaking over time we've seen that the requirements for natural
heritage and permit policies that are required for natural heritage have been strengthened over time.
So hopefully that answers some of your question.
Actually, it doesn't. It's more the allocation end that I'm referring to.
So when the decisions become council's decisions to approve applications,
a part of the consideration because the Councillors and the residents are really the only ones that know
the topography, that no impact on law, that no, you know, when I say seven hectares of
forest for 33 houses, that should shock people, you know, that's a lot of forest when there's a lot
of fear land in a lot of other places. So if they were, as I said, they're building a apartment
building and you're getting, you know, 400 units out of seven acres, that's a different story.
So, I wonder if there is a way to discuss on a town level any requirements for the development
outcome for the development of loss, they've retrieved a lot, so speaking directly to
the final loss.
So again, it's about the allocation, not the designation.
So through the mayor to the delegation, I guess there's a couple of things there.
One is the actual land use designation on a particular property.
That's generally what guides the development that then ensues and whether it's a low-density
development, a medium-density development or a high-density development.
given the development that you're referring to that's located within the
hamlet of Glen Williams and the permissions in that particular area are
directed towards more lower density development given the location and given
the character of the community in terms of tree strategies and how we go
about them aside from protecting natural heritage lands again with any given
development application. There is a requirement to produce a tree-saving plan by a qualified
arborist and that's reviewed by town departments and whatever the recommendations that come
forward from those particular reports are then implemented through the development process.
In context of the specific site that you were mentioning, I know the town did actually
retain an independent consultant to look at a lot of the environmental lands that you
raised that did not benefit from any particular natural heritage protections at that time and then actually steps were taken to preserve as much as we possibly could and have those lands come into public ownership. And again, that was based on the recommendations of an independent ecologist.
But again, it doesn't answer the question.
What I'm asking is possibly consider a way
to bring into the equation.
If you have several subdivision or plans presented to you,
cannot one of the markers be what is the turnaround
of livable space or usable community space
for the land lost versus say the value of the houses
or the development charges.
I know there's money, money's always fine to everything.
I get it and I hate it also.
However, there has to be a balance somewhere
because a lot of times when there's little towns
that grow into now metropolis is which is coming our way.
The land owners cannot be the land developers.
It just doesn't work.
So, again, I would strongly recommend some kind of mathematically equation that also must
be met that the destruction of the land does provide the community results that we're
looking for, not to splash.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your deputation.
our next delegation is Colin Schum from Glent Schneider and Associates.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, just wanted to test an audio video test.
We can hear you.
Thank you.
Your worship and to members of council.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for allowing me to speak today.
My name is Colin Schum of Glent Schneider and Associates Inc.
I think I'm a land use planner who has been involved in planning an alternate region
for the last 25 years.
And after spending better part of my career as a start in the public sector.
I am speaking today on behalf of the South Georgetown Landowners Group.
They represent two concessions of land between Schofogger Road to the West, Nines Line to the
east, 10 side road to the north, and 5 side road to the south, of which approximately 600
hectares is table land outside the regional NHS. These lands immediately about the
Sunday Boundary of Georgetown.
And they were involved in the region's sustainable halton, Ropa 38 Urban Boundary Expansion process.
Well, they did not agree with the decision of the town at the time and the region at the time
to expand Georgetown Urban Boundary westerly to include the vision Georgetown lands.
They respected that decision, and these land donors have waited for this regional MCR process
to commence.
We
support the staff report as before you today and the landowner group would like town council to include their lands as part of the Georgetown urban area to accommodate the future population and employment role to the year 2021.
We have heard public opinion of many of the workshops open houses and public meetings that climate change and emergency greenhouse gas emissions and farmland preservation
are important priorities to consider and deciding where to grow and how to grow in the region.
The landowner group that I represent agrees.
However, we also believe that there is a lot of risk and repercussions
to making decisions based on these factors alone.
We believe that sound municipal physical management, resident property tax impacts,
providing for future committee services and facilities to accommodate future growth
and exploring the realities of having a state-of-the-art regional recreational center
with Olympic-sized hockey arenas and swimming pools that puts halton hills on the supporting map
locally, regionally and nationally. And this is similar to Milton's Velodrome or Richmond Hills
Bristol Green Rec Center would be good for halter region.
We do question how the existing communities of Georgetown and
acting can withstand putting all of the future growth in the existing urban area.
There's a I call it the threshold to how much existing parks, schools, community facilities,
roads can absorb future growth.
schools. If new park schools or community or recreational facilities are needed to accommodate
future growth, the newly urbanized land could be the solution to providing for that.
As such, considering additional urban land in Georgetown is not just about more houses. It's
about a prudent and balanced solution to planning for intensification in the existing urban area,
but also plan new greenfield growth with sustainable new town facilities for all of
Halton Hills residents to use and enjoy,
including the lands represented by this group
that I represent into the Georgetown Urban Area is not a green light development.
You still control when you want to grow and how you want to grow.
So, Town Council still has authority to make sure you set the tone and requirement for
the type of community you want to create in Oltenails.
With the town's recently adopted green development standards, and with some public utility companies
such as Ambridge looking to implement clean energy neighborhoods, I believe that these two
concessions of land inclusive of the natural environment
surroundings provide town council the opportunity to create a
smart and sustainable community that addresses climate change
greenhouse gas emissions through rethinking how community
ought to be planned. The landowner group welcomes
working with the town council the residents and town staff
as your partner to go beyond the traditional way of community planning
and deliver something truly unique and put halton health on the map on how to create
a green community for other municipalities to study and emulate.
We do know any decision of how future growth ought to be accommodated is not an easy decision
for town council.
We understand that.
Your decision today could have ripple effect on the halton health residents for the next ten
to thirty years.
We respectfully ask that Count Town Council give yourself the options and opportunities
to put all the important priorities into consideration in determining how growth can be accommodated
in Hilton Hills.
Environmentally sustainable, livable, and clean energy smart living community that respects
climate change and greenhouse gas emissions ought to be part of that decision.
I thank you for allowing me to speak before you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your presentation, and I have one question for you, Colin, a
couple of weeks ago, you delegated before council, and I had asked you how many acres you're
out the South Georgetown Landowners Group Adams and your answer was 2000 acres. So then I asked
you on how many acres did you want to develop and your answer was all 2000. So the staff report
today is actually looking about 815 acres and you're concerned in where the people you're representing
say you support that? What made you change your mind in a couple of weeks?
Mr. Mayor, I think it's really comes down to math. When I spoke about the land on a group
representing 2,000 acres, that is the total 2,000 acre curse, inclusive of natural environmental
features and systems. So what I did, subsequent to the workshop, was did some really gross
analysis of how much natural heritage system that would be identified as
already been identified in the regional plan in this 2000 acres and I came out
with the the math that the the developer table land that could be available in
that 2000 acres works out to be approximately I say give or take you know 600
100 hectares, which is basically, you know, I saved 1,500 acres, 1,500, 1,500 acres.
So when I did the math and looked at the staff departments in there, I think the staff
report, when they talk about their land quantum, it's exclusive of the regional natural heritage
system, which I've done the math to.
Thank you. So my math now is consistent with how
town staff did their math on future land needs.
Thank you very much for your clarification.
Are there any questions of Mr. Chung from members of Council?
No, I don't see any, so thank you again for coming before us.
Oh, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Delegation number eight, Daniel Poyet has withdrawn. So now we're going to go to delegation number nine, Jenny, the first day, and that's from the Green Party of Canada. Welcome.
Well, your mic is not have to unmute yourself.
Thank you. It's been a long afternoon sitting here. Thank you for having me, Chair and
Councillors. My name is Jenny Laforese, and I'm a resident of PGL region, as well as
the Duffin Caledon Federal Candidate for the Green Party. It's a pleasure to delegate
today, and I'd first like to commend Council for leading the way in opposition to the 413.
However, I'm speaking today about the consistent and tenacious hunger for developing prime
farmland. Every municipality is being pressured to comply with a 30-year population estimate
by the Ford government. The report from Hemsome Consulting states that the Greater
World and Horseshoe was primed for continued rapid growth. However, the auditor general has
a report coming out this fall looking at the numbers being projected by the growth plan.
I urge council to delay until that report is complete. If the numbers are inflated,
council will have even more reason to hold the line of Holton's growth boundaries.
The acreage that the public knows about, that will be lost to sprawl equals 2,300 acres
for Halton.
Milton recommended converting 5,600 acres of prime agricultural land to urban use.
So in total, if regional councilor accepts these two requests, it will be a permanent loss
of 7,900 acres of farmland in Halton.
But if you examine further a field, in Caledon alone, we have 2,635 acres as of June 8th,
with applications to convert prime agricultural land.
That does not include the acres slated for aggregate.
If we include an extra 1,100 acres for a strict mine
that is proposed in the cataract area
and now we're up to 10,535 acres.
Municipality by municipality
were doing exactly what the Ford government promised
they wouldn't do, which is we are carving up the green belt.
Farmers contribute more than 47 billion
to the provincial economy.
Why is our farmland expendable?
The requirement for food security has never been greater.
We know we cannot grow food on the Canadian shield, yet we're seeing an onslaught of development
on Prime Fireland with rezoning requests to prime industrial.
How can we possibly achieve our climate goals of reducing GHG emissions by 2030 if we're
expanding card-dependent communities?
Scientists are predicting that we will see more drought and more severe weather the time
to act is now.
Therefore, the preferred option for halton is 3-B. Do not expand the boundaries.
Please instead consider the example in Waterloo Region by Waterloo City Council.
Waterloo Region's countryside line is made up of six different growth boundaries.
These lines protect farms and the natural environment from suburban sprawl.
In 2010, the regional government agreed to protect rural areas with the countryside boundary line,
which defines where the city ends and farmland begins.
The countryside line protects wetlands, woodlands, ground water, recharge locations, and was developed
as a way to emulate the Green Belt and Waterloo region, which the region was left out of.
The region was left out of the Green Belt in 2005, so according to Sue Foxden, this is
actually a stronger way to preserve existing prime farmland.
I think the key elements of the Waterloo Regional Official Plan are fixed border between rural
and urban areas, directing growth to make better use of land and municipal services within
the built-up areas of the region, increasing transportation choice, including the
tree, protecting our drinking water and significant environmental areas, and increasing the
quality of life of citizens in the water of the region. Crime farmland is a non-renewable asset.
There is so much growing concern that we are losing too much prime farmland during COVID
to non-sensical, unpractical, unsustainable development.
The groups like the Ontario Federation of Agriculture
have launched an outreach campaign to educate the public
about the value of local food titled Homegrown.
The Green Party has a housing strategy
that I urge council to look at.
The recommendations call for stronger rent control
and a greater provincial investment
in affordable housing.
It includes measures to help more people move
into home ownership and also to make better use
of homes by simplifying co-housing rules.
If we increase housing supply, and at the same time protect farmland, and making it easier
to build housing within existing boundaries, then the plan proposed by MPP Mike Shiner
would address the missing middle, but making two plexes and triplexes legal as of right everywhere
in the province.
And to work collaboratively with municipalities on a province wide, yes, in my backyard initiative,
to change public attitudes against infill missing middle mid rise and community housing developments in neighborhoods.
There are six important reasons to hold the line and maintain hard urban boundaries, local food and agriculture, safe drinking water, compact, lively urban neighborhoods, affordable housing for all sustainable transportation and financial responsibility.
I hope that Holden Region will look at the possibilities to not only maintain the farmland
that we have but expand the green spaces.
We need to stop segmenting farmland or watershed and our ecosystems, not in 2051 but today.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much.
I thought I saw Councilor Somerville's hand up.
I did.
So you have a question, Councilor Somerville?
I
do, and I'm hoping that you get familiar with Section 92 of the Constitution because municipalities
fall under the purview of the province, so the province sets the rules that we have
to follow.
So as a federal candidate, I'm hoping that's something.
But one of the items you mentioned was about the green belt and destruction of the green belt,
which is not what we're doing in Hilton Hills.
So a lot of your comments were relating to what other municipalities are doing, but
I guess the only question I would really have for you, are you familiar that we cannot
fix harder than boundaries?
We are not permitted to, unless the land is put into green belt or in other types of permanent
protection.
We can't draw a line in a white belt area and say we can't develop past that.
We do not have those tools in our municipal tool belt.
I find that interesting because Waterloo Region has done that.
So can you explain why you don't have that tool in your tool?
I don't know what Waterloo Region did.
I don't know.
That's what I was talking about in my delegation.
It was six different urban boundaries that they addressed, so they were able to hold them
in line.
Which means that you're having an urban boundary that is decided by municipal council.
So municipal council actually can decide to basically draw a line.
Then having different kinds of proposals where they're looking to expand and change the zoning.
Through you, Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, I think you're wrong. We can, we can hold
the urban boundary for today, but any future council through a municipal comprehensive
boundary review can change that. They are not permanent unless they're put into something
like green belts or end other ones. We can't set up an agricultural reserve that as well.
So I think that's something you might want to look into.
I don't know how Waterloo did it.
I don't know.
I heard you through the Waterloo region and the countryside line and the heart of
Emboundary because it hasn't done and it was a municipal council that did it.
And actually, according to Sue Foxon and you can check with her, it's the heart of Emboundary
that holds more weight than the greenhouse.
And that's what I'm delegating on today.
And I find that hard to believe, but I also find it incredibly distressing
to have a federal party candidate here on a municipal issue. I don't think that's proper
in my opinion, but good luck in the upcoming election.
Well, I'm also a resident of PL and a citizen of Ontario,
and the growth plan is a provincial matter that every citizen of Ontario is concerned about,
especially given climate change, especially given the global pandemic.
And it's completely appropriate because I identified myself as a federal candidate.
it. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
Okay. Thank you very much. I do have Councillor
Fogel.
Thank you for your presentation, Jenny.
And I would like to confirm that I have looked at the Waterloo official plan where they drew
the countryside line and decided to not cross it. I think Councillor Somerville is saying that
a future council could change that, that it's not permanent, but they decided to do it
and they stuck with it, Burlington likewise did the same thing, so it is within our power
to say this is what the line is, it can be written into the official plan, even though
a future council could change it.
So, permanence is, it's not quite permanent, but it can be, as permanent as we want it to be, basically, if the community wants it to be permanent, they can do it.
So, I wondered if you were on the call when our consultant defined sprawl.
Did you hear it?
And he defined sprawl in a certain way.
I wondered if you agreed with that definition of sprawl,
where you recall it.
I think it's an oversimplified version of sprawl.
I grew up in sprawl.
I grew up in Mrs. Saga.
I watched sprawl develop in Medavale.
I experienced sprawl firsthand.
And sprawl is defined as housing
that has no significant infrastructure.
So as a student waiting for an hour
and a half to take a public transit to my school
And then do the reverse again because it was the closest school that offered the programs that I needed that is a definition of sprawl
It's where you're not able to do the things you want to do on a normal daily basis within a within a 15 minute, you know, 20 minute walk or bike ride or anything like that.
So, you know, sprawl is the car dependence communities and if we're expanding the boundary in Georgetown, we're creating more car dependent communities.
Yes. Well, I appreciate your definition. I tend to agree with you whether we do it through sprawl or we do it through intensification.
and it might not be sprawl, but sprawl,
as I understand it is, you've got to get in your car
to get anything.
So yeah.
And in Caledon, we see the absolute,
really the extreme of sprawl
because we don't have the servicing,
like basic water servicing,
before the diggers come.
So then you're building a community
before you have the infrastructure
to support that community.
So doing that on a green field
This is not recommended if we believe in climate change.
Thank you for that.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
I don't see any other questions, but just to go to Councillor Fogel's point, you know,
municipality we can hold a line but just remember the old expression that's municipalities are children of the province.
and the minister can overrule us and overturn anywhere to the minister of housing or the
premier can overturn this. And as you know, as you probably know, we've had a gun to
her head, Halton region, has asked the minister to hold off from any of this, these discussions
until the pandemic's been over and, you know, have, so we did try,
Halton Hills has done a resolution as well to, to delay any of these discussions
until the pandemic's over to have more one-on-one in person and we did receive a letter
from the minister basically saying you shall have your completion done.
And so I just want to make that point.
But I'd like to say that and I was aware of that. I have been following Houghton and I very much
commend you for your emotions that you put forward. I would just urge you to remember that the
auditor general is looking at the growth plan. She is an analyzing the growth plan. She's also
analyzing environmental assessments which are part of this entire puzzle as well and having identified
the environmental assessments are 81% non-compliant with recommendations as of 2016. I think he would be wise
to try and hold off on expanding the boundary.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for showing your
interest. Appreciate it. Our next delegation has been Lisa Colner will be now pinch-hating for
Stephanie Bush from the Halton Environmental Network.
So welcome Lisa and good luck at Penn Shedding.
Good afternoon, Mayor Bennett, counselors and staff.
My name is Lisa Kohler. I'm the executive director
at the Halton Environmental Network.
I'm delegating on report PD 2021-0045.
I want to thank you for allowing me this opportunity
and for all the work you do as mayor, counselors, and town staff on mitigating climate change in our community.
Hand is involved in a few of your working groups and we're impressed with your commitment and drive for climate action.
We also want to express our gratitude to the staff for their hard work on this report.
Land use planning provides an incredible opportunity for climate action at a time
and so much more is understood about greenhouse gas emissions. This enhanced knowledge and
understanding can be applied here at the right time in the right moment to make real impact for our
future. Land use planning is an important pathway to build climate resiliency. At Hen,
then we are concerned about recommendations being made at this time.
The regional review process has yet to be concluded.
The region is still taking into consideration input from community groups, public delegations,
and advisory committees, all of which are ongoing.
This process may still result in modifications to the concepts provided as a report does indicate.
There are also concerns at the information on which the town of Hulton Hills is making
this decision is incomplete.
The methodology undertaken by the region to assess the various concept is still in progress.
And this process takes time.
The greenhouse gas emissions or GHGE assumptions made within the regional review takes into
consideration only one or two inventory criteria.
and is not currently a holistic inventory that can be quantified.
This provides insufficient data to determine the actual GHGE of the proposed plans.
When modeling inventories for GHGE, the global protocol for cities is highly recommended
as the base standard for inventories and creates reporting standards for communities across the planet.
The current inventory does not incorporate the standard protocol, but we hope that this
will be reported in the future.
Even with only two criteria being calculated, there still is difference between options.
For example, between option 2 and 3B, there is a significant GHG-E difference.
The 3.3% GHG emissions difference is estimated at 38,000 metric tons.
That is the equivalency to energy consumed for one year of over 4,576 homes
or 8,264 passenger vehicles driven for one year.
We know that there are great opportunities within our community to mitigate and adapt to
our changing climate.
We need a regional approach to address climate change that is cohesive, succinct, and holistic.
We need a regional approach that supports all municipalities, aligning the work, looking
for best practices, and replicating advantageous programs to improve efficiency and effectiveness
and to amplify and accelerate positive outcomes.
We need a balanced approach that does not lead to future climate challenges,
economic challenges, or issues with health, safety, and well-being of our community.
And that still conforms to the provincial to the provinces of places to grow, growth plan.
We hope that you will defer your decision until we have more complete information available.
We are happy to connect with the town any point to discuss a path forward and to continue
to work with you on supporting a plan that will drive true economic prosperity, community
resiliency, and transformation for climate action for our community.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
There is a question from Councillor Lawler.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor, and thanks very much, Lisa, for coming and delegating to us.
And in particular, there was a bit of a bombshell you just dropped about the difference in
GHG emissions between option 2 and option 3B, and I must say I had no idea of the huge
difference in that.
I think one of the earlier consultants, you know, said, oh, well, you know, it's six and
a little 6.0, you know, all around six and the impression certainly was left with me
that the difference in emissions between those two concepts was relatively minor. So I do thank you
I'm wondering if you can help us because it's my understanding that the region wants input
by July the 15th from various groups about these official plans and do you have other
information that would allow us to kind of adjust from that?
Through you, your
workshop to Councillor Lawler. Thank you, Councillor Lawler, for your question. I
appreciate it. And thanks for the opportunity, again, to delegate today and share
this information with you. No, I can't provide any more insights into into a
regional response. I guess we're just highlighting that, you know, again, there
There could be additional shifts when it comes to the concepts, and at this time to
move forward, looking at a holistic plan is really what we're hopeful for.
And again, evaluating the GHGE accordingly is also imperative at this point.
Thus far, the Town of Hilton Hills is leading much climate action in our community, and we'd
like them to stay, we'd like you to stay the course to be, to be honest.
So we're hopeful that with whatever decision you make, that it is a decision that's really
looking at greenhouse gas emissions and land use planning as a substantial way to impact
the climate crisis that we're experiencing.
Okay, so as a follow-up, then I'm assuming that I'd like you to confirm, if you wouldn't mind,
and that from his perspective that 3B would be the most desirable approach from the
environmental perspective and emissions and so forth.
Is that correct?
Through your worship to Councillor Lawler, that would be correct.
We would hope that you would consider concept 3B as a more sustainable choice.
That aligns best with your climate emergency declaration, climate resiliency, and adaptation.
So it would be our hope that at this point, with the current concepts on the table, that
3B would be the option that you would move forward with.
Okay.
Thanks very much.
Thanks for coming.
Thank you.
I have Councilor Somerville.
Thank you for being here, Lisa, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
So on the greenhouse task for the modeling that was done on that, we have not had a presentation
at council, regional council yet on that as well.
So that would be why we did see it as part of the PIC, feels like six months ago now,
but I know it was only about a week.
But we did see it then.
And so we haven't had the chance to ask.
I just wanted to just to highlight you had said about deferring and it's a difficult option because the region is trying to do the concepts that come back in October. So whatever we approve today is going to come to regional council back again in October and then for a final one in February. So we still have that that amount of time. So it's just so that you're aware from that and Mr. Mayor, I don't know if our staff has anything to comment on that as well.
Well,
John, John will make a comment.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and through you to the councillor.
That's right.
The deadline to get comments back to the region was mid-July on the concepts.
They have been out for a while now, as you know, and the other three municipalities have
all filed reports and council resolutions on the concepts expressing a preference.
So that's the purpose of today's report is to give some indication to the region what this council would like to see moving forward with the development of a preferred growth concept.
And in terms of the balance of the schedule and Mr. Loes did mention it in his presentation.
The region is really hoping to adopt a regional official plan amendment early in 2022 dealing with what I'll call the growth management components only of the regional plan review.
And again, that's tied to the deadline that the region has from the province.
With respect to places to grow, that's July 1st, 2022 deadline.
And I know that yourself, Councillor Fogel and the mayor will be seeing a report tomorrow
that provides further information on a number of these particular items, including the implications
of the minister's letter.
Thank you for that, John.
No further comments, Mr. Mayor.
I just want to thank you, Lisa, for bringing up the differences in the greenhouse gas emissions
because although I know them, I think we haven't presented it to local councillors and so
it's not part of their decision making, frankly, which is a weakness in not sharing all the information
and thoroughly, but anyway, so ahead you heard anything about changes to the building
code that would bring us net zero houses by 2030?
Through you, Mayor, to the Councilor Fogel, thank you, Councilor Fogel, for the question.
Actually, I was fascinated by the quest by Gary's delegation and in that information, no,
I have yet to be informed of any such changes to the building code that Gary did highlight
in his delegation. I have been constructing an email between the last hour actually to
some folks to validate that information and to see what I can find out. I will share
all outcomes with you when I do get information back from the federal government around the
building codes.
Well, it would be very exciting if we could get something on that. It's exactly the kind
a thing that we've needed and you know you sort of dismayed to think we've got the solutions
at hand and then we have governments that don't implement them. So if that's going to
come and supported by the industry, that's a game changer really. So thanks for your presentation.
Thank you. Thank you Lisa. Don't see any other questions so thank you for joining us
of this afternoon. And we'll go to our next delegation. And our next delegation is Kim
Bradshaw, Sustainable Milton.
Good afternoon mayor. Council, thank you very much for the
opportunity to speak to you today. I'm actually speaking as a halton resident, not on behalf
of Sustainable Milton today. And full disclosure, I am a very strong proponent of treating
climate change as the emergency it is. And I enthusiastically endorse hand's delegation.
I have heard that some municipal
Councillors are tired of hearing about climate change.
As they believe they have no choice but to expand the urban boundary to meet market
demand for both residential and employment expansion.
This is because climate change is not being recognized as the emergency it is.
If it were, climate change would be the basis of our land use planning, not market demand.
Even in today's presentation, I'm hearing terms like difficult to achieve and ambitious
in reference to even just 50 percent decennification.
These terms do not reflect emergency behavior.
They indicate business as usual.
If we truly recognized and acted on the declared emergency,
we would find ways to act as quickly as possible,
just like we did in response to COVID.
I'm not sure how anyone can ignore the fact
that our very comfortable lifestyles here in Hulton
directly impact the biosphere and everyone in it.
Not only the many vulnerable populations currently suffering the most from climate change, but
also our own children and grandchildren.
We need to think globally and act locally.
The planet is one biosphere.
Nothing within this system stands alone.
We must minimize the impact of our land use on the future of the biosphere.
Many of the behaviors that generate significant emissions are governed by municipal governments,
land use planning and policies. These include personal vehicle dependency, fossil fuel-based transportation
and heating, green field development of prime agricultural land, and re-engineering of natural
heritage systems. We all need to make significant changes in our expectations in lifestyle. Many
would call them sacrifices to ensure we modify our behaviors that threaten the survival of future
generations. In conjunction with the climate emergency is the ever increasing threat to our food
security by intense weather events and the rapidly shrinking stock of prime farmland.
Thank you Jenny LeFoursteer for your excellent delegation.
How we can select anything but option 3B and make it work for our growing population I don't know.
I believe our planners, developers, and businesses are up for the challenge.
change. Necessity is the mother of invention or rather innovation.
There's also been much discussion about provincial policy and related assumptions. We've
clearly seen that the province can change the rules midstream. Social change and advancement
do not typically come from provincial policy statements. They come from communities pushing
their governments to make desired and necessary adjustments.
The projections don't include
how grows will impact the environment. We need to build to preserve the environment our farmland
and our NHS as we as residents will have to adjust. There was a claim that increased employment
lands will reduce GHGs by providing local jobs. I'd like to see some of the actual math that
supports this because I suspect that the reduction in commuting emissions will be entirely wiped out
by the additional emissions of land-based development.
I was very pleased to see the fiscal impact assessment, and I think it accurately reflects
the reality of land-based development and also supported by the City of Kingston's report
recently released.
So in short, I'm asking you to endorse option 3B, save our farmland, our food security,
and preserve the biosphere for future generations.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I don't see any questions.
So thank you again for being here this afternoon.
Our next delegation is Monica Kamer.
I hope they said your last name correctly.
Good afternoon, Mayor Rick Bonnet.
Good afternoon, council members.
My name is Monica Kamera, I'm a property manager, a farmer and a mom concerned about the future of the next generations and our planet Earth.
I spoke to you on April 12th and at the Hawthorne Region Council on April 21st. I focused in both speeches on the climate emergency saying everything I wanted to say and therefore did not want to speak today.
But then I changed my mind last Friday, when I was in a terrible rain and tail storm
trying to avoid an accident in the middle of a flooded six-lane road in Mississauga.
I was scared.
Those 10 km, I drove in very heavy rainfall with blurred vision and aqua planning, whereby
by far the worst ever driven in 46 years. I asked myself, is this what we leave future generations
behind? Will this extreme weather be the new normal for them? Why don't we do a lot more
and do it faster to mitigate climate change? As the change of the climate is accelerating,
shouldn't we accelerate our mitigation efforts by acting on a larger scale to achieve a bigger impact?
Those dangerous 10 kilometers and my questions motivated me to write a speech about choices and about my version 51.
We put single family homes and other buildings on farmland in the past.
Today and for the future, this is not the right choice anymore.
Those homes and buildings can all be built, but up north where there is lots, a lot of
space and rocky land not suitable for farming.
Down here we need to make sure that we have enough local food and enough water for all residents.
No farmland, no farmers, no food.
I have chosen to support a modification of gross concept 3B.
Why 3B?
Because it is the only concept that does not destroy farmland.
They have lost way too much farmland in the past.
The time has come to choose to protect what we still have.
why a modification? Because we can turn the huge challenge to accommodate all future
growth within some urban boundaries into an amazing opportunity. Let me explain my vision 51.
Toronto, Hamilton, Horton, Peel, and the other Golden Horseshoe regions team up. They know
to the re-sowning of Formland and build the smart city of the future up north.
A smart city with white bike lanes that are separated from the car lanes by a solid fence
so that bikers are safe.
Nice walkways that are separated from the bike lanes by a row of bushes.
One lane for EVs, one lane for EV car sharing, one lane for hydrogen powered buses.
15-minute complete communities.
All buildings have solar panels on the roof.
All buildings are high-energy efficient, to your thermal heating and cooling.
Ray water systems for toilets and washing machines and so on and so on.
That's my vision 51.
Great architect like Marina for Milton will happily and very professionally design this
smart city.
and I would love to live and work there.
You have the choice to vote for the difficult right or for the easy wrong.
Past choices are only mistakes if you repeat them.
They are learning opportunities to change and make better choices in the future.
Please, please choose wisely.
The difficult but smart right will lead us to a great future that is well worth living
and good as well for our planet Earth.
Future generations will thank you and remember you as the smart and caring council members
who changed everything to the better.
I end my speech with a quote by Albert Einstein.
We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Thank you very much for your attention and consideration.
Thank you very much for appearing before us.
I don't see any hands up, so there's no questions for you.
So thank you again for being here.
Well, Councillor Lewis, just put his hand up.
Go ahead, Councillor.
Sorry, Mr. Mayor.
Just a quick question from Monica.
You made reference to the fact that you're a farmer.
Do you mind telling me where are you farm?
Sure.
I am on the Nathadarii's creaking town line.
You good?
Okay.
Thank you very much again for appearing before us this afternoon.
Our next delegation is Develine Radikin, resident of Fulton Hills.
Good afternoon and welcome.
Oh, you're unmuted.
Or you're muted, I meant the same.
There we go.
Good afternoon, Mayor Bonnet and Councillors.
The question which is, which one of these five growth concepts tips the scales?
towards a more community-centered and sustainable
Just for a second, I'd like us to take a step backward. During the pandemic, you must agree,
vulnerabilities are being exposed in the social, medical, economic, and environmental
fabric of our lives. Because we are eager to build back better, all decisions in the
post-pandemic recovery must prioritize working together for the things we really need in our
community to ward a sustainable future. I've heard that echoed by Lisa and Kim and Monica.
I am promoting a paradigm shift in the direction of a large-scale transformation.
That being, that growth plan 3B, no sprawl outside of current boundaries, is chosen by
our council.
I have read that municipalities have control over activities that account for nearly
half, half of all greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
You did make a very bold move in May 2019 when the council declared a climate emergency
in Halton Hills through adoption of the declaration the town committed to taking concrete
actions to achieve a net zero target by 2030 to do that however takes more than a policy.
We must scale up, with rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects
of society, such as Monica's vision of her 2051.
Citizens of Halton Hills are making bold steps with you.
Before the pandemic, we folks at Paulton Hills rallied, gathered, made signs, and yelled
out slogans for climate change.
During the lockdown times of the pandemic, citizens at Paulton Hills like myself and many
folks I know had the time and took the time to upgrade our global and local awareness
and knowledge of issues.
We attended something like your agendas, workshops on the five different growth concepts
for population and jobs for the Houghton Regional Official Plan Review.
We attended webinars on various adaptation and mitigation initiatives that the town of
Oakville is pursuing to strengthen community resilience and toward changing climate.
We attended Zoom meetings from youth at McMaster University who are urging their university
to divest from investments in the fossil fuel industry.
We attended virtual protests against big banks and our pensions investing in fossil fuels.
We read reports of the Houghton Hills Council on updating our green development standards.
Good sign.
Last week, we got the recommendations regarding the Halt and Regional Official Plan review
growth concepts that we're talking about today.
Oh, did I mention in our spare time, we watched Netflix films on regenerative farming practices.
So we've been busy, you've been busy, we've been busy.
And together we're a strong engaged citizenship and counselors eager to create new solutions.
and we have forward-thinking thinkers like yourselves to make policy changes with a sustainable
future as the primary goal. Actually, we're all catching up to reality, I think, to meet the moment
that we're in. Together, we need to deliver the bold transformative solutions of the future. So back
Back to the question, which one of the five different growth concepts tips the scales
toward more community centeredness and serious climate action?
So in answering that question, I wrote a letter to all counselors on June 30th advocating
concept 3D.
I ask you to endorse the growth scenario that will determine how
Halton Hills will grow over the next 30 years.
This is an extremely important decision.
What you support will have implications for decades to come.
Councilor Somerville, you responded to my letter with these questions for me.
First question, are you okay with the option 3B? Increases in town taxes by 25% just to maintain
infrastructure and not adding in items like public transit? Second question, are you aware of
the issues that farmers in the area are facing with water? Third question, do you know the official plan
review does not necessitate an automatic review of boundaries that the land approved in 2009 is
still under appeal and has had two reviews. Last question. It is easy, Councillor Somerville,
you wrote, to click to send an email from a website but it does not have all the information.
So, Councilor Somerville, you're right. I do not have all the information. I have, however,
been doing my best to keep up with the flood of concern during these days of increased pressure
by the Ford government to push the development into every corner of the province. It seems to me
like the whole agenda is sprawl.
I live in the poet's corner of Georgetown in the streets of
Byron, Kelly, and Sheets and Keats. My neighbor, John, is an engineer working for a development
company, putting in the infrastructure in the area of the Trafalgar homes, 1.14 acre area,
just north of Britannia Road, and south of Louis-Sall-Laurent, Boulevard.
It is in the official plan and part of the urban area of Milton.
Can you picture that area? I've been down there recently, wow.
John says eight years ago or so Milton was a pleasant place.
Now it is sprawled all over the place.
John said, his move to Georgetown to raise his family was determined by the quality of
community life here and easy accessibility to goods and services.
I asked him, if his taxes were raised to preserve farmland and green spaces, would he agree
to that?
Yes, he said, when we spoke about increasing density within the current boundary, he said,
And it could be managed well.
Councilor Fogo also responded to my letter.
Thank you for sending the link to the report.
You noted that focusing growth through moderate intensification and mixed use development
helps to create desirable 15-minute neighborhoods.
I'm pretty lucky to live in that area, actually.
We recognize that farmland and halton is the best in the country, Ontario though is
losing 175 acres of farmland per day.
The Halton Agricultural Advisory Committee endorsed 3B, Plan 3B this week.
They stated that we must continue the availability of as much agricultural land for
or agricultural uses for as long as possible.
The growth concept that best achieves this is option 3B they wrote.
So counselors, choose growth concept 3B, no sprawl outside current boundaries.
If halton health approves the stack recommendation, then it is close to the worst case scenario
with a total of 7,900 acres lost in Halton region. It is shocking that Milton
is asking for all of its white belt to be brought into urban use. Then we
might be adding Halton Hills with the 2,300 acres lost for farming.
This
morning you might all have received a letter from my friend Kevin Anderson. He was
pointing to today's front page news that developers are fast-tracking
development to over 45 projects in Toronto.
Excuse me, Devlin?
Yes.
I've been trying to be lenient, but you've gone well over five minutes.
I'm sorry.
So if I could, maybe I'll give you one more minute, because we still have nine
delegations after you, and we've been here a long afternoon.
We are hoping that you choose growth concept 3D.
Thank you very much.
I see Councilor Somerville does have a stand.
No, I just wanted to thank her for mentioning that I had sent the email replied back because the click and send spam emails that were being sent started two days before the staff report was out.
And a lot of people were sending and saying do this without even saying the staff report.
So I appreciate at least you raised that you had looked up what those things were.
So thank you for that.
I do appreciate that at least you know you did have that because a lot of people were sending
them and there was a lot of misinformation and such as the reviews at five years and
ten years.
So I do appreciate that.
But the one thing I want to, I would like to mention to you is one of the things in
there was about it being the best farmland in the country, and we had a farmer today
who said, it's only the best farmland if you're trying to sell it, if you're trying, it's
not the best farmland.
And the reason I raised the boat, the water is, they're roughly not going to tell tales
of school. Councilor Lewis and I the last two days have been in discussion with a lot
of the farmers within Houghton Hills and out of the 18 within the White Belt as we told
they are, I think between the two of us, we've talked to 15 of them. Every single one of
them is raised issues with water, food quality, difficulty of being able to work in that area
and I don't know if you're aware of this, but 90% of everything grown in that area south
of Georgetown leaves the country. It's not consumed here. It is not consumed in Houghton
Hills, Houghton Region, or Ontario. A lot of it ends up down in Hamilton, and two of the
people who we met with today grow enough hay to feed cattle and horses. I could share
a video that would be absolutely shocking of their well and the color of the water coming
out of the well that they have to bring in water for animals to be able to do that. So
they can't sustain a vegetable crops and things like that. But that's just some of the research
that we have found in that and I didn't know if you were aware of that or not.
Not really. Thank you for telling me.
Thank you for being here two days.
Welcome.
Thank you, Councillor Lawler.
Yeah. I would just like to make a quick comment to thank Daisy for her human service and
for waving the flag.
The amount of exposure that she has given our residents of regarding climate change and
I have certainly appreciated she has worked very hard and I thank you for delegating today and thank you for your work over the last several years, Daisy in raising awareness regarding climate change.
Thanks a lot.
no further questions so again thank you for joining us this afternoon we
have
eight more delegations and I have some staff here including yours truly been
sitting peg to a seat for four hours I'm going to ask for five minute
bio break at least to get around the stretcher legs or something so maybe I
Everybody try to get back here for five o'clock. Thank you
Thank you, everybody, and we're going to continue. So our next delegation is Nancy Colmer from the
Holton Region Federation of Agriculture. So, good afternoon, Nancy, and welcome.
Thank you,
Mayor Bonnet. I wanted to start my conversation this afternoon with regards to just saying
thank you to two Mayor Bonnet and Holton Hills Council for providing this opportunity for
public input into the regional official plan review. And staff for their dedicated efforts
in making this this come this opportunity. So just turn on my screen there. Sorry.
My name is Nancy Comber and I'm speaking on behalf of Allen Ehrlich, President of the
Halt and Region Federation of Agriculture. My role with the Federation is coordinator
providing administrative and support services to the HRFA Board. In a volunteer role, I also have
the honor of being chair of the Halt and Agriculture Advisory Committee, and appreciate
the knowledge gained from this experience. However, I am not speaking on their behalf today,
and every references are made are part of public record.
The HRFA has been engaged in the regional official plan reviews on a regular basis, and have
worked with regional staff to express our concerns with regards to agriculture. We offer suggestions
and solutions to mitigate the effects on agriculture and provide OFA, HRFA, member notification
on upcoming meetings and surveys to ensure public consultation.
This regional official plan review has been very difficult for the rural farming community
to participate in today's reality. Virtual information sessions and virtual meetings are difficult
and the timeframe is short.
We realize the timelines were provincially mandated
and applaud planning stuff for working diligently
to provide concepts and public consultation
as much as possible.
HFA acknowledges the rights of individuals
to voice their opinion on the regional official plan review
directly to the region through feedback processes in place
to their counselors and to the HFR board.
We encourage it. However, the HRFA Board of Directors represent agriculture and farmers in the region of Halton.
And while we hear individual concerns, an individual director does not directly represent a farmer in their area,
the Board of Directors speaks the whole via motions and resolutions and directors are obligated to support consensus positions.
Opportunity to become an HRFA director happens in a democratic process following Robert's rules
on an annual basis.
In December of 2020, after a presentation from Kurt Benson, Director of Planning Services
and Chief Planning Official Regional Fulton and staff, the HRFA passed the following motion.
This resolution is to confirm HRAF A's position with regards to regional planning.
The HRAF A supports firm urban boundaries in the regional official plan.
Given the long planning horizon, there should be orderly phasing such that as much agriculture land remains in production for as long as possible.
The HRAF A encourages and supports maximum urban intensification as means to reduce requirements
for conversion of agriculture land to urban uses. The HRAF A agrees that HACC be the primary
reviewer of the growth strategy for the regional official plan on behalf of agriculture.
The HRAF A advises the region that we would like a direct and active role in regional
official plan role policy development. Given that the regional official plan growth strategies
all result in the loss of viable farmland, the HRFA will be looking for regional official
plan policy and other programs to make the remaining agricultural lands more productive.
Outside of the regional official plan, the HRFA wishes to once again extend an invitation to the
the region to join with us and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture to figure out how
to come up with a long-term plan that keeps agricultural land for agriculture.
From the outcomes of this motion include a preference for concept 3B or concept 3A.
We understand the province, sorry, the region has formulated a short-term agricultural working
group to develop policies to mitigate losses to agriculture.
HRAFA worked with the region on the mapping program to help farmers understand and dispute
regional designations on their properties, enabling the region to correct designations
made from aerial maps.
I'm sorry, aerial photos.
Work is being done by a cultural organization to respond to.
Local conservation authority initiatives. Agriculture needs to be recognized for the environmental
goods and services they provide. In closing, the HRFA supports firm urban boundaries in the
regional official plan. Given the long planning horizon, there should be orderly phasing,
such that as much agriculture land remains in production for as long as possible. We realize
due to provincial mandates you have to show urban development until 2051.
Regional staff have provided concepts which this could be accomplished.
We hope counselors will adopt a phased in process by favoring the least amount of land
taken out of agriculture, realizing the opportunity in five to ten years to expand
urban boundaries at that time if necessary.
I would like to highlight a recent agricultural growth in Halfton Hills
by recognizing the sheep dairy farm south of Acton,
which is the largest sheep dairy farm in Canada,
and the largest in North America in the near future.
Currently, they employ 10 people
and are growing their market.
Who could have predicted this five years ago?
Agriculture is not dying in Holton.
It is changing and adapting.
Give it a chance.
Remember, once agriculture land is paved over, it is gone.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to present today.
Thank you very much, Nancy, for your presentation.
Councillor Lewis has a question for you.
Yeah, just one of the start, Nancy,
and thank you very much for the information you've passed on.
In recent days, I've had an opportunity to be
on-site at various farms.
And I have to ask you this.
You made reference to a number of times
to the whole real federation of agriculture,
which I've been at the events
I think it's fantastic. How many farms do they represent in Halton Hills? Because clearly,
based on information that I got as recently as today from two different farms I was at,
they do not represent everybody. So if you said to me, there is, and I don't pick a number,
75 farms in Halton, 25 in Halton Hills or whatever, what percentage of that is actually represented
by Halton Federation of Agriculture?
Thank you for the question, Councillor Lewis.
So, through the OFA membership, there is approximately 330 farmers in Halton.
That number does not include the farmers that are with the Farmers Union or with the Christian
Farmers Association.
But because we do get regional funding for some of our projects, we do endeavor to represent
as many as we possibly can.
And
I just have one more right now.
Who is the one and who is the authority that says this and it's been quoted?
This is the best farmland in Canada.
Oh, I would have to look back and find that out for you, Councillor Lewis.
I don't actually know who the direct quote is, but I will tell you from provincial designations
and that halton does contain class 1, 2, and 3, which are considered prime agricultural
lands. And that most of that prime agricultural land is within the white belts.
So when you're
looking at maps, for example, that are provided by the municipalities, when they're showing
areas that are what they're calling agricultural or farmlands, there is a significant portion
of that. That is natural heritage that farmers have to deal with. And as you well know, a lot of
the farmers that are in the escarpment area, it's a lot of rocks up there. It's not prime farmland
and they do the best they can. Well, no, and I mean, and again, I don't want to take up
it on. But this morning, as we said, the farmer pointed at that field and that field and said to us,
I can't get on that. That crop is wasted because I can't get on there. The field is of no value to him.
He said it's definitely not one class one farmland. And that's why I asked the question is how do we get the designation?
When in fact his words to us were that crop is wasted. And and not it was that part of that is also with water
Carp made reference a lot of go about he ran water there that you wouldn't even wash your feet it
But that's what he's supposed to be dealing with.
And then of course the cash traders should keep bringing for all the stuff that they
had to do in order to just exist on the very farm is that.
So that's why you're just curious as to how does the destination of best farmland and
Canada to be used when in fact some of it, and I talked to a guy just last week and
five years later, he said that field has been fouled for years.
And so that's anyway, I'll leave it be, and perhaps I'll come back with another one.
but thank you very much and as you appreciate it.
Okay, if I can add, Councillor Lewis,
it's again, the primary agricultural land designation
is through the province,
and it has to do with the soil classification.
And as an individual supporting the HRFA,
we reach out to members as best we can.
We do provide typically two newsletters,
a year, eight-page newsletter
with items of concerns, and I also do regularly email blasts to Halton farmers, providing them
information and notification on what is going on. I also have an open door policy where they
can email and call me at any time if they had any concerns that they would like to bring to the
federation. No, I have done that on a personal basis, but it's very difficult when you're
a farm property today. And he says, what the heck's going on here? He went up and down
the road that he lives on. And none of them were aware of the fact of what the region
is going through right now relative and the impact on farmlands. So it's a breakdown
someplace. Maybe his mailbox was stolen for a week. I have no idea. But I'm just giving
you truthful stories that happen as recently as this morning in conversation with farmers
as we sit on farm property. So I'll leave that be. But anyway, again, I thank you very
much and I'm sure I'll be back to another question. Thanks, Nancy.
Thank you.
Thank you. I have councilor Somerville.
No, I had put my hand down because my question I was going to ask the delegation.
I answered it in response to council laws.
Thank you, councilor Somerville. I have council lawler.
Thanks very much, Mr. Mayor. And thanks very much Nancy for coming in and speaking with us.
I'd like to clarify please if you would, how decision making occurs with your organization.
You made reference to elections on a regular basis and people can be nominated and so
forth.
So you have regular board meetings and resolutions are brought forward and there is a vote
or, you know, I'm struggling a little bit with who represents whom, and so if you could
just go through that again, please thank you.
So the Houghton Region Federation of Agriculture represents farmers in Halton and to provide
that representation.
We have a yearly annual general meeting that is promoted through a newsletter directly
with it front page covered that the annual general meeting is happening.
Email Blosses are sent out to those members who choose to receive email Bloss.
There's about half of the farmers in Houghton that choose to receive that.
As well as by word of mouth from two various other farm organizations within the
Houghton that would promote the annual general meeting.
Our annual general meeting and all of our meetings are conducted by Robert's rules.
And we have a constitution and so we meet typically, we meet monthly with the exception
of May when people are out planting and typically in July, we typically have a break as well.
We may cancel meetings if it's due to bad weather and different things like that, but typically
we do meet at least 10 times a year and decisions are made as a board through motions and resolutions.
And thank you. And so from what I understand from the resolution that you read, this issue has been
brought forward to the Board of Directors. There has been a rather full discussion and the
resolution resulted from that and it was voted on by a majority of the duly elected representatives.
Okay. That is correct. And in the minutes of the meeting were approved at the following
meetings. So it was endorsed at the meeting and then further endorsed in the approval of the minutes.
Okay. So so so I can feel that so this resolution is has a significant representation from the
farming community in Halton. Okay, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you, Councillor
Ingalls. Thank you, Worship, and thank you, Nancy, for your presentation. I have one question,
and I'm not sure if you brought it up under the resolution or not. I was sort of writing at the time.
And could you clarify it? I believe you said the organization would support
concept 3a and 3b. And before you answer that, concept 3a would allow some
expansion, some employment land expansion. At the very least here, perhaps
into the agricultural area. So did I hear that right? Can you just make sure that
you mentioned both of those concepts or did I take something incorrectly?
I did mention both of those concepts.
3B would be our preferred.
However, we do recognize the need that there is need for employment in the area.
And we have strongly recommended, let me back up there,
through the HAC committee and the HR representatives,
the HR representatives on HAC have strongly encouraged
that some of those for employment development to happen
that they consider businesses that actually support agriculture.
So for example, an abattoir, it's very hard for any beef producers,
sheep and pork and chickens to find an
abattoir, to process, you know, or even
like terracotta cookies and things like
that that can use local products to
produce a product.
That's good. I
just wasn't sure whether they both came
up or when I was writing it was that I
I put down something that I shouldn't have.
I appreciate the answer.
Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, and next is Councilor Fogel.
Mayor, well, I want to thank Nancy for the presentation.
As an alternate on the HAC committee,
I've watched them in their work on the official plan.
And they were setting aside Tuesday evenings
for several hours each Tuesday evening
to go through that 600-page discussion paper section by section, so they certainly did their homework.
I just wanted to confirm I'm going to quote from the rural agricultural strategy of
for Houghton for 2016 that says Houghton Region is home to a productive agricultural sector based
on outstanding soils of an evident climate and a community of farmers actively engaged in farming.
The findings of the land evaluation area review study conducted by the region in 2008 confirmed
the presence of a significant amount of prime agricultural land in Houghton. Interspersed with small
pockets of land with lower scores specifically above the agreement with the exception of a few isolated
located pockets, the land comprising the rural areas south of the Green Belt north of the urban strip along Lake Ontario was all prime agricultural land.
So I think that's where some of that is coming from, from, from the region itself.
So I just want to confirm what, what Nancy is saying about the prime agricultural land.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jane.
Thank you.
very much for your presentation. It's great to hear sort of an official position of the farmers,
as opposed to a few anecdotal comments from some that may not agree. But I guess in any,
as well as around our council table, we don't always agree, but when a resolution passes,
that's our position. So I do appreciate that you brought that forward in your explanation.
But I just want to ask Fennel, or you probably are aware of this, that many of the farms around,
well, in the white belt are not owned by the farmers. And I just want to clarify how that works.
Do the landowner, a developer, owns 100 acres of, and someone else farms it. Do they
participate in your organization? Do they come forward and sit at the table and say,
you know, I hate farming or I love farming, I don't agree with it.
These are these members, people who actually, well, first of all, do they all own their farms, and if not, are they farming other land?
So we have approximately, we have 18 board members. Okay. And I would say currently one of which is owns land and another person rents it and farms it from him.
He does sit on the board and all the other farmers that are on the board do on land.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, go through my mind there.
No, thank you.
That gives me some assurance that you're actually representing people who own the farms and farm the farms and not maybe the people who just
online without being interested in farming. So thank you.
If I may, the board is actually, so the people on the board, a lot of them sit on
other agricultural committees as well. So for example, we have someone on the
Cattleman's Association. So she would bring comments from the
Cattleman's. We have other people that sit on the soil and crop who would bring
comments from there. So we have representatives on quite a number of committees through our board.
That's really great to know. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Somerville.
Yes, thank you. Some of the responses prompt another question. On your board,
how many of the members of your board are actually farmers? That would be in what we call the white belt.
because the farming community that we wrote that both
Councilor Lewis and I have been in contact with the last
couple days felt a real disconnect and the fact that there
wasn't a lot of them on that board I would have to say
Clark that they need to take the initiative to be on the
board.
It's all into everybody they're welcome to come to an
annual general meeting they get notice of an annual general
meeting. They can put their name forward. The list of the directors is on every newsletter
with the telephone numbers as well as my contact number. So they can have their name stand
to be a director on the board. And we welcome everyone. We welcome new blood to the board.
So I would have to say if they don't feel they're represented, then they need to come
to the board and talk to us and or stand for election and become part of the board.
So presently there isn't anybody.
Presently, we have one person who I perceive owns land in the White Bell.
And thank you for that.
And I did have another question, but it just escaped my mind, so that's what it is.
He doesn't farm it, he rents it out.
But you also have some people who live in like more of a small place and rent a lot of land.
You do have people who are involved in the world.
Correct.
And actually, there was a recent study done by our farm credit Canada, and it indicated
that renting farmland is a common practice across Canada just because of the value of
our land.
Absolutely.
I guess another issue I'd like to tackle since, you know, I remember my question, Mr.
Merrill, try to be brief.
Something that was raised to us over the last couple of days is the difficulty with taxation
with the price of land.
And to went even though that the land, though, and they may get a, they may pay a 25% or
20% rate of what the residential would be on that and, you know, that formula.
but with the land value going up, it's still putting such a pinch for lack of a
better word on what they can do to actually make any money on it. And is that
something that has been found by the Federation? I know there was a work done on
the impact piece and we have a delegation coming up later who was involved in
that. Is that something that they have found from other from other farmers within
Farmers
face many challenges, Clark, and the value of the land can affect the credit
available that they need to farm the land and to grow the land.
Some farmers possibly take longer to transition into productive crops or choose not to transition
into productive crops.
We have farmers that are becoming of retirement age and wish to sell the farms, so I don't think I've answered your question there, I'm sorry, but...
Yeah, and you know what, but it's one that you might not know the answer to and that's fine.
But what it was is if the land value has doubled over the last 10 years, they're now paying
a based on an impact rate of X, which is what the new rate is, their income may not
have grown because of stable pricing and all that for commodities.
Taxes have actually increased that much more, and that's where I was getting at if that's
something you had found.
But like I said, it's a very difficult, complicated question over how farms are assessed anyway.
So, if you don't have an answer for that, that's fine.
So, I will tell you, Clark, that through the HRFA and worked on at HACC,
members, Bert Andrews, Robert McClure, and Rick Friesen,
actually they were all Holt and Hill farmers looked in depth at this and worked with
impact to help them understand the conditions of farm values in Halton.
And I know they were, I believe they felt successful at that time.
It's maybe an issue that needs to be looked at again.
And the two that are still Halton Hill's residents, I've spoken with over the last two days.
So thank you for that Nancy.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you Nancy.
I don't see any other hands up.
So thank you very much for delegating today.
Thank you.
Our next delegation is Gary Kroll, resident of Fulton Hills.
I apologize if I mispronounced your name.
Yes, I can.
For some reason, I can't hear anyone.
Can you hear me?
Now,
you're muted.
I can't hear anyone saying anything.
Oh, that's too bad because we can hear you perfectly.
I'm just doing a test here, test
to see if I hear myself.
Can you hear us?
Ah, now I can hear you.
Oh good.
Okay, sorry.
Welcome.
Don't know what happened.
Did
I lost everyone again?
Or not?
No.
Can you hear me?
We can hear you perfectly.
You can hear me.
Good.
All right.
Well, obviously, I'm the late Gary Crowley, sorry about that.
As a travel writer and photographer who started a nearly 50 years ago at the Brampton
W. Times, which is now extinct, I've seen a lot of the world and I wanted to briefly
comment on how Canada and specifically the GTA compares with other places.
I have no statistics, charts, or graphs, I'm leaving that to others more qualified.
And I do appreciate the extensive research put into the proposed growth scenarios here.
I'm just offering an opinion based on personal experiences and awareness.
I realize it's a simplified response to a complex issue, though always with an eye on the
ball.
I hope so, anyway.
Oh, yes.
And tempered as the last night's dinner by a Chinese fortune cookie advising me to keep your
idealism practical. That's a tough one that balances the word. So, coming to the chase,
on all my travels I've noticed one disturbing trend, the disappearance of the natural world
with resulting environmental degradation and the misery that comes with it. I've seen some
horrific scenes. Regarding Canada, my 50-year observation of Cummings and Goings
is that we've kept a frontier mentality
of clearing the land, regardless of the consequences.
I'm hoping these discussions of a growth will update
that mindset, although I do have a streak of cynicism.
I'm wondering if Group 7 painting
is will be all we have left of the despair in landscape.
We talk a good talk about concern for the environment,
but the way we've been building our communities
keeps increasing our footprint.
to put it bluntly, Europe and even China put us to shame with their preservation of the land and the greening of cities.
And now, in addition to climate change, COVID is another glitch to deal with.
I see both factors, climate change and COVID has a call for greater self-sufficiency.
Not just with medical readiness, our food supply, too, as other presenters have already mentioned.
Some experts, and there's been some contention about this, say Ontario soil
modernism on the world's best, and that was pointed out in a recent article
on the global mail. Maximizing these would minimize dependence on foreign
fires, which can only be good for us. Overall, based on what I witnessed in my
travels, I agree with the experts. We are at a tipping point. This is a serious
stop and Holt and Hills is going to till one way or the other. We all know complexity makes it
difficult to maintain focus. It's going to take a creative approach to preserve the land that
sustains us but as cowboy philosopher Will Rogers once said they ain't making any more of it
and to repurpose what Red Green would have said we can change maybe if we want to. Thanks for your
attention. Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation and it's worth
the wait. So thank you very much. Are there any questions of Gary?
Having
none, again, thank you very much for your delegation. Thank you.
So our next
delegation is Peter Lambrick from the Holton Region Federation of Agriculture
and Peter will be phoning in.
I apologize, I came on just as Nancy was starting her presentation, and some of what
she said, I don't think I need to reiterate because she said it so well.
One of the things that has been good throughout this has been the support that we have felt
within the agriculture community by your council and by the advisory committees that we are able
to access at the region while going through this O.P. study. Be
with the stance that Milton
potential has taken being on the other end of the intensification spectrum, and we can
only hope that we can get pushed through the contention that concept 3a and b at this
point is the best options that we have because we see that or feel that it doesn't
preclude anybody from developing or development of the land that they have because that is
already in the next 10 year plan.
And the other items which we would in agriculture are very pleased to see that Houghton Hills
is promoting are the Green Development Standards as part of your OP, and I hope that intensification
along with complete walkable communities will move forward more transit usage, because the
The ag community is also concerned and somebody mentioned it earlier on about the weather we received last week.
Those sorts of rainstorms are good when you...
So I will stop at that if there are any other questions in regards to agriculture. I am prepared to answer them for you. Thank you very much, Peter. I do have Councilor Somerville with a hand up.
Thank you so much, Peter, for being here today.
I'm going to ask a similar question to what we had asked Nancy, and it was in the discussion
over the last few days about this.
A lot of the farmers in the white belt area, especially in Holt and Hills, felt a real disconnect
and I think one the way, I'm trying to remember exactly how they put it, I think they said they
felt Holt and Regent Federation of Agriculture was going one way when they were going another
and they found even that difference within the OFA.
I don't know if that's something that you can comment on or not, Peter.
Thank you, Chancellor Clark.
Having sat on the OFA board for a while,
I too felt somewhat slated on there occasionally because
anything to do was not agriculture.
Am I still there?
you are. Okay thank you and so when they have come out with these series of OPs being
a lot more vocal about the land that is being lost and also having concern with the misuse
of them that always instead of writing good land use planning, it is good that they are
starting to realize that we are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how things
are happening and where they're happening and the GTA's been at for a long time.
and I also heard some of your questions in regards to some of the members not feeling that they
were part or could be party to it because I'm not certain what the region spends on their
advertising budget, but the OP is in most local papers most every week. So I think some people
unfortunately are not as engaged as they couldn't should be.
Well, and I think that's where I think part of the problem lies, Peter, is that I know
for the local Metroland paper, I've seen it three times in the last year and twice of those
was in the last month. I never see the paper. I don't even see the ads. I don't even get those.
So I think we got to stop spending the money on that and figure out another way. But they actually
because of the impact of it, one of them suggested today that they should have had more of the
federation doing that because they said they knew it was difficult for the region. But well,
we'll park that one, Peter. I think we can agree. We can all do better.
The other one that has been raised to us is about the land in South Georgetown,
specifically about the 90% of the crops aren't even ending up being used in Canada, being
shipped off shore, and such a small percentage is.
And there are some greenhouses there where they are being used, but they are exiting
out of Haltman.
So, do you have a comment on that?
Yes, because I'm likely one of those farmers that is exporting the bulk of his production.
And some of that is going to Asia for human consumption of soybeans.
Some of it's going to Europe for feeding some of their livestock.
But all of it is what Canada does.
Canada is a trading nation.
figures I have in front of me here suggest that this is going
unfortunately back to 2016 but dollars of production in
Holton at that time and I'm sure with the increased pricing
that we have seen in grains and oil seeds in the intervening
five years we were at $143 million in production in 2016.
So we're only a small entity compared to what the overall Canadian production is, but I'm
sorry, it's helping the GDP of the country.
Thank you for that, Peter.
Those are my questions.
I could probably keep you here for an hour, but I see there's other people who want to
ask questions.
Thank you, Councillor Lewis.
Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Rembrick, or good evening, and this is a conversation
that I think initially you and I should have with somebody's back porch and not in a public form.
I recognize and I'm aware of the fact and I think you made reference to the fact that you are
I'll say living on a farm of small acres but yet farming many acres in order to be that
that's your vocation is the within the farming community. All right and I think then I have
to be very candidly and to be in your best interest that you had more land in order to farm more
and be more in an hotel where I'm coming from. Today we have and three farmers are saying to us
without something else, for me to run a farm of 100 acres, I could never survive. And every one of
my talk to was making reference the fact that I had to do something else. My family doesn't want to
take over the farm. I had to shut it down. They talked to us today about a farm that I'd take you to
was got a gate and chain on it. And the person who was then, and I want to be vague to a certain degree,
they've gone and gone east and are affirming twice as amount is what they did in Houghton Hills,
because they said we can't survive. And I don't want to give away all of the stuff that I want to
speak about, but is it not something that our farming community faces? And whether that you made
reference to crops and talking to a farmer today, and I think Clark made reference to it, the grain
The green comes out of the, in a truck that's driven to such and such a place, A, if they
don't get a ticket for being overloaded on a street, they're not supposed to be on,
they get from their farm to a greenery operation in Hamilton.
To watch the green come out of the truck, they're going to go right to a boat.
And we have the people saying here that we're feeding our area, never mind what it is we're
doing with it, but people who advocate that we're feeding, it's almost like every, I'll say
The brush of the grain becomes a little for bread for somebody in the halton.
The reality is it doesn't happen.
And all I've said to anybody, let's be real.
Let's take a drive in southern part of the Halton Hills to find out how many farms are gone,
how many barns are down, how many properties are not being farmed by the farmer that may
or may not own it.
And I had no idea what a string 100 acres was.
When you start talking to some of these old timers and they tell you, and today it was
like we can't we can't make a living just farming. It's too tough and farmers are not buying farms.
All right. So those are the kind of stuff. And I don't want to talk about equipment purchases and
that kind of stuff. But for anybody, do you know, I mean, I can tell you families who are not
remaining in the farming industry because it's just too tough. Do you know of anybody that's come in
from outside that is a farmer buying a farm and said, okay, I'm going to take that farm on one, two,
three-meter nice line and make it into a viable farming operation because we're told that's not
happening. Farmers are not selling the farms. There's a question in there, some place fear.
Yeah, you've done the gamut there.
Okay, so I am going to take some of the best farmers that
lived on Trafalgar Road, but have gone in different directions because they were in livestock
operations, and livestock operations have become quite regulated as far as manure management
is concerned, and it does require additional acreages so that they have plenty of land
for that proper manure management.
And so, they have taken the opportunities to move their families forward and moved away from Halton.
So, that is a segment of agriculture that when I came to Canada, I do believe there were three to 400 dairy farms in Halton.
now we're down to four or five. So live stock is basically gone. There are a few
poultry operations. You heard about the sheep farm south of Hecton. That is great.
So there are people that are coming in and starting but they are starting in an
an area where they think that they can stay and will not be driven out because of smells
etc. And this is why the grains and oil seed sector basically is less invasive from
that standpoint. And yes, it is not easy to farm and I, as you alluded to, I am one
of the few farmers that I have a land base of six acres, which is my home base, and
all of the rest of my land is rented.
I do know of a farmer who, and I will call him a farmer because when he buys a farm,
he is,
he is putting drainage where it needs drainage.
He is getting the level of fertility back up on some of the farms that maybe have been
let go, but he is doing it with off-farm income. He runs a computer business and it's obviously
making money because he's buying a million and a half dollar farms one a year and has
done for the last eight years that I've known him. So there are people that still have a sense
of where they want to be and where they want to go,
and some of the people I'm sure in that segment of land
that was discussed earlier between Trafalgar Road
and Ninth Line, some of these gentlemen
are just top-notch farmers of sold land
in York in places, in Peele from others, and are moving to Holton and now want to sell
again and move.
So you have to get the context of where these people are coming from and why they are
maybe saying what they are, because agriculture in the last
hasn't been too awfully bad.
Well, no, and I guess I have to say that's good to hear because I'm not here in that very often.
And I don't want to end up in a debate, and I'm going to make later on a present-errored
comments relative to bile solids, and if I said to you a farmer that's doing ex-monovacres,
where do you buy your farm machinery?
Where do you get your stuff repaired?
Definitely,
there is not enough numbers to see those implement dealerships in Holt and
any longer, the feed mills that, you know, need, but that wasn't downtown Milton.
And, and validified, there used to be a feed mill at one time.
So the infrastructure that we need is no longer here, but it isn't that it's not attainable.
Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks very much for putting up with me.
Hey, it's always a nice challenge. Thank you.
And you and I are not done.
Councilor Johnson.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you very much for your presentation, Peter.
My question has to do with the fact that it was mentioned that a lot of the crops,
including I think you mentioned your own, were being set out, sent out of the country.
But just to, I mean, I know the answer to this question, but just to clarify, it's still
food and that it is still class one or whatever farmland, right?
That doesn't change just because the crop goes elsewhere, does it?
In my mind, no, we are just another industry in Canada that helps to keep the lights on.
We are an industry that should be feeding more of its own people but the
unfortunate part about it is we have five months of winter and so growing the
fruits and veg that are needed during those months is not available to us. So we
are making adaptations if you were to
The House is acreage in, say, 2010 versus 2021. It has, I would think, nearly tripled. And
that's because we are trying to keep up with other crops other than cannabis. So, it is,
Yeah, we are always increasing our production, and we're lucky that we have some of the
best land and the one which we have here in abundance is fresh water around us.
That is something is going to be so important in the future.
So I guess the follow-up to that is, you know, we talked a lot about climate change today and
and we all know the climate is changing, which I'm not saying that's a good thing that we'd have
a longer growing season. That's not my point. But my point is that if, if our food supply
that we get a lot, I know food some vegetables from the U.S. But if there was a, you know, some major
shift in how we feed our own people. That land could certainly be for the growing season
that we have. Could support a lot of food for Canadians if we needed it. Is that correct?
Yes. Every acre that comes out of production is an acre less that won't come back and somebody
else mentioned earlier on.
People can't farm the Canadian field and I'm not certain that
people actually want to live on the Canadian shield. So, you know, these are things. They're
practicality and reality. And you folks are facing a dead center today.
Okay. You're right. So, thank you so much for those answers. That really helps. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Somerville. Sorry to belabor the point, but it was the question.
and Councilor Johnson asked part of the question that I was going to ask.
And it's on growing fruits and vegetables is in some of the ones we were speaking with
around in the white belt area south of Halt and Hills.
One of the one of them indicated that the difficulty of trying to grow things like fruit and vegetables
is the fact that there's too much saline in the water from road salt runoff and other problems
like that.
So I just wondered about that Peter if you had any any comment on that because they said that it's difficult enough with
Hey and hey yields having a problem as well as soy beans and some of the other ones, but they said that
That's a problem with looking at doing fruits and vegetables.
I
Can definitely concur with that. I have seen it on some of my own land
a particular field in Burlington that we farm, and it is unfortunate, but this is the
coexistence of road salt and road safety and agriculture, and so yes, I am not going
to deny that it can be an issue.
That was why I was asking about amount used locally, Peter, is because I know it's
exported, but we've had people talking about with climate change, we should use the land
for local food when there are those difficulties that are on there now.
And we don't have the beef operations, like, you know, up on, to fog or on Winston Churchill,
so there was someone who had a lot of head of beef
who has had to get rid of them
because of road salt issues and wells and that as well.
So thank you for that, Peter.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Peter.
We have no other questions, so your work is done.
At least at the council meeting.
Thank you, Your Worship.
Much appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you again.
Our next delegation is Janelle Bascom,
who is a resident of Halton Hills.
Welcome, Janelle.
Janelle, you're muted.
I'm just trying to correct that. Okay, and I can hear you now.
Yep, we can hear you now.
Okay, I'm not sure why my video isn't working, but I'll proceed in the interest of time.
Good evening, Mayor Benette, Councillors and guests.
My name is Janelle Baskam. I was born in Oakville, grew up in Milton,
and returned to Halton in 2007 to live here in Georgetown.
I am the mother of two teenage sons,
and I am also a proud member of Al Gore's
Climate Reality Leadership Corps.
Three years ago, I trained with Vice President Gore,
and learned the science of climate change.
In doing so, I learned the severity of the crisis facing humanity
and the urgency for action.
Because of my education and training,
I am here to speak in support of concept 3B.
I want to speak up for this plan because I believe it is the most responsible choice
that our leadership can make.
An entire community in Litten, BC was destroyed because the effects of climate change created
a heat dome that enabled a human-made fire to decimate 90% of that community.
This is just one recent example that illustrates the necessity and urgency of taking action
now to mitigate the coming climate-related threats.
Because concept 3B is the only option that protects our forests and farmland, it is the
obvious choice to make.
We cannot hope to meet our climate targets while simultaneously developing thousands of
acres of land that should be left alone.
I realize that there are concerns about intensification.
I heard from developers. I heard from Mr. Lowe's, but here's the thing. We can do hard things.
We must do the difficult things. Nothing about slowing climate change is easy, but we're going
to do it anyway. So choose Concept 3B. Choose the option that protects the future for our children and
their children and for all the children to follow. Two weeks ago before council my son made an
excellent point and I will repeat it here. He cited the Cree prophecy that states,
when the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream is poisoned,
then you will realize you cannot eat money. I'm a Spencer on this. We need farmland so farmers can
grow food that can be eaten. We need forests because they give us oxygen and because they're
carbon sinks.
Whatever arguments there are for development, they are not going to convince
me that paving over nature is a good idea in 2021. We know better. So we must do better.
There is a moral imperative to make good decisions when we know what the right one is.
There are
I may seem naive, or idealistic, or too much like a tree hugger, but so be it.
I think some faith in all of you is well placed.
I think we need strong ideals to guide us to good decisions.
And I think having trees to hug, should we ever want to, would be pretty great.
Choose Concept 3B, please.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. I don't see any hands up for questions. So again, thank you very much,
Janelle, for coming before us. My pleasure. Thank you.
And here's our next delegation, and it is Spencer Lepa. Again, a resident of Fulton Hills,
he's well known to counsel. Welcome, Spencer.
Good afternoon, Mayor Bennett, counselors and guests. My name is Spencer Lepa.
I am 14 years old and I am the youngest ever member of the Green Party of Canada.
I joined at age 10 because I needed a future I could count on.
I needed leadership that would care for and protect the environment.
I've been fighting for the environment for four years now, and this afternoon I need
to fight some more.
I'm fighting for Concept 3B.
Before I begin my defense of Concept 3B, I want to respectfully express my disbelief that
we're even having this conversation.
My mother asked me if I wanted to speak at Council again about this issue, I was shocked.
I do not understand the reasoning for this.
It's beyond my comprehension that any other concept is even being considered.
I just don't understand her development can appeal to any of you when we have climate
change targets to meet and we have evidence around us everywhere showing us that protecting
our green spaces is imperative to the fight against climate change.
We need you to consider and then vote in support of Concept 3B is what young people want.
No one wants our leadership to pave over and develop farmland or forests, certainly not
any young people.
I know from my climate strikes on Fridays that environmentalism and action to end climate
change are incredibly important to my friends, classmates and peers.
We are too young to vote, but we are not too young to speak up.
It is your responsibility to listen.
Maybe I'm too young to understand all the economics, but I'm pretty sure you can't
eat money.
We need a community that protects farmland and forests.
We need a community that is willing to do the hard work of intensification, and I need
you to choose a future that considers my future, and I need you to choose concept 3B.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Spencer.
Are there any questions for Spencer?
I don't see any hands up. Thank you very much again for appearing before us.
Our next delegation is Andrew Kunika from Fulgerbrook Farm,
are you there Andrew?
Yes, we can, Andrew. We can hear the alarm.
Technical difficulty there.
Council, thank you for allowing me to hear today.
My family has been operating a farm located in close proximity to the premier gateway
We on Trafalgar Road in Colton Hills for over 50 years.
When we started, there was more than 30 cattle dairy farms in Houghton County.
Now there is one remaining.
We're one of the few family farms still operating in Houghton Hills.
When we began, we started with 200 acres.
We farm that much today as well.
Once was many local operators supporting farm supply chain.
Local granaries accepted our produce, local vendors service our machinery, local farm supply
stores supported our operations.
Local roads were available for us to drive our equipment on, unencumbered and safely.
There was a local skilled workforce in agriculture.
There was a local agriculture office who supported farmers and helped navigate the government
of bureaucracy
and junior farmer chapters who trained up the next generation.
The local farm community supported one another.
Sadly, those days are over.
No local people to accept are great.
Large grain trucks are needed to haul greater distances to find a buyer.
If we want parts or service for farm machinery, we must travel to Wellington County, visiting
co-ops or TSE stores.
First, simply require us now to drive 100 kilometers as they do not exist in Hulton any
alone.
These greater travel distances result in increased operating costs and also increased
carbon emissions.
Our local roads are congested and no longer farm machine friendly and have become a safety
risk for both farmers and drivers.
The local labor pool is non-existent, and foreign seasonal labor has become the norm.
The notion that Holton's a prime spot for continuing existing farming operations, let
alone expanding them, is unattainable and honestly absurd.
Not only for the reasons I just mentioned, but because of the soil condition.
In order to grow healthy crops, farmers need healthy soil.
Ontario government ranks Halton, 25 out of 38 counties for soybean production free.
For winter wheat production, Halton ranks 33 out of 39, a full 43.8% lower yield than
say Oxford County.
Halton soil profile is one of heavy clay, not ideal for crops.
If our soil was anywhere near the quality, such as Oxford, Chatham, Cantor, Middle
Sex, wouldn't our numbers be alliding with their numbers?
Furthermore, fertile and healthy soil starts with manure which injects nutrients into the
soil.
To decrease the decrease in local livestock operations as resulted in a number,
the decrease in local
of livestock operations has resulted in an increased use and dependence on a wide range
of fertilizers, each having its own list of detriment.
At the end of the day, fertilizer usage increases phosphates and phosphates then off, run
off, and enter our waterways, and we all know what happens to the quality of our lakes when
volumes of phosphorus are introduced.
In addition, our efforts to remain a problem from the operation.
That lower return per acre is happening because of our soil. Yet, our ability to afford to
either rent or buy more land in the area to increase our acreage farm is unattainable.
The price of land in Hulden is unaffordable for farmers.
Hulden hails is no longer an agriculture
community like it was 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. As urban areas increase, so does
the conflict between it and the rural landscape. Complaints regarding farm
smells, noise, dust, and machinery on the roads become all too common.
They're often used as public parks for green spaces, resulting in trespassing
and property damage. Likewise, they increased regulatory burden, whether from
ropa, regional dictums, conservation halten, or the town, only add to the
headwinds facing the family farms in Halton Hills.
That conservation halted oversees discrepancies
on rope of maps versus a farm knowledgeable
agricultural agency is an indication
where the priorities are for Halton region in Halton Hills.
In closing, it's clear farming in Halton
is becoming a thing of the past.
Certainly boutique farms attract tourists
and serve a purpose, but they aren't designed
to feed the larger population, which is what small family-owned farms did in years past.
What I'm asking today is that Council consider on flexibility for family farms when it comes to
how our land is used, times of change considerably, and farming in this area won't continue as it has in
years passed. Presently, individuals owning farmlands can either try to run a farming operation
while facing the challenges I have outlined to you today or hold their breath and hope their lands
will be permitted to be zoned differently, zoned with a purpose towards growth and foresightedness
but not limited to a bygone era of agricultural halted nails. Respectfully asked that our property
to consider as part of the urban expansion balance.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Andrew, for your deputation.
Are there any questions of Andrew?
Members of Council?
Councilor Somerville.
I'm just wondering, Andrew, if you could repeat,
you had said about the soybeans and the,
and I think it was winter wheat.
And you talked about a couple of those statistics.
Can you just repeat them?
you, I didn't get them written down in time.
Sure.
Absolutely.
I could do that.
Based on 2019, Winter Reproduction by County, and this is from the Ontario government produces
these numbers, Halton produced 54, almost 55 bushels per acre.
While Oxford was, Oxford County was at 97.7 bushels per acre.
They rank number one, Halton ranks number 33, and that was a 43.8% less production for winter
wheat than Oxford County.
Thank you for that. Okay, would you like the number for the Soybean
number you mentioned? Soybean, yes. So, Halton ranks 25 out of
38 in terms of Soybean production
and that's a 35% less yield than Oxford County.
And I don't know if you can answer this or not,
but is Oxford County considered the best farmland in Ontario?
It's certainly near the top, but in terms of the distribution,
I'll say this, so just for comparison purposes,
Oxford County for soybean production produces about 54 bushels per acre
where say Elgin County, which is about five positions lower, produces 48 bush
with breaker. So it's within the neighborhood near the top, but compared to
Halton.
Thank you for that. You mentioned about the lack of manure. Yes. You and
your farm ever use bio solids or isn't something you ever considered or if you
ever had issues using it? Or do you just not because not everybody wants to use it?
Yeah, well, so you mean when you refer to biosolids, are you referring to human-based
biosolids? Yes, like what the region offers through the...
Right, so we are not comfortable introducing that into our farm, specifically from a water
table perspective. We have enough concerns right now with well-watering drinking water and
we do not really want to complicate the matter further.
Well, you picked up my next one automatically. He's must have known I was born there. Being in the
Hornby area, how has your water been? Well, you bring that up. Unfortunately, it's not great.
It's either we don't have enough water or we have too much water.
The region as part of the construction to put in the water mains, as you probably know,
hit the aquifer on Travolta road just above our farm and what that has done is has flooded
our fields and has made a section of them not productive.
And this is obviously a great concern for us.
and something we are still after a number of years now trying to have a result.
Well, if you had a hand on that to try to get that move forward, just give me a call or have counsel to us.
And him and I can connect on that.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just very quickly, Andrew, if I could ask, what would be...
When I sit in my home here right now and I look out and I see soy beans across the road,
and I look to my right and I see a corn, all right. So that's an easy two part of my question,
two part answer to my question. What would be the halt with major crops that you'd be aware of
that are grown here for any significant purposes?
You mean for like local consumption or just
to get a drop or? We're in the consumption. In order to help a farmer make a living, he's growing X
And in order to get to those numbers that you're talking about, so many bushels per acre
and that kind of stuff, as I said before, I have soybean and corn close by me, and I'm
just curious.
If we talk to one farmer today, you talk to the significance of, hey, I would say the big
three from a cereal grain perspective would be corn, soybeans, and wheat, you know, some
some farmers have experimented with some more edible beans. Certainly, the hay operation,
there is a fair bit of hay operation in the area as well. But usually, if you're going for grains,
those three crops I mentioned usually make up part of a crop rotation for a healthy soil.
Okay, and then if I could, and I have no idea whether you do or you don't, do you have
tau drainage in your any one of your fields, and only to point this out to my colleagues
around the table here that this is an additional cost that makes your land more viable, and
this, the soil, or part of me, the tau drainage is in the field beside me, I could be mad
because it took away a skating pond that the kids had in the winter time, but I got over that.
And now it allows that farm to be out there so much sooner, but what it does, it brings
So we say we get class 1, 2, 3 soils, but sometimes we have to do, and I use biosols as one example or fertilizers as an example.
But sometimes the farmer has to spend a significant amount of money to towel drain a field in order to make it become a viable field.
I don't know whether you do or you don't, or you have any idea what it would cost to towel drain a farm field.
Excellent question. Yes, our farm is entirely tile drain.
We have, you know, and thankfully it is because that aquifer being pierced would have made
matter much worse, had it not been tile-drained able to take away some of the water from the field.
We recently just tile-drained a smaller part near the front of the farm as well,
And I can't give you a number off the top of my head, but it is a capital expense, and it is not cheap.
Okay, that's fine. I'll accept that. Thank you very kindly.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councillor, I don't see any other speakers, so thank you, Andrew, for delegating this.
It's now tonight, so thank you, Andrew.
Thank you. I have a new respect for council after this marathon session, that's for sure.
We have a new respect for delegations that been on since 1 o'clock, too. Thank you very
much. Our next delegation is Frank Varga from Halton 9 grain farm limited.
Welcome.
Am I there? Can you hear me? Loud and clear. Thank you. I had good afternoon, but I guess
Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Mayor Bennett, also Hills counselors. And as you just said, the
the stamina fortitude and patience of counsel makes me happy. I am not a politician.
Happy to see a farmer. My name again, sprank barge on the cash proper in Milton for 34 years and
seven years in Halton Hills combined with own and rented land of about 500 acres. My farm in the
white belt growing soy beans, grain corn and winter wheat. Today, I speak for myself and
my neighbor, white well farmers, white belt farmers in southern Halton Hills and not
as a net HFA director nor as a hack alternate. We have different views.
I represent I think
I spoke to about 18 farmers in the area and we are the remaining farmers who have resisted
selling out to developers.
But we're getting older, as you can see, farming forever is not an option.
And retirement plans, financial affairs, estate planning have to be brought in order.
And this IGMS and Rope of 38 is playing havoc with values.
If we're white belt, not white belt, you know, prices double or get cut in half.
And they also have an effect on future farming plants.
So we ask for some kind of stability in this and protection of our equity in the lands.
Protecting the land is good, but protecting the farmer and his equity is even better.
You can't farm without farmers.
So we ask that the white belt status of our land be maintained, no green belt, no permanent
food belt, and we support the judicious expansion of urban boundaries to accommodate population
and drop-end job growth to 2051.
In other words, IgMS options 1, 2 or 4 and not options 3 and 4.
Now while farmland, while any loss of farmland is to be avoided, I found out I've studied this
for about six months that there is more than enough farmland for both farming and urban expansion.
I draw your attention to the latest statistics there are 20 years from 1996 to 2016.
And it's interesting what's happened. For instance, winter wheat,
we've had an increase of 203%. In other words, we can almost grow the same amount of crops
in half the land. The yield in bushels per acre has gone from 40 to 90, an increase
of 124%. Could I have the next slide, please?
And here, grain crop, this is the big three corn
is in there as well, and the corn crop yield increased 58.5%, that's the green one, and
the yield per acre 42.7. So think about it. We can produce the same number of crops.
It used to be, let's say, 110 bushels per acre, now we do 158. On the same amount of land,
next slide please.
And finally, soybeans. Soybean production has gone from 70,000 acres
to 124,000. That's a 77% increase in bushels per acre. Sorry, in bushels.
Bushels per acre, we started at 37, we're at 45. So again, the bushels per acre has increased.
And slide the next slide, please. There's only one left.
Nope, about that one. Statistics 2. There we go.
This rather summarizes what I've mentioned.
It may be a little complex, but it's quite simple.
For instance, in 2016, we had 2 million acres of corn.
So, in other words, each year we've increased 2%. So, last year it took 100 acres, this year it takes 98 acres to get the same yield. So, corn extrapolated over the 2000, or sorry, 2 million acres is 42,700 acres extra. That is surplus to our needs to produce the same crop. And if we go down to soybeans and winter wheat,
We get a total of 135,000 acres per year that we would need less to grow the same amount
of crop to grow in the following year.
Over 20 years, that's 2,700 acres, like this is mind-boggling, next square, the harvested
acres.
Now, this is harvested or planted acres.
It corn has gone up 200,000 from 96 to 2016.
Soybean acreage has increased by 810,000 acres.
This is extra crops.
Same thing with winter wheat, 255,000.
So we have 1.265 million more acres physically planted.
This does not jive with everybody saying,
Oh no, we're running out of land, we're going to starve.
These are stats from Ontario province.
This is not made up.
These are the facts.
And if we look at the development industry, they use 5,000 acres per year.
This is based on nepotis, which is a think tank foundation that advises the province.
So the 20 years we've lost to them, 102,000 acres.
But we've gained 2.7 plus 1.2, we've gained 4 million acres, so if we've gained 4 million of acres and we lost 100,000, we're way ahead as far as productivity goes and crop production.
Now, what to do? I don't know, we've got like 400,000, sorry, 4 million extra acres.
Now, we grow more, we export more, we're a trading nation, that's great.
Now, the other problem we have here is that apparently 33% of our crop goes into gasoline.
But Ottawa just announced by 2035, hey, everything will be gas. All cars will be gas.
So there's 33% less corn, that translates into 660,000 acres that will not be required
to grow corn in the future.
So basically there's a huge surplus of farmland.
What can we do with it?
Well, growing corn is nice but when you capture carbon with corn the next year or two it just
goes back into the air.
It decomposes animals eat food, comes out as gas, no gain.
What we may have to do is actually just grow forests, hardwood, maple, oak, almond, hardwood
forest.
But there's a danger here for the farmers, and that basically comes down to Brazil.
Brazil's production, let's say, of soybeans, is 36 million hectares.
it's going to go to 52 million. That's 16 million more hectares just in the next 10 years.
Ontario production is 1.2. So it becomes interesting because the deforestation in Brazil to grow
more crops gives us land here that can't be cropped for corn. So maybe we should grow the forest.
You know we maybe we can be the lungs of the earth. But the main point I'm saying over here is that
we do have a lot of farmland and we have to think of how it goes not only that but people generally
are eating more vegetable protein, not beef. Beef and dairy is in steep decline and that's
where actually a lot of this extra land is converted. The pasture goes into cropland.
Additionally, when you look at Brazil and their cost of production,
I'm afraid we can't compete, and it's our farmers that have to decide what to do.
They need direction, how to survive, because you may recall 23 years ago, we were a great
manufacturing country, but we lost our manufacturing to foreign countries, either through subsidies
or whatever lower labor costs.
We run the danger, maybe, of losing farming as well, because in the US, the government subsidizes
is 25% at least of every farm production.
Brazil has top soil, 50 feet deep.
We're lucky if we have five inches.
In Brazil, they could now, because of genetic advances,
grow two crops of soybean, like that's humongous.
So I'm basically saying that food production can
far strip population increase.
Not only that, but genetics and precision farming,
There's so many technologies coming in to advance farming that we should take advantage of and take into account.
Now, another final point I'm going to make is when we look at farm finance, let's say we have a thousand acres,
vision Georgetown, or you take a thousand acres just south between Trafalgar Road and Confline.
That land virtually is all cash cropped.
Now this is beautiful. This is so simple. So we have a thousand acres and it takes one
farmer. It provides employment for one farmer with one large machine. He can work that
whole thing in about four months. No problem. Frank now. Frank, you've gone double your
limit and I bet you're lenient. Okay, anyway, makes up. We only get a million dollars in income
and only a hundred thousand in tax on a good year. Some year there are losses. Thank you
for your time. Thank you. I don't know for you. I'm not used to delegating. Thank you
very much. Are there any questions of Frank?
No, there isn't. So I think you made your
points. Oh, Councillor Somerville, did you just raise your hand? No, I was saying thank
you, Frank. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Our last delegation is Robert McClure,
I am Robert McClure, whose family has farmed for 192 years in both Halton and Peele.
I farm with my wife Susan and our son Ryan.
We own two farms in Halton Hills, my wife and I are living on one and our son and
his family on the other.
We grow cash drops on our own and rented land, all in Halton Hills.
Our farms are not within the integrated growth management study area but in close proximity.
Our following comments are from our grassroots perspective and we are confident that the farmer
former stakeholders that are in the study area will relate.
Farmian health hills has become an increasingly challenging and dangerous because of narrow
roadways being shared with commuter traffic.
Sightlines that many intersections are poor and make it difficult for some moving farm
vehicles to enter traffic safely.
Real infrastructure in many areas is lacking.
For example, reliable, affordable internet, natural gas for heating and crop drying,
farm equipment dealers for sales and service, feed and seed suppliers and grain elevators.
Farmland taxes continue to increase which make it difficult for retired farmers who are
still living on their farms to rent their land to tenant farmers that are priced that covers
the expense of those taxes.
Most tenant farmers are growing cash crops and these rental rates are limited compared
to areas of Ontario with high livestock concentrations which require a guaranteed land
base for nutrient management and feed.
There are also many areas of Ontario with much higher yielding soils for cash crops and
both of these situations demand much higher rental income for the retired landlord farmers.
Farmers don't have the option of selling their farmland separately from their home to
retain as a retirement residence in Halton because severance isn't allowed as an option
for retiring farmers.
Selling the farm upon retirement is quite often the only retirement equity option available,
following their lifetime of dedication to farming and feeding the urban population.
It is a reality that farmers are not buying farmland in Halton Hills.
The last several years, as determined as determined in a study published by Professor
Brady Deepon Jr., head of agriculture at the University of Guelph in cooperation with
the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture
and Food in rural affairs.
In comparison, 90% of Oxford County farm purchases were by farmers, 95% of Perth County
farm purchases were by farmers, and 90% of Wellington County farm purchases were by
farmers.
The next generation of prospective farmers have limited opportunity to build successful,
sustainable farming operations in home region, and therefore are moving to areas like mentioned
above.
of the benefit of this for food production is economy of scale with the farming infrastructure
already in place to support sustainability. We support concept two as long as the tenure
review is guaranteed to reevaluate growth requirements in the urban shuttle. Speaking
into a dairy farmer, one of actually four remaining
and Halton Hills this morning.
He has a 22-year-old son, and he's interested in farming,
dairy farming.
And he now has 100 acres of farmland, which is close
to the peal border.
But now he is dealing with the 400 series
we're going halfway through his firm. So he is really in a fix, but I guess it kind of
reflects on what the situation is in Halton. Young farmers want to farm, but they can't
in Halton because of inability to buy reasonably priced farm land, and that's not the, you know,
their long-time farmers too, and that's not the fault of them. That's just that's urban like
urban shadow living in the urban shadow and it's it's unfortunate but they do have to move
somewhere else if they want to be sustainable just like I've said they're all moving to areas
that have the infrastructure it's not it's not going to come back I know Nancy mentioned that
you know you could have an ever ever tour come back into you know commercial
a little employment land, but that's not a given.
You won't have farm machinery others come back,
like Peter said.
This farmer talked to you this morning,
he sent his farm up to Amartara
to buy parts for his realm there
that he was fixing in order to get it fixed
so he could bail hay between the rain.
So it's a reality of farming in Halton.
I celebrate 50 years of farming myself this year,
and I hope to continue,
but I'm also 70 years old, and the average age of farmers in Halton is 58, so people want
to protect farmland, but farmers have to be protected and look at the possibility of their
options. They're not like anyone in town that can sell their house when they want to retire or
move into long-term care, so you do need options. Don't shut the door on
expansion because it doesn't make sense to us and there's a lot of things you can't
do if you don't have any urban expansion at all like schools and green space and hospital
and long-term care retirement residents. We've got to think of that. We're all getting
older so thank you for your time and appreciate everybody's I guess maybe on the last one
I'm not sure. Thank you, Mayor Bennett.
Yeah, thank you, Robert, and thank you for your 50 years of farming in the area on behalf of all of us.
Councillor Somerville, do you have a question?
Well, I just wanted to follow up on something that you were saying, Robert.
I'm hoping you can hear me okay.
Yes.
It's with the farms as they're sold.
And is this something that I've had a data totally said to me is that
They're finding them becoming a state farms where people are buying them
Instead of being in the city buying a farmland and then
They're not using it as much. They rent out part of it to get
Some tax advantages in that as well, but not using it. Is that something you have seen as well up in
Your neck of the woods are down in your neck of the woods
Well, I think it will be a reality in the future a
A farmer does have to retire at some point in time, and if that's his only option, it will
be, but that farm will not be growing vegetables to feed the local population.
I have a neighbor that grows vegetables, and he says that because of the type of vegetables
he grows, he can only grow them on that ground for three years because it develops a disease
and it has to remove to somewhere else.
So it's not growing vegetables on farms isn't long term so that's why we as cash
roll. Vegetables forever. It's not the case. So, in the future, I can see, you know, as
farmers retire and they do need to sell, and there's no next generation to carry on, it
will be people with, you know, multi-million dollar homes buying a hundred acre farm and
building a house on the mill of it. That's not feeding the population. I guess another question
I would have for you is that both Councilor Lewis and I heard of a little bit of disconnect
between what was felt as the white belt farmers and with the federation, but they also
with the green belt, farmers who are within the green belt, and I can ask you this since I know
your farms travels both. Is that something that you have seen that there's almost a different
understanding of farming in the white belt area, potential growth areas versus
what those in the green belt area are actually seeing. Well I do own a farm in
the green belt. That's my home base and I was green belted after purchasing this
farm actually. And one of my farms is in the white belt, like I said not in the
growth management study area. But I haven't benefited one cent from being green
belted. I've far in the same way. I continue to even after 50 years. I still am
learning. I am trying to do my best to preserve the environment. I have
environmental farm plan. And I do everything that I'm not growing the cover crops. I
I do no tilling.
I progress with society, but I haven't gained one cent from sequestering carbon.
I have natural heritage on my property.
I don't get paid anything for that.
I maintain it.
I think society has to start not just protecting farmland, and I said this at the time of
Greenbelt.
they have to protect the farmer. Protecting the farmland doesn't do anything for society. It's
the farmer that has to be protected. And that's the next generation doesn't have options and incentives
like environmental services payments for what we are doing for the last 192 years. What is the
point of continuing farming. It will become you state lots, 100 acres of state lots,
so much for intensification. Thank you for that Robert. Those are the
end of my questions, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We have one more, Councillor Lewis?
Yeah, sorry to add to this, I'm trying to get us to the 11 o'clock finish, but thank you
very much for hanging in for the day and offering some, what I would consider, be some very
important advice to his relative to what it is you're in. I live in the country and I live on a
severed lot. That was done. I have no idea how many years ago. I've been here almost 50 years.
So let's assume that 50 years ago, Farmer X was able to sever off lots in order to help him survive.
And when I sat in shadow with this farmer one day who has since retired and also at the time in
era of having a lot that was severed and I said and I talked to him to get the
history lesson on all of the lands around us and and quite frankly it's
amazing to hear what has gone on what should go on and whatever it and the
minds of a very experienced farmer would we should we as a community be taking
look at that they took away the opportunity for you the farmer to several lots
you could sit and retire at the corner of your lot at the corner of your
hundred acres and remain on the property that you work for the family for
hundred ninety two years and I'm looking at it maybe we as a community should
take a long hard look at the value the honor and recognition and I'm fully
aware why they took it away because farmers were severing lots and doing
nothing but to sell them but that was part of their lifeline and I'm looking at it
here now to be able to say is perhaps our community should look at the
opportunity for a legitimate farmer to sever a lot and live happily ever after on the
farm that he's worked for so many years to slash generation.
So is that something you would advocate and think that we should be looking?
Well, I guess there is that's kind of a double edged sword because the reason that I think
that was stopped essentially was because there was starting to be conflicting issues between
farmers and homeowners because originally maybe the the house was lived in by the farmer. He
didn't care about noise and dust and all that, late hours. But when it was then moved to the next
purchaser, then all the complaints started. And that's why you do have the, you know,
setbacks for new farm buildings and all that so they're back farther from residential properties. But
But I guess my part about severing, like the home residents of the farm, the farm residents
off is, we can't do that.
And yet, if I was in Peterborough County where my sister and brother-in-law farm, they
will buy a hundred acre farm, and I know we can do it in Halton Hills, but people aren't
doing it because it isn't farmers that are buying, but they can then sever off excess farm
buildings which actually pay for the farm they bought and then they go and buy another
farm so they're able to buy 2 or 300 acre farms they don't need the access farm buildings
and that actually expands their farm operation to be sustainable. For now three family
members joining my sister and brother in the farming operation. So it's the reality here
we can't do that and it's just another stumbling block really is what it is. I
mean we can do it but nobody's going to do it I guess is what I'm saying
because you can't it isn't realistic farm value like other people I said I
think Andrew said that as well. Hey I thank you for that and one thing I'm I'm I'll
be say very surprised whenever you made reference factors for dairy farms and
All nails. I didn't think it was any other is for okay. Good to hear.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Robert for your delegation. I have no further questions. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to call.
We're going to be debating this shortly. I'm going to call a 10 minute break because we might be here for a while and stretch your legs.
So, see everybody in 10 minutes.
We'll commence this meeting. And before I get started, I wanted to pull the council's roll
on, their own, their videos. I just want to offer regrets from Councilor Wendy Ferro
Reed and Councilor Ted Brown. I forgot to say that.
So, Councilor Fogel, I think you
You had your hand up earlier to do want to.
Yes, thank you.
Thanks for recognizing it.
So it's been a very interesting meeting.
I really appreciate all of the delegations.
It certainly show us how complicated the situation is
that we are in because we have so many competing priorities.
I would just like to ask a question before I have amendment to put on the floor but there's
an important question I have for planning staff first and I would like to on page 16 of
the staff report where we have the details of the hectares of employment land that we have
approved for urban uses. It's a little unclear as to how much land we have left that it's
not service necessarily. Some of it is service, but what's the total of all those hectares?
Because when I added up, it doesn't seem to come to the same thing that the reports talk about.
So,
through you, Mr. Mayor, I will start and if I need some assistance from either Ms. Parker or Paul Lowe's, then we will proceed in that direction.
The data on page 16, I believe, is intended to reflect the gross hectares of the Houghton Hills Premier Gateway.
It doesn't draw any distinction between that, which is vacant and that which is occupied.
The actual vacant supply, we have estimated in the past, is about 376 net hectares or
about 929 acres.
So that's sort of the residual supply, which coincidentally is not very different from the
the increment that was added through sustainable halton for the 2021-2031 period, so we sort
of haven't, if you will, absorb that new land yet, and given that we're sort of at the
beginning of the planning horizon and then with all the other challenges with GTA West,
that's not surprising.
We're just in the early days of that particular increment.
So hopefully that helps.
So, again, the data on page 16 was intended to reflect an overall estimate of the size of the gateway, and then the vacant remaining lands our estimate is, again, 376 net hectares or 929 acres.
This is where it gets complicated when we talk about net hectares versus land.
So when we're talking about what we're bringing into the urban area, we would be talking
gross hectares, and when we're talking about employment land later, we talk net hectares.
Is that correct?
It's through the Mayor to the Councilor.
That's correct.
So what would happen is if any additional urban lands were added in, there's a gross
number and usually the ratio of net to gross is 80 percent for employment land
purposes. So taking into account, sorry, the gross number will be higher than
net supply will be 80 percent of the gross number. So I know in our report there's
a reference to 445 gross hectares, which is what was estimated by Watson and
associates. So that would be, you basically multiply that by 80% to get your net supply.
And again, that's taking into account the need for the road network and storm water management
and things of that nature. So hopefully that helps.
It does help, but it's a little late in the game
for me to try and figure stuff out. Because also one of the delegations talked about,
We asked him about 2,000 acres and 1,000 acres and he said that he had worked it all out
and worked it backwards and he was, it sounded like he was switching from gross acreage
to net acreage and I didn't think we were doing that at all on when we were looking at
the community land that we were bringing in.
Well, I'm totally confused by his comment.
So through the mayor to the counselor, the amount of land that was shown, I guess,
in the various concepts, our understanding is its gross hectorage for community land
as well, net of the natural heritage system lands.
So, he was probably referring to the fact that he represents, say, 2,000 acres of land
and two concession blocks, which would include the NHS.
And presumably he's done some math to arrive at a particular number.
And I thought he said 600 hectares is what I thought I heard him say once unit.
Okay, I didn't realize that we were, we netted out the natural heritage system as well.
Yes, we do just and just for purposes of clarification the region treats the NHS as a very separate and distinct land use designation, whether it's surrounded by urban lands or surrounded by rural and so.
That's how we look at it moving forward as well.
Looking at my notes, he did say 600 hectares.
All right. That's interesting that he's happy. So that's good. Okay. Well, I, over the
last few days, I've been talking to counselors and other counselors have been talking to
other counselors, trying to figure out where we go on this. And I think it's pretty, pretty
clear to everybody that I'm a 3B kind of person and the staff report doesn't say 3B, it
says 2.
So I've learned that we do have a split council on this issue, kind of split not exactly
even but close. So that is never a really good spot to be in for a council. So over
the past day then started to think about how I could personally compromise on this to
try and get some place that I could agree on.
And so, after much discussion today, in particular, I have an amendment to put on the floor for discussion purposes.
And this amendment is moved by me and it's seconded by Councillor Lawler.
And of course, it's been circulated to all of you as well and to the clerk.
So the amendment is that the recommendations be amended to alter paragraph three by changing concept two to concept three B.
That paragraph four and five be removed.
That paragraph six be amended to change 400 hectares to 200 hectares, which is 500 acres and delete paragraph nine.
So, this, in effect, could call it option 3C, if you like.
It looks at adding in land for the hospital for park land for community use in the realm
of 500 acres or half of vision Georgetown.
It removes the acreage for employment uses.
Now, I may have had some misunderstanding about what some of those figures were from that chart.
It looked to me as though we had 700 hectares of land available from that chart, but that's gross.
It's still, you can envision it though as 2,000 acres or two vision Georgetown's, which strikes me still as being a lot of employment land going forward.
So those are the main, main points for me.
And why would I do this? Why do it? Well, it goes back to what's a large number of our
They are concerned about climate change. And as you know, the temperature in the litin' BC was 47 degrees. It was a tinderbox. The spark and the town was gone. The extreme heat wave was not a surprise. We could see it coming. And we can certainly see more coming. Last week, over 700 BC residents died due to the heat wave.
There's no reporting in Canada, but Siberia is registering
48 degrees near the Arctic Circle this past week as well.
The last seven years rank is the seven hottest years in history from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
It's a trend and the trend is not going to plateau.
In one generation we're going to go from looking forward to summer to fearing summer because
Because it's too hot to work outside, too hot to golf in the daytime, too hot to be in
the city, too hot to stay alive without air conditioning, too hot to sleep without air
conditioning, too hot to firm successfully, too hot for the animals to live, streams too
hot for the fish to live.
You know, we can't ignore this, and it's on my mind all the time, so we can't think
that we can plan for what our community will look like and how it's going to function,
what the field-built form should be three decades from now.
You know, there's massive changes, and I think it's crazy that the provincial government thinks
that we should be planning for three decades into the future, but we are stuck with that.
I also think that, you know, we've been told to plan for the single-family housing market.
I don't think there's any shortage of single-family dwellings. It's practically the only type
housing that exists in Holtman Hills. So when I hear that we need to take a balanced approach
because everyone likes balance and then they tell us that the balanced approach is to provide
60% of the housing is single-family dwellings. I think what are you talking about? The balanced
approach would be to add apartments because we're at 95% single-family dwellings right now.
And certainly,
if we're thinking, as Hemson said, and it's analysis that the boomers
aren't going to give up their houses, this plan doesn't start for 10 more years.
In 10 more years, the boomers are going to start to be 85 years old.
I got to think some of them are moving one way or the other.
So moving on to the employment side, I may have that one a bit wrong, but anyway, I'm
sticking with my way of saying this because I think that is still a lot of employment land.
And that we will certainly be adding more jobs that are long time good jobs that we can
We count on within the community area and has been noted that those warehouses, the owners
of the warehouses are doing everything they can to eliminate the jobs.
And certainly by the time this plan kicks in 10 years from now, there will be less jobs
because they're mechanizing the whole thing.
And so is that really where we want to invest?
The, on the farmland side, Hack has said, and the Houghton Regional Federation of Agriculture
has said, preserve the farmland as long as possible and as much as possible.
They haven't said that they want it to be permanently protected, and I think we need to definitely
take out that paragraph 9, which leaves us with a semi-permanent agricultural area
to 2051. I don't think we can do it anyway, but to preserve their future possibilities,
I think we should take that out, and we don't need it anyway.
Before I finish, I want to thank the probably 200 people who sent messages to counselors,
urging them to hold the line on urban expansion and put climate change at the
top of their priorities. Protect our agricultural land. And I want to thank
the residents who went to work to inform the public and give them ways to quickly
raise their voices. I understand that some counselors are upset about receiving
emails from people who live elsewhere in Hilton, but issues of climate change
and agricultural land preservation are global in nature. What we do, what we
decide affects people living on the other side of the 401. I personally took an interest
in the decision making process in the city of Hamilton. I went so far as to listen to
the presentation made in Hamilton to their counsel and to the public regarding the economics
of sprawl versus compact walkable neighborhoods. And for those of you who put the finances
of the municipality at the top of your list, the truth of the matter is that sprawl does
not pay for itself. It is not economically sustainable and we can see that. It's why we try
to get more commercial employment uses to subsidize sprawl. That's what's driving us.
And I saw an example after example of towns and cities that couldn't afford to replace the
infrastructure that was originally played for by development charges, but needed tax dollars
to maintain and replace. So they use the next phase of development charges to pay off the debt
from the previous ones. And look at what we saw yesterday. We've got a $21 million deficit
to pay off in our long-range financial plan. How do we get there? How do we get out of that?
You know, if we keep doing the same thing, we are not going to solve that problem.
It is a big problem and sure.
We'll do it again and the same problem will come back.
So let's not do that.
Councilor Sareville and Mayor Bennett and I were invited to meet with Councillors from Milton
to find out about their hopes and dreams.
and they want to convert 100% of the white belt to urban uses.
They said, well, this is the last phase of development,
and it will end their craving for development going forward.
But I can tell you, if they had more land available, they'd want it to.
There's always an appetite and an argument to be made
to convert more agricultural land to urban uses.
very few municipalities drawn artificial line in the sand and self-regulate, but Waterloo
region is one of them. And if you look at Waterloo having done it, they are thriving. They
are getting investment in the downtown area. They're making it more interesting. And they're
not looking back, and they've done it for themselves. So I
want to make it clear that in
the resolution, the amendment, nothing will be permanent except putting land into the urban
area. It never goes away. So, that is the amendment that's on the floor. I'm hoping that
after hearing all the delegations, I know what's complicated, that we will find some common ground.
and I will leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor.
It's a lot, you're right. There's a lot to digest.
This is a very complicated file. It's not black and white.
But I do want to make some comments a little later.
But I do have a speaker's list.
And the next one is Councillor Hearst.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Can you hear me okay?
Okay.
Yes, we can.
Great.
First of all, I wanted to also thank the delegations.
I learned a lot today from the firemers and from the people's experiences.
And I want to thank staff for all the work that they have put in, bringing this report to us.
It's been mentioned several times today about a hospital or hospital site requirement.
And I wanted to explain the Georgetown hospital situation, I think the council is aware, but
for the benefit of the public, I just want to explain what the situation is regarding
Georgetown hospital.
Everyone will remember, not everyone will remember, but I think we all know that Georgetown
hospital was built in the late 1950s.
It was a community driven project and it opened in 1961 with much pride and fanfare.
The problem today is that an overall analysis which has been completed by Houghton Healthcare
shows that the building has reached the end of its useful life. Building systems
and controls are out of date for current needs and even the the size and
this types of rooms are now not not what we would see in health care today.
Anyone who has spent time in the Georgetown Hospital room and maybe been
transferred to Oakville Hospital will surely attest to the fact that that the Georgetown
Hospital does leave a little quite a bit to be desired with regard to privacy and concern
about about infections. There is a provincial process that has been taken
in place, Holland Healthcare is currently engaged with the Ministry of Health in a six-stage
multi-year planning process for Georgetown Hospital.
Stage 1 material was submitted to the Ministry in April of 2021 that included the business
plan for the redevelopment of Georgetown Hospital.
All options for redevelopment are currently being reviewed by the ministry.
Analysis conducted by Halton Alvarcare has indicated that there is a possibility the existing
Georgetown hospital site may not be suitable to support the scope of redevelopment which
is currently contemplated in the stage one submission to the ministry.
Halton health care advisors have concluded that a new greenfield site is not available
within the current urban boundary given the need and given the need for a new site
to be 40 to 45 acres.
There's just nothing available currently within the urban boundary.
To accommodate the redevelopment needs, if it is ultimately determined that a new site
is needed, and given the restriction of the green belt lands to the west of Georgetown,
the only opportunity to acquire a site would be through a provision of land within an expanded
urban boundary.
The replacement and the redevelopment of Georgetown Hospital is a transformative
capital project for our community, and Halvin Healthcare is asking council today to please
consider the future healthcare needs of the community, and the future growth needs of
Georgetown Hospital during our discussions.
Thank you very much, and I will probably have comments later on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor Hersson, just with the hospital I've been in contact with
the hospital and as you said, the hospital's 60 years old.
And I just could not imagine if we don't expand urban boundary.
And we ended up having no hospital.
And I think this pandemic that we've been in the past year proves the need for an expanded
or brand new hospital has halton healthcare. They've taken in many patients from within
our own community, within Oakville, within Milton, but also from Peele and from Mississauga
during this pandemic. And I take like hell, they receive that this hospital end up closing
in 10, 15 years or whatever because of the age of the hospital. And our residents would
have to go to Brampton or go to Milton, and that would be a disservice for our community.
So for a lot of the residents that spoke today, they're probably not aware of all the details
about the hospital, but it's very important that we give a lot of consideration for the
hospital, because it's very important, and as Councillor Harris said, they've been working
working with the ministry to move forward, but I just want to add those extra
comments with respect to the hospital that we don't find, there's no 45 acres 40 to 45
of acres for them, the George Towner.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I'm not supporting the amendment, and I was very clear on that before. The numbers don't add up, as I've mentioned, the Councillor Fogel and everybody. So, if you want to look at that thing on page 16, let's look at the reality of what those areas are that are approved.
One A and two A mainly built out. Option one B, approved by the region, there's some applications.
Two B that is mentioned there, we are working on that right now. Option two A, option two B are
both in the GTA West border and are frozen. So I can't support any option that is not looking at
increasing employment lands and it's you know what I've seen members of this
council as I referred to before say put their hand up I remember
Council law are doing this saying asking out a council meeting saying what can we
do to increase our our employment lands our residential ratio is not good
but if we're looking at freezing employment lands until 2051 with 101 acres as of
today's shovel ready. It's not going to get any better. Every single member of
council I've ever seen on every single brochure and anyone I've ever seen
running for election says we need more jobs. We need to add more employment
land. We need to make sure people can work from home.
I have never ever seen anybody run on a platform of
We have enough jobs because we don't have enough employment land in town.
We saw two big companies as the Chamber of Reference leaving town.
So I think we have to be realistic.
I also can't support option 3B because it's a chaos option.
It'll take 30,000 people roughly and put them into our present urban areas.
If we're doing that, if it ever passed, we would have to make sure that there are no
sacred cow neighborhoods.
Every neighborhood would have to be considered.
I heard earlier today that we can't put growth like that in the stable neighborhoods.
I don't know what are the unstable neighborhoods we would use.
Every neighborhood we have is stable.
We have mature neighborhoods.
We have areas around town where it would be easy to do, the six home, buying up larger
blocks of homes, about six of them, eight of them, and being able to put up a tower.
Does that what we want?
It would be chaos.
The NIMBYism?
It would be rampant.
They seem some of the members of the proponents of this have even voted against modest ones
that we have seen.
John Street comes to mind.
McGibbon. We would have to put in as a right zoning to make sure that it takes
nimby as a month of table and whatever is going in in that area can because if
not we're not going to build a damn thing. I also have great difficulty with a
little bulk of doing it rather cutely to say let's just do a modest one to be
able to accommodate it. We've talked about housing choices. We had a council
member last night speaking about the regional state of the housing report and talking about
the need for affordable housing. Option 3B will not be giving us housing choices that
we need. We have heard about housing for seniors. We have long-term care. We have heard of
all these pieces that we would need. That land that would be put aside, as is suggested by the
amendment would not cover what we would need and what we would want to see. It will increase
it. It will increase densities and neighborhoods that are stable now. It is going to be difficult
anyway to ever try to reach whether the targets are, which is mentioned at 70% in option 2. It's
going to be even harder to try to do that in option 3B. I would hope council would turn down
option 3B and support the staff report who have done the analysis. When we did the last
official plan review, we had an anonymous council vote which added in the vision Georgetown
list. Now 12 years later, we have a split council on it and yes climate change is a huge reason
on that. But we're also talking, we heard today, that zero homes, 2030. We also know about
the electrification of it as well. So I don't know where we're going to get all the power
for it. That's on the side. But how do we think we're going to have people being able to thrive
in our community if we don't have places for them to go and work? Where are they going to go?
They're going to have to go out of town, plain and simple. And you know what? We have a neighbor
to the south of us that is going to welcome every single business opening up there because
that's where they'll end up. So right now, eighth line, ninth line, Trafalgar, they're all
busy heading south. And if we go and we let Melton have all of it, and good for Melton, and I know
there's Melton counselors watching us now, and they would be there, they'd be willing to accept every,
every business from A to Z to come down there and that would be the right. I would urge
Council not to support the amendment and to actually support the staff report because
in the long term, even though we are adding land into it, the land that is going to be removed,
we have farmers in that area who can't even get mechanics to come to their property. Why?
They get stopped and they get ticketed when they when they go on roads in Houghton Hills
We have farmers when they leave with grain trucks to go to deliver grain. What happens?
They get stopped because the grain trucks
Look like gravel trucks and we don't want trucks on all those roads
We make it so much more difficult for the farming community to be able to work in that area
outside of issues of water, outside of issues of trespass, outside of issues of odor.
You know, it has been an education the last couple of days going around and meeting
with the agricultural community and hearing what their concerns were and talking.
And the reason you were getting a lot of the emails they were being addressed to me, one
of them told me one day and said, where do I send emails in?
and I couldn't think of the clerk's proper spelling.
So I said, send it to me.
I'll forward it on.
And you know what?
I didn't mind getting the emails.
I found them to be complete spam emails
when we were getting them two days before the report.
Probably it bothered me more
was having a counselor being the one behind it.
Not bothered me more.
It wasn't a true community group that was doing it.
It was, it was that.
People are gonna come and speak to us.
That's fine.
people are going to send it to us, but if you're going to send us the email, especially
one that is a spam one, and we ask questions, we're going to ask questions. Some people
had tremendous research in it, and I did some research from it and looked into a bit more
what they were saying. Other ones, go to a website, fill in your name, the website was up Wellington
water watchers, go there, fill it out, send it in. You know, this was all goes back to a webinar
That was held sponsored by a mayor in Southern Halton, which had the title of how to get your
Regional Council to stop adding land in for development.
That was the name of the webinar, one of the subtexts.
And that's what they're doing, they are using this and they're going around to try to do
that as well.
They've done wonderful work on the 413, but it's still there.
I do not want to see, I'm hoping this amendment fails and I do have a couple questions to
staff if it does, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you.
Perhaps you may want to ask the questions of staff now.
Okay.
Well, this is on the, if the basis of this amendment fails, it would be for an area for
employment land around the bottom of the GTA West.
Because of the unknown around that part, could we almost like lack of a better term, red circle
that area so that we don't have it where we have an area tied up. It's already tied
up because of the regional amendment that's on that. Is that something that can be done
that we would look at putting the employment lands in other areas other than where that
GTA West border would go such as the north part of of Winston Churchill.
Through you, Mr. Mayor and to Councillor Somerville, it's one of the reasons why in constructing
the report, we were silent on geographic location for the additional employment lands.
Obviously, we said we recommend a certain hectorage or acreage, and we also recommended
that the Houghton Hills Premier Gateway be prioritized for any additional lands.
But we wanted to hold, I guess, if you will, on the precise location to have those further
discussions with the region, the consulting team that the region has employed.
And frankly, I guess with Council as well about some of those very issues.
So I think I understand what you're asking, it's really to keep our options open right
now in terms of the precise location of any additional employment lands that may be allocated
to the town.
So hopefully that helps.
It does.
And while you're there, John, was my summation about those employment land areas that I mentioned
Is that correct about the ones that are built out, approved, and moving forward?
Was that correct on those summations that I had mentioned?
So through the Mayor to the Councillor, I'm going to call it the original Huss plans south
of Steele's to the west of Trafalgar, a good chunk of that is built out.
I don't know the precise acreage and precise geographies.
The triangle lands on the north side of steels, if I can call it that, near James Snow
Parkway, or I think largely built out, so they're fairly well spoken for in that area.
I think there's a reference in the report to about 101 hectares of shovel-ready service
land.
So yes, that's that's that's generally where we're at the the phase
One B lands, of course, have just been very recently approved
We do have one application that has come in and we are expecting it another shortly
And probably one thereafter that will account for most of those lands and you may recall those were supposed to actually be made available
pre-2021 and of course here we are in 2021 so we're a bit behind there but the
demand in that area appears to be strong as well. We're currently working on the
secondary plan for the phase 2B lands generally on the north side of
steels between the eighth line and Winston Churchill Boulevard and then of
course the phase 2A lands are generally the lands that are on the south side of
deals between TPO and extending over to Winston Churchill Boulevard and we do know a significant amount
of those lands would be encumbered based on what the routing was for the GTA-West corridor.
They'll call it the technically preferred road and the focused area analysis. A lot of those lands
would appear to be permanently lost if you will, so hopefully that helps.
it does so my summary was close. Thank you very much, John.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Councillor Engels.
Thank you, Worship.
I have lots of notes here, but I've tried to distill this down.
It was a very interesting and I would say very educational meeting there was a lot of things
that came out from certain delegations that were not part of my thinking before we had
the meeting.
So there's a little bit of give and take as I'm going through the meeting.
It's definitely a complex issue and a lot of inputs to consider here.
what I tried to do is to distill down what I wouldn't budge on and there's
basically three things and one is the employment lands. Now as far as the
number goes I'm not too sure when Councillor Vogel talked about the
amendment how much is the right amount and it's a little late in the meeting for
me to decide that particular detail at this point, but I won't support 3D for a couple
of these reasons here.
The employment lands, I think they're needed.
I think there was lots of information that came out about that.
Our ratio was, I think, in the summer of a may have already said that the 90-10 we've been
playing around with that number.
we've gotten a little bit better as we go along, but it is not going for a growing community
just in general. Number two that I won't waver on is the hospital site.
I don't see any way
of holding the boundary fixed,
making that hospital site available, viable, I just can't see that happening, so that's another reason.
And one of the other things that I brought up here, and it did come up here in someone, with that type of intensification within the boundaries, I don't want to use the word impossible. But I think the number, perhaps the consultant used the word challenging, I would say very challenging. We need for all those people coming. For all those people being,
if they're pushed into what we have is the boundary now, okay?
They need schools, they need community centers,
they need recreational centers, they need...
There's a whole raft of services basically that will be in large, large demands
and they can't go up.
Some of both things can't go up. I have been a proponent of going up in this town for 25 years. Probably a little longer than that, but the 20 or 25 have been on council. I think we should have been going up and we still do whether it's for years and those those three points there.
take me off of 3B and a little bit of time on the amendment. I'm going to pull against
the amendment as well on this one. I would say there's this is by no way ignoring climate
change.
I know that and that is a valid argument on what we're going through here. I just
You've got to look at some things here, idealism.
I think one of the quotes that one of our delegations said,
I did write it down here, oh, keep your idealism practical.
And it stood out me for the last PRs we've been going along here.
And I think it makes some sense.
And especially in a complex situation like this.
So I have other things here.
I may have comments following I do have one question of staff because I think this is a very important point as well for for for us all and it has to do with the.
What I call locking into 2021 I asked the I asked the consultant about how the process works, whatever decision is made.
Are we locked in, can things change in five years, can things change in ten years?
It is kind of a simplistic way.
I took it that changing the boundaries in those years.
Out of the 2050, 30 years out, I cannot happen.
So I just, I just look at if it's not done now, it's not done for 30 years to add lands
in that may be needed.
I would like to, I want to compact, I want to compact, but practicality says it's, I
find it difficult to think that 3B is practical in that sense.
So I will not be supporting the amendment 3b as it is.
Those are my comments for now. Thank you.
Councillor Engels, do you have a question in there?
Oh, I did. Yes. Sorry. I started talking about it.
It has to do and through you to Mr. Leonard.
am I correct in how I've looked at the 2051 and the locking in of our urban boundaries
for the next 30 years?
Through the Mayor to the Councilor, that's certainly how we see it because what the
region is doing is they are developing a plan out to the year 2051 and they're going to
allocate growth to the four local municipalities to that time frame and the report that the region has
on tomorrow goes into that into some more detail. Basically, it's the long lead times that are
required to do planning and I know there's certainly some discomfort around the table with counsel
that the province extended the planning horizon from 2041 to 2051 and I appreciate that there's varying
views on that. That's sort of the hand that we've been given to play with. But essentially
what the region has to do now, and they've got the direction from the minister, is develop
a growth management plan that looks out to 2051, and they will proceed to do that, presumably,
and a number of other steps will follow in train. And that includes things like once the
minister approves the amendment, developing the best planning estimates that are complementary
entry to the regional plan amendment, getting into updates to the water and wastewater
and transportation master plans, the DC by-law updates, all of those various things in
the allocation programs, and then there's the whole, I'll call it local processes that
have to follow and train, including updates to the local plans, the development of any secondary
plans that have to be done for either intensification areas or designated green field areas or employment
areas. And then obviously the whole development review process. And what I'm finding now, there
used to be, I guess I would call it, a bit of a rule of thumb. It takes about 10 years
to bring land on stream from the earliest stages of a process to where you're actually
getting building permits. Those days are long gone in my view. I think it's trending more
to 15 years and maybe even longer. So that's part of the challenge. And some of the reasons
why you have to start some of these processes so early, but just to conclude with, in my view,
everything will be locked in and then typically the next opportunity to revisit the decisions would
occur about 10 years from now. I certainly wouldn't dispute that, but typically you would be then
looking at probably an extended planning horizon of 2061 or 2071, depending upon, I guess, the
the priorities of the provincial government of the day and revised growth forecasts.
So that's what we know right now, and I can appreciate it's a dilemma for council, but
that's typically how these things work.
And once the region sort of locks a lot of things in, a lot of infrastructure and investment
decisions follow, and there's always a great reluctance to sort of go back in and redo things
based on my experience.
Well, that's well, thank you for that. I take that as being a key point here as well. It's a really, I was one that I take some, I talked some issue, I guess, I guess I should say with the 2021 planning horizon and being put out that part, but like you say, that's that's the hand we're dealt and that's what it is.
That's what it is. The population numbers may change. I see on the reviews and some numbers
may change, but that boundary line, that urban boundary line will remain the same until
2050-51. So for the next 30 years, if we needed two hospitals, if we needed another swimming
pool, it would have to be fun within the urban boundaries we have now. And I think that's
I think it's quite critical for Councillors to consider when we make our decision here.
So thank you for that, Mr. Linhardt, and that's it for me, Mr. Mayor, for now.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Councillor Lawler.
Thanks very much, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to all the delegates and for the messages that
we've received over the last few days, I am incredibly conflicted over this whole exercise,
and I'd like to ask, press a little bit further, frankly, with Mr. Linhart about the
the notion of reviewing this in 10 years because frankly, as far as I'm concerned, if the decision
that we are taking handcuffs, future councils, for 30 years, then I think that our democracy
has really in trouble and that the the province has, I think I said earlier, sent us on a
fool's errand that there is no chance of success for this project or this these projections
because it is impossible for us to know the future and to cement our land use planning
for that length of time with no option for change by future councils is bizarre as far as I'm concerned.
So John, do you mind repeating again, are you saying there would be no opportunity for a town council in ten years
to expand or change the urban boundaries that we would put in place this year as a
decision of this Council and Regional Council.
Through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councilor Lawler, it's not a question of that you wouldn't have
an opportunity to revisit the urban boundary.
Maybe it's more of a phasing question.
So, the way the region develops their growth management strategies is they have phasing lines,
and it gets a good way to look at it is when they added in the sustainable halton lands
for halton hills and let's say Milton, any notion that the town was going to be able to bring
those lands on, let's say sooner than the region's agreed to phasing line was not on the table,
and a lot of that came down to enough land being available elsewhere in the region to a certain
planning horizon. So it's not that you can't make a decision on what the urban boundary
might be. A few years down the road, it tends to be more. It will be for the next planning
horizon. And I guess that's the difficulty or the challenge. I guess in terms of the
example or the situation you're in now, and obviously we don't know what regional council
is going to decide. But for the sake of the argument, if there was no urban boundary expansion
mentioned in Hulton Hills and there was in Milton and that was then deemed to be meeting
the needs out to the year 2051. What I expect is a future council would be told is we
have enough land now designated to 2051 in the town of Milton and we have our intensification
objectives and the other two communities let's say to the south and we've made our infrastructure
your decisions accordingly you have to buy it and wait your time. And I know that may not be
the answer you want to hear but that's sort of the way it tends to work is that once you make
those decisions they do get locked in.
Well I guess I guess the biting my time would be just fine
with me frankly because in 10 years a future council is going to have a very different perspective
than we do right now. And as far as I'm concerned holding the boundaries where they are right now
is probably the most conservative decision that this council could make. Because what it does
is allow for all options for future land use by future councils to choose from.
And, you know, so it's extremely conservative because it doesn't lock us into anything.
It is the least risky perspective to take.
And all of these commentaries that we've received say, well, the growth will happen in a
is way, it will happen in the future anyway.
None of the growth that we're talking about
is projected to happen in the next five years.
And most of it, even in the next 10 years.
So by keeping the urban boundaries where they are right now,
this gives maximum flexibility to a future council.
So, I have another question about the employment lands if I made a Mr. Linnhart.
And that is, it's my understanding that the Chief Planner of the Region suggested that
the employment lands that we have allocated right now, that we have designated right now,
We'll take us to 2041, okay, and if I, you know, if we can then make changes in ten
years and potentially add more employment lands or residential lands or whatever, then
Then, are we fine with employment lens to 2041 and could we then add more in a future
council decision?
Do you have that sense?
So, through the mayor to the councilor, I think there's a few things to think about
there with the question, but when exactly the, I'm going to call it the HUSP Sustainable
Halt and Land Supply is going to be fully built out.
There's a bit of a crystal-balling exercise going on right now.
Obviously, it had been intended to be built out by 2031.
The region is now suggesting that it will be in a long-gated build out for a variety of...
And we've seen things like the mid-2030s, referenced in some of the region's reports, maybe the late-2030s, depending upon who you ask. So yes, you've probably heard that particular comment. Insofar as, again, another review. There's no question that probably at some point there will be another review based on everything that we know. It's a regional review. What I'd have to say.
though is based on past experience and what we know, it will probably be looking at a post-2051
growth increment. That's the best way I can characterize it, not a pre-2051 growth increment,
and I think Councillor Arrall, you did mention that you would be fine with a pause, and that's fair
as a council, if that's what you decide. I think it's important that in making the decisions that you
You should recognize that is a possible outcome.
You might have to go through a period of time where your land supply is much more constrained
if you wait because ultimately this is a regional decision.
It's a decision of regional council.
Only they can do this type of municipal comprehensive review based on the rules of engagement that
are in place in the province right now.
So to a certain degree, you're relying on when another level of government will commence
that review and they in turn will sort of commence that review based on direction from
the province. So it's a top-down approach. Unfortunately, perhaps doesn't give us as much
discretion as we might like in our own backyard. So that's why we've had to piece this report
together that you have in front of you today based on sort of what we know.
So hopefully
that many of the most of the constituents that I have been in contact with feel very
strongly about the climate change issue and they feel very strongly as well that we
should be planning our growth and development in a way which reflects climate change.
And they have also said that they want to grow up not out, that they value the agricultural
land in a significant way.
They value the character of our community.
And so when the time comes, I will certainly have that in mind.
So thank you, those are my questions, and I'll have probably further comments later.
Thank you.
Next is Councillor Johnson.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
I have a couple of questions of Mr. Lynch-Hart, I think, he can answer.
Because this is a regional exercise, and the region has been told they have to accommodate
X number of people, what is the regional estimation of the number of hectares that are required
to accommodate that. I'm assuming it's arranged, but I don't remember that we saw the overall
halton-wide numbers.
Yes, through the mayor to Councillor Johnson, I believe if we go into the staff report,
we can find that information where it talks about the five growth concepts.
Oh, all right.
So it does vary, obviously, so I'm not sure if you're if you want to talk about the employment
component or the residential. No, I know I'm more the more the residential, but the, yeah,
employment too, but it was the residential that I was really. Okay, so from a regional perspective,
the amount of new DGA, if I can call it that designated green field area, would range across the
region as a whole from zero, which is what is set out in concept 3a and 3b to...
That's Halton Hills. I'm talking region.
That is the region, the concept 3a, concept 3b does not propose any kind of urban expansion
for residential mixed-use purposes, either the two concepts.
The upper range, if I can call it that, which is concept 4, proposes 2,080 hectares across
the region as a whole.
So there's the range, from 0 to 2,080, and then you have concept 1, which suggests 1
,460
60 hectares for the region as a whole.
And then lastly, concept 2 suggests 730 hectares for the region as a whole.
And then obviously those numbers are then split between Houghton Hills and Milton under
the three of the four concepts.
And you said that Milton has just approved a recommendation to the region to put all of
their white belt in. How much is that?
I'm going to see if, no,
that's okay.
Through the mirror. Before you answer, my point is if we designate
whatever and then Milton is already designated whatever and say it's more
than we need, the region needs, then what do they do? Do they say, well, you get
this and you get that 50, 50 or 80, 20 or like, how does, how is that decision
made if there's too much white melt designated?
So through the Mayor to the Council, it's an excellent question.
So right now the local municipalities are being asked to express their preferences and
I think each local municipality is largely looking at it from their own geography in terms
of where they may be in the development cycle, the character of their community and their
priorities.
So Milton obviously wants to build out the or least plan for the build out of the rest of their white belt lands and that's their vision, that's their plan.
Our approach obviously through this report is something much more cautious.
There will be the regions going to have to decipher all of the input that comes in and make some decisions and determine what amount of land
and should be supported, and they will have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the
province that that's reasonable through what's called a land needs methodology assessment.
So the region's done through their consultants and initial report, I guess, and they will have
to do further work that basically demonstrates that they've followed the sort of the rule
set set out by the province for determining land needs, both on the residential side and
on the employment side.
In general terms, the region has always been fairly cautious in terms of land supply.
Certainly through sustainable halton, there was no desire on the part of the region to
over-designate. I think it really is going to come down to making a determination on what that
supply should be. And again, I don't believe you'll see the region looking to over-designate or go
beyond what they think is reasonable.
Okay, so I guess my point is if Milton has offered up all their white belt and do they
still need, as much, well, concept 2 is on the table for the staff recommendation.
If they don't need that much, would they come back to us and say, you know, do you want
last or do you want, are you that carved in stone and will take some out of Milton?
Like is that another discussion for another day when this is all said then?
So, through the marriage to the Councilor and I appreciate it is very complicated.
The region has always suggested that the preferred concept could be a hybrid that pulls from
elements from the different concepts and I think what the region would like to do if at
all possible would be to try to achieve some form of consensus between the four local
municipalities as to what an integrated growth management strategy would be moving forward
as a basis for a preferred growth concept and a regional official plan amendment.
I would submit that would be prudent if it is possible and it's probably always better
to go to the province to say we've managed to quilt something together of a growth strategy
that's acceptable to the region and the four local municipalities.
Whether that will be possible, I don't know at this point in time.
That's something that has to be worked through.
You could have a hybrid option depending on what this council decides today.
If, for example, council was not interested in pursuing, let's say some of the employment
lands that are talked about in the report.
Well, maybe they'll simply be relocated or reallocated into the town of Milton as part
of the overall regional supply, those are the kind of trade-offs I think that can occur in
the development of a preferred growth concept. So hopefully that helps a little bit.
Well, yeah, it does. I guess what I'm trying to come to terms with is if we,
if we make a decision today, is there further, I mean, this doesn't go to the province of February
of 2022? Is there still some back and forth thing that would happen if we get it wrong today?
and they say, you know, no, that's not enough, Milton, doesn't have enough you need more.
You know, does it come back to us or are we, you know, drawing a line in the sand saying, you know,
we're not budging? So I guess, you know, that's what I was trying to get at. Mr. Mayor, I guess
my question is, there's an amendment on the floor. Are we to speak to the amendment now or is
Still questions.
Do you know what I'm being very flexible because it's a very complex issue.
I'm just letting people speak first-time speakers and ask questions, comments, and then
after when I'm done speaking, I'll have a talk to the amendment.
But I think right now, I think everybody is such a complex planning exercise.
I would, you know, if you want to speak now to the amendment, Councillor, you're welcome
to, but we still have some first time speakers that are probably going to as many questions
as what other previous speakers have had.
Okay.
Well, all right.
I do have quite a few comments to make.
So I will send the floor back to you, Mr. Mayor, and I'll make those if you can put me on
the next list.
Okay.
We would like to the amendment.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Well, didn't know what Councillor Fogel had made her comments on
amendment and Councillor Somerville. So if you want to speak to the amendment, go
right ahead. Okay. Well, and I'll try not to be too verbose.
But so the first thing I want to say is, you know, and this is nobody's fault around.
I was
kitchen table around this zoom screen that we have been asked all of a sudden. We've never had to plan this far out and this provincial government dumped this on us. So it's really not something we've ever had to do before in such a long period of time.
so it makes it more difficult for all of us and I guess my back is up a little bit that we are
forced to make decisions for and I won't tell you how old I am but I doubt if I'll be here in 2021
and I'm making decisions for probably my grandchildren's children that I'm not comfortable with making
However, I realize we have to, I just want to comment to that George Shown South and I wasn't at the table then, I'm not sure what the end build out period for George Shown South or for counselors might know, but it's still not finished, they're still building houses.
is north of 10th side road and I'm sure it was probably, you know, at the very latest
was probably 2011 that that was supposed to be finished because the next thing we did
is plan for 2021, but anyway, so this isn't going to happen by 2021, probably the 2061
I think Mr. Lindhart said the 2031 plan won't be built till the end of 2030 so I, you know,
we can say 2040. So are we planning 30 years out or are we planning 40 years out or even farther?
So that's that's difficult for me. The councilor Vogel said it well that um
oh shoot my battery's going out. Um if I if you lose me I'll I'll come in on another um another
thing just plugged in but anyway can you still hear me?
Okay.
Yes, we can, Councillor.
Okay.
All right.
So I lost my point.
Anyway, the other issue, of course, and we all know we're in the middle of the pandemic.
So this has been very, very difficult, especially for the public, because usually we do major
public comments and opportunities for the public to comment.
So that's been difficult, and I do want to thank the Councillor who did get involved
and got information out to the public, so they did have a chance to be part of this.
It was another way to do it, because we were in a pandemic, so that's actually a good thing.
Anyway, my first choice when I read this was with 3B, I think we can wait and decide our growth
in the future. However, I think
Mr. Fogel it's failed with the amendment to add copyright any meanings. I'm talking an a
cry to have in fact, he found is
the.
And what will the end result be. So again I don't.
I don't think there's any rush to put in any more land than that.
The 500 acres will certainly accommodate a hospital, park land, lots of housing choices
and still I think with Milton putting a lot of land in it will meet the needs of the
region.
So I'm going to be supporting that.
I think we all have looked at ourselves in what kind of community we want to live in.
I think we've all looked east and south to determine that that's not a kind of community
we want to live in.
We hear every day about people moving here because they want to get out of and I won't
mention the community's names, but I think you know where I'm talking about the sprawl
and the congestion is too much and people love it when they move here.
So I know we can't keep it like that forever, but what we have to the south and the east definitely
we is sprawl and I know with adding, you know, another 2,000 acres or however many we decide
on will be sprawl because we already have sprawl.
If you just have to look at Georgetown south, it's not a walkable community.
Yes people can walk but where are they walking to?
It's not a community where they can get what they need within walking distance.
So, and, you know, I know a lot of you have grown up in acting in Georgetown, small towns
and, but the additional growth that we've had in, well, acting too, but also Georgetown
is sprawl.
It's not built around a core, like the downtowns.
I grew up in Toronto in a neighborhood that was very dense and so I know what it was like
to be able to walk everywhere and hop on a bus to get where I needed to go and and our parents
did the same. We only had one car and then when I was at older, we moved to North York,
which was like a wasteland. There was nothing within walking distance. So I really have experienced
the difference and that's why I love living in downtown Georgetown where I can walk. So
So I think we've been, people have been clear, a lot of people have been clear that too
much for all is not a good thing.
And for many reasons, climate change being the first one, but also just walkability
if people don't have nowhere to walk to, they get in their car and go and then we all know
about obesity and heart disease and so on and people don't get enough exercise.
And I think it's great news about the zero emission housing, but that's not, that doesn't
solve the problem of people having to get in their car, even if it is a battery car,
you're not walking to go and get what they need because it's not close by.
So we tried to plan a walkable community in Vision Georgetown.
It's at the Ontario Land Tribunal who knows what we'll end up with.
So again, we don't have the say that we think we do.
I think we can do a lot of gentle densification in our built-up areas without anyone reacting
to it.
basement apartments come to mind. I know that's not counted. It's ground level housing,
but it can accommodate a whole lot of people. And with the price of housing, I bet you're
going to see a lot more people wanting to convert their basement, so our part of their
house, baby boomers, maybe don't want to go to long-term care right now because of what's
happening, so they may want to take in a range, you know, make arrangements with their
house to accommodate more people. We've heard of lots of examples of seniors moving in
together and sharing expenses in the house so that they don't have to go into long-term care.
So there's lots of options and although I would prefer to see no residential growth,
I will support the small expansion to accommodate the hospital, which I think is badly needed.
I know that's what they want. And I just hope that when we plan the new area, when we get around
to that, if it's on our table, that we hope to plan it so that it is more livable and
walkable, and so on. I just want to mention about the farms, the farmers. I looked to the
organizations that represented large groups of farmers, and I know they have a different opinion
and then maybe anecdotal other people that spoke
one on about one farm or whatever.
And I think we do recognize that the farms
and the white belts are probably not owned by farmers.
And maybe their ideas are different
about what's practical or not.
But it is class one farmland.
I think we have to do everything we can to protect that,
whether we grow wheat on it and send it somewhere else
in the world, it's still feeding people or animals
that people then eat. So we have to be able to look at way in the future what might be needed
to grow the food that we need to eat. And we can eat wheat too. We can eat soybeans.
You know, we're not sure what's going to happen with the extent of climate change.
So I'm going to stop there, Mr. Mayor. I will support the amendment. If Councilor Fogel is reconsidering
the employment lands. I'd be happy to consider a small expansion there, but at this point,
I'll stick with her amendment. Thanks so much. Thank you, Councillor. Next up, Councillor
Olbe. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Well, there's a lot of information today from the delegation
and from staff. And one of the things I kept hearing repeatedly about is that, about
employment land cannot be added in the inclusion after 2021 is not correct. I mean,
did I hear that correct?
It's a question.
Yes. Through the Mayor to Councillor Elbano, again, our read of the situation is that once
the region finalizes its growth strategy and the regional official plan amendment, they
will be locking in, if you will, growth to the 2021 planning horizon including any additional
urban lands and that any subsequent review would be likely looking at or will be looking
at post-2051 growth.
So I know that's challenging just in terms of the year we're in now, but that's generally
how these things work.
It's a long lead time and it's all the various steps that have to follow and train to actually
get lands to be serviced and development ready. So hopefully that helps.
Yes it does. So today we heard a lot about option two and three B from delegation.
It only hurt that option two is supported and that option two gives the modest
expansion to the urban boundary, and that also gives a modest expansion. It's required for
our town facilities like hospitals and parks. We also heard that intensification is very
complicated and comes with challenges with roads and parks and storm sewers and so on.
Option 3B will not give us employment land expansion.
This will result to more commuting from Halton Hills residents outside of our community.
And this will increase climate change and climate change will be brought up.
Dozens of times today.
And you know, and it was interesting to see the stats that 42 percent commute outside
of HALT and Hills.
If we do not have employment land within HALT and Hills,
commuters will be going out outside HALT and this will increase climate change, in my opinion.
The other thing is that expended residential employment bondry provides fiscal benefits
and offsets all or most of the taxes that would be increased, so option 3B will not do that.
We also heard from the farming community how difficult it is to run a farm today due to soil
issues labor is not available using more fertilizer because lack of manure water is is not great and
if there is water it's either too much or not enough and it was interesting to hear from the
farming community that we also heard the crop production has increased using less land leaving
even more land available for, I suppose, development
or for whatever other reasons.
It was also stated that farmers will not run
our farmland on current development.
Farmers and developers both have adopted
to do more with less land.
We also talked about the new hospital,
that the anticipation of a building in New Hospital.
So we don't have the acreage as it current stands in the urban boundary to build the hospital.
And the land or the hospital that is there now, we cannot add to that hospital because
it's just not suitable.
The other concerns that we don't do the expansion is what impact will it have on affordable
housing and perhaps senior housing as well if we don't have a land to build and to make that happen.
The other thing that comes to mind is the wrecks and parks are indicated that with these
anticipated population growth, we would need more park lands to based on our current town standards.
As I indicated in the park and land and position study, talent needs to look outside the current
urban boundaries in order to acquire and construct suitable park land to meet the community's
needs.
If intensification were to take place, where would recreation act of transportation take place
without parks and recreation land?
We only have two choices, use the white or green belt in.
I will not be supporting option 3B, and I will not be supporting the amendment as well.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councilor.
Well, I thank you, Mr. Mayor.
And whatever I'm last or not, it really doesn't matter.
I appreciate the opportunity to take all of the papers that I have on my desk and try to make sense out of them.
and I will say this. There's a couple of things that I like just to mention right up at the start.
We have received, council should have received two letters, one from VIPACS limited, a farm,
a very active significant farm within our community. That was sent in, no references made to it.
Today's I like to make sure that it is part of our record. And also we have a letter that came in from
Mr. Brander, farmer of longtime standing on Winston Churchill. That letter was sent in,
So I just want to make sure that both of those have become available and part of anything that we're doing going forward so having said that
That would be my my first concern
This might be the opportunity for myself and council for to agree and
An only fact is to use the terminology split council and I would have to say this in 21 years of council
I don't know of any other time when I felt the need to put on a strafe shirt on the whistle
and perhaps get law and order back in place.
And I look at it here and saying, okay,
and maybe I haven't been a good corporate citizen
for what's going on, but I care for the people
in the community I represent.
I grew up in this town.
When I grew up the end of the street
that I lived on was the end of town,
and I've been very active and still try to maintain,
I'll say, family ties and active within the community.
the split council part bothers me and and again I think and I hope at the end here that I can
perhaps find something that says use the terminology in spirit of compromise and not just go
in the direction of perhaps will be an ask to go. From my notes, allow me to to say first of all,
do you use the terminology? Oh, I should know I should back up a little. I want to thank the 93
people that sent me an email. And I really feel sorry for those people who got this information
they put in there, which then diminishes the concern relative to that email. And I make
reference to the farmland terminology and the years relative to review terminology.
Both are wrong. And I think should be corrected. And I should get 93 emails back to be saying,
Okay, this is, it's a different, I want to say that the public was misled and I'd be so bold
as to say that, and that just fits into the split council attitude.
Looking up, it's easy to say no.
My homework tells me that no is the 84th most list of the most used words.
So, way to go.
We're saying here, let's say no.
Stop is number 250.
50. I think the people that brought us the first information, I'm June the 21st, my
Paul Lowe's, and again today, to address sprawl. That's a bad term. And if you really look
out, but I could get your definition of urban sprawl, can be defined as urban development,
low density housing and on and on and on. But I thought that Paul Lowe's gave us the
haphazard low density, intermixed rural and urban, and he says, this is not sprawl. I think
we should respect his opinion and not use that anymore when we're trying to
sit here and say, what's the right thing for our town? The people
And so now instead of having two or three homes come down, we may have more of that come down wide to put up a high-rise building because we have to condense and jam people into an area that really was not designed for people to have that amount of growth in those areas. And those are areas I hung out with as a kid. And areas that would come and cheat comment, maybe the fairground should be sold so we can put in high-rise buildings all the way around the track. And then they can play in the middle.
So that's how silly that some of the thought process can get and I don't advocate that.
But when we look at the amount of apartments that we have to put in, I think we need to
have another plan, another plan D, and perhaps in the spirit of compromise.
I don't want this, my comments to be all about the farming community, but we've made reference
to it.
I say we, some of us who represent the rural environment, have been out and in the farms and I have said
to different people that have written. Please be real. Go out into the countryside of the areas
we're talking about. I will take you tomorrow on a tour of Show You Four Farms. The buildings are
down. The houses are gone. And if we think that we're going to sit here and continue to say you
must, you shall, you have to, we're fooling ourselves if you are not going to. It was meant
reference today by one farmer who does a gate that's across the thing, across the driveway,
the chain is on, they're gone, they've moved.
The terminology was, they were using and milking,
I believe the number was at that time, 40 cattle.
They'd left here and they're doing twice as much work
and getting twice as much money
by working out of farm someplace else.
The farm isn't working.
The land is working.
I stood in man's backyard the other day on five side
or they looked at a field, he said to me,
that field has been fellal for,
I don't know what he said, 10 years or more.
That means it's not plowed.
It's not hard, not harvested.
there's no crops, it's not cultivated.
So I think if we, and this is when I'm saying it, we have to be real to go out there and
see what is going on and not just live off the words of different people.
Yes, we had some farmer's today that were very concerned and as I think Councillor
Summergold, the guy pulled on as well, put as well.
You wouldn't wash your feet in the water, it was so bad, all right?
That's what he has to deal with and he has to work his way around it.
You got to tell him, you got to keep all I'm saying is we have to be real pleased to
some of these concerns and some of these issues.
I am not a spokesperson on behalf of developers, some of them are ruthless, I don't like
what they did in vision of Georgetown, and I would tell them that.
But I think at the end of the day here, to simply continue to use that word, no, is not
not necessarily the right thing to do when they're perhaps.
I will not support the amendment that's on the floor.
And some of the reasons are, we're about to, way to go, come on into our town, we need
another 30,000 people, come on in, but we don't have a place for you to go to work.
So therefore, as much as we talk about climate change, and I am as much concerned about climate
change for me and my family, is anybody is.
But now we say, well, you can't work in Georgetown.
So you know what, you get in a car and go to wherever.
I will load the day in very upset
and was raised today already by somebody by saying here,
we have loyal employers in town
who couldn't find what they wanted
and they went to our friends to the south.
Something's wrong.
So I simply say here is that if we went through
somebody, I'll say, I want to go back
in the farming community.
You may believe research farm that was on Trafalgar Road.
It's not anymore.
It's an isolate.
When we talked to farmers today, they said, okay, if we had a chance, all of us got
together and we threw in a hundred dollars, we're going to buy a farm.
What do we have to do?
You have to deal with a Canadian government, province of Ontario, region of Halt and town of
Halt and Hills, conservation authorities, the Green Belt, Niagara Skirmic, natural heritage
features, impact, department of agriculture.
You have to make sure you get crop insurance.
You have to get fire insurance.
She did it like this my field powder range. Can I put bile salts on it? Where do I store my crops?
Where can I buy equipment? Can I buy seed and fertilizer? And perhaps once my hogs are ready to
go to market the U.S. government says, no, you can't shut them across the border. And we're telling that guy,
you've got to be a farmer. Please, we have to be realistic in terms of outside our community.
We have we've taken farmland. What's the level of it? I have no idea. It's now a cemetery.
So we got there. We now have a really good park out in the country. We got there and we have
coming up soon is the Hornby Police Station. We got there. And then now we're talking about
such things as hospital, so there are reasons why that it doesn't have to be all industrial.
It has to be realistic for some of the stuff. Do we need another 1,000 acres like the Vision
and you're saying, no, maybe not, maybe half.
If you look at the industrial land coming up
from Steel's Avenue coming north,
it's been done by lots, numbers.
It hasn't been an entire concession yet
and anything that we've done.
So we've proven that we could do it
in a very reasonable manner.
And I would advocate, we need some industrial growth
absolutely.
It helps the offset tax costs going forward.
Because right now, we got to tell the public here
that we're looking at transportation in the tune of millions of dollars, right?
Right now, that's on the shoulders of all the people living in town.
Whether you use a bus or not, that's on your shoulders.
So perhaps some industrial growth, some residential growth in a limited, reasonable manner would
work.
For all of those reasons, I'm simply saying, I don't like the terminology, split council,
But I just cannot take it for what it is today in the amendment, so I don't want to say I'm sorry, but I'll simply say I cannot support the amendment based on the way it's written right now.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councillor. I'm going to speak now because I think everybody's spoken at least once and first of all, I'd like to thank Councillor Fogel because if it wasn't for Councillor Fogel, pushing and actually brought a resolution to the region to look at a fifth concept which was 3B and I seconded out motion because I want to see what it would look like.
three B. What will that community look like with zero growth? And I think that's doing our due diligence so we got the report.
And staff have done the analysis and all the growth plans and are recommending the modest growth of concept two.
Earlier today, Councillor Hurts spoke about the need of the hospital and has to die. But when you look at concept two,
We will still have, let me back up, 60% of halton hills is protected by the green belt
or the Niagara Scarpment at 60%.
The weight belt, even with concept 2, which is the modest growth plan and thank goodness
staff didn't look at one and four, et cetera, will still have 87% of the weight belt remaining.
We've done a lot of, we've done a very robust plan for economic development.
We've got the foreign direct investments, we've got other strategies.
The Watson report, they said in their report there's a demand for employment lands
over the next 22 years exceeds the supply.
22 years exceeds the supply.
A few of the councilors, councilor O'Bano and I think councilor Lewis had mentioned 42%
of the labor force and Holt & Hales commutes compared to 12% of the Ontario average.
So we want to have jobs in our community.
We want to, so I think that's important.
Increased employment lands provides a live work opportunities for people coming in.
And again, that reduces the commute, reduces the climate change.
We know we need more parks for post-2031.
We heard from our consultants that apartments create even more need for park space.
Well, as a few of the previous speakers said, it's going to be very difficult adding more
apartments in with young families.
Just for an example, I met with Mayor Krantz from Milton and his staff to go over their growth plan.
The average age in Milton right now is 35 years old, so they need parks, etc.
Well down the road we could be in the same boat. Townwide parks will need to be located outside the urban boundary.
Nobody's touched about immigration.
But immigration, Canada will be taking in 300,000 or more a year till who knows how long there's got to be a place to put them to put our new Canadians
whether and they're not all going to be in Toronto and if they, you know, it's going to be throughout the GTA.
It's going to be throughout the GTA.
So we have to look at that. The other is what the staff have come up with and I appreciate
Councilor Fogal putting an amendment on. But I can't support zero industrial growth.
And if you read Harry Brander's letter, Farmed for 46 years, he's got rid of his cattle.
The soil samples aren't good. And we've heard that from the two word Councillors with the
farm and community they went out the last couple of days and every one of them says you know how
it's changed and how the soil samples are wells etc. due to salt and other conditions are not
are not that perfect. What staff are proposed here was if you remember vision George
out of the 1,000 acres. Well, this is further reduced to 815 acres. If it gets reduced
more, fine, but they still have to have that industrial base. I remember when I first
got elected in 2003 as mayor, our industrial base was like 7.5% commercial industrial.
Then I remember Councillor Lawler got elected. It was about 8.5% and Councillor Bingham
they're inquisitive, what are we doing to try to increase their industrial base?
And I had about eight different comments of what we've been doing.
And now I think for the last report we had, we're 13 or 14 percent, we're gradually creeping
up, which is good news.
But if we don't have any growth, in Milton's looking, Milton's looking by 2051, to be 358,000
population, 358,000. I wouldn't want to see us being the poor cousin of halton region.
And who knows how the representation we've already had the threat by the premier Ford,
the beginning of this, a fifth tenure as premier, about looking at the city of halton,
amalgamation, et cetera. Well, down the road, that's going to come by again, it happened
20 years ago, as well, there is a threat, oddly enough, under another conservative
premier. My carous and causal, that was back in around 2002, 2001. So that could happen
again. And if we are, then the Alton Hills will really lose your autonomy. We'll end up
being a subdivision to what Milton's going to be if they get up to 358,000 population.
And that's their vision, I'm not going to criticize Milton, if that's what they think.
They need, while they're elected representatives, today and their staff, they're the ones
that have to answer their constituents, so I leave that up to them.
So I have a real concern with having no industrial growth whatsoever.
Our staff are experts, they're the ones that are looking at it.
they have listened to us in many ways through conversations and through workshops you know that we
don't want to be built out but again with the concept too we still we'll still have 87% of the
white belt remaining. The last comment I'll make or a couple comments is when we went through this
exercise before there is a concern that we weren't going to take in a thousand acres but we
wanted more industrial growth and I don't know how many of you remembered that and the
province said at the time you're asking for fire too much industrial growth for what
you're willing to put in for residential and that was an issue back then.
And I can remember every time we looked at a growth plan and I'm sure every elected official
around this table in over past years must have heard because I used to hear a lot
from people saying I want houses that my kids can stay in this town and buy a
house in this town. So you need those options whether their townhouse is
apartments and and it's the shortest of apartments. So I can't support amendment as it
is. I think we just might end up being the poor cousins, you know, to the region. And
I got a real concern about that. And you know, if we do need the jobs, and like I said,
we have a whole, we had a whole report last month of all the economic development programs
that are putting forth. Well, we may still try to use them to increase that industrial base
that we have. So that's it for me and I see Councillor Hearst has his hand up as the second
time speaker. So Councillor Hearst.
Thank you Mr. Mayor and in reality I think this
is my first time because my first comments I think were just to clarify the hospital
So, I haven't had a chance to comment on the amendment. So, that's what I would like to do now. I apologize, Councillor Hearst. You're correct. You said it. I apologize. I find it kind of perplexing. I think probably what most of us do. Here we are just days on from being in a COVID, basically a COVID lockdown. And here we are making a decision on land use policies for the next 30 years with no idea how the pandemic will alter.
the way business travel and everyday life situations will be conducted in the future.
I also did not leave we have, again because of the pandemic, I don't think we've been able
to give the public an up opportunity to be involved with discussion and input.
It doesn't feel as vibrant as it did last time around where we had input from people at public
meetings in person attendance where our staff were there to answer questions and we did
and we did table discussions.
It doesn't feel as vibrant
and as complete as it did back then.
And so I think we've let the polygon
a little bit in that area.
But I just wanna make a couple of comments on,
I'm not gonna argue any comments that have been made,
but I think one of the things that we're not looking at
is we've been talking about the farmers
and what the farmers are drawing today.
And I think that I don't think that's the issue.
I think the issue is we want to make sure that there's a land available, not today, but
in 30 years because it's not what they grow today is what will we want to grow in 30 years
and we'll want to have a land to do it when California or Mexico or China can't supply the
fruits of vegetables that we need because climate change issues that they're dealing with.
And I don't know whether anybody, I talked to Councillor Albano about this.
I hate going into solvies and picking up people or other vegetables and seeing that they're from China.
And I think to myself, how can they produce that and put it on a ship and send it over here and have it sitting in a counter looking like it came out of a garden yesterday.
And how can they do that cheaper than we could provide a period of Ontario?
I don't get it, but that's kind of beside the point.
I want to thank Councilor Fogel for putting the amendment on the floor, which has addressed
my concerns about the hospital situation.
I think I was probably leaning towards 3B, or would have been leaning towards 3B if had
I did not bid for that, but I think I've since the discussions I've seen today and everything.
I think that the limited amount of land that the amendment is talking about would certainly
suffice.
I think we were talking 500 acres, I'm not mistaken.
I do have a concern about the employment plans.
And I agree with the, sorry, with the mayor's previous comments.
I do have the self-written down here about the percentage of labor
force that have to commute 42% and that sort of thing.
And the fact that when we first started, when I first started as a
counselor and when the mayor started as a mayor, we didn't work as
as we could to try to get that industrial residential
ratio up and we've done, I think we've done very well
and I think we've established a superb town staff
who are bringing that to fruition for us.
But I think we have to continue that because I think,
you know, to have that offset that higher tax base,
you know, an offset the residential taxes,
I think that's an important thing.
So, as Councilor Johnson mentioned, I don't know if Councilor Fogel is interested in adding
some land in.
I would certainly support option of the amendment if that was the case.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Lawler.
Yes, thanks very much, Mr. Mayor.
And thank you for all the conversation that we've had.
I appreciate that everybody is trying to be very thoughtful and deal with an exceedingly
difficult situation.
I am heartened by Councillor Lewis's comments about compromise and realism and attempting
for all of us to try to be on the same page and try to be kind of united in our approach.
And what I'd like to do if I may is make an amendment to the amendment, and with
Councilor Vogel's permission and this is what I'd like to suggest and that is that the
reference is to 3a and Council will recall that 3a talks about no expansion of residential
lands, but expansion of 450 hectares, which is 1100 acres of employment lands. That's
what 3A says. Now as we've discussed, I and I think most others on Council are very
concerned about accommodating the hospital, and we're also aware that we need significant
Parkland and as well there's there are comments that that having low rise single
family dwellings are important for residential. So what I'm wondering is if we
We could amend 3A so that we take 100 hectares for hospital and residential and commercial
and community purposes and rather than 450, rather 350 hectares for employment lands.
So that is in total 450 hectares or approximately 1100 acres, the size of vision Georgetown would
be added to employment lands and residential lands in order to accommodate some of the
kinds of things that we've talked about today.
So, what I'm suggesting is a hybrid, it is between two and three essentially is what I'm proposing.
So, for me that helps me accommodate what I regard as urgent issues as far as climate change is concerned.
And it recognizes that we will have primarily a higher density accommodations and-
Part of order, Mr. Mayor.
Sorry.
Yeah, go ahead of all the same.
Mr. Mayor, the Council is suggesting about amending an amendment is dropping it on us like
this and it hasn't even seen if it's something that is acceptable to the mover of the seconder.
I would say it's contrary to what is being suggested that I would think under our rules
that it's a contrary motion to what is already on is looking at 3v that we should either
support or defeat the amendment that's on and then Councillor Lawler will be far cleaner
to have her put that on as a fresh amendment instead of getting into amending an amendment
and trying to deal back with doing the vote.
So that's what I would do as a point of order, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councillor Somerville.
I was just deferring with our clerk
and we're just going to say the same thing.
And Vell will make a comment,
but we're seeing the same thing.
Thank you, Mayor Vennette, and through you.
So yes, the amendment that is currently
on the floor, the amendment to the amendment that you're suggesting Councillor Lawlor
is kind of contradicting what is there. So, Councillor Somerville is correct. We should vote
on the amendment that is currently on the floor with Councillor Fogel and should that be
defeated then you could present a new amendment to the original motion.
Okay. Just to clarify, I seconded that motion from Councillor Fogel. Does that change the status
of what I should be doing?
Well, it's looking at the amendment that she had,
like what I'm getting from what you're saying is you,
instead of having concept 3B, you wanted to say concept 3A.
Yes.
Which is kind of contradicting what she has.
And then it appears that you want to put one of the paragraphs
back in rather than take it out.
Am I correct in saying that?
No, I don't want to do that.
I think to be cleaner with everything,
it may be easier to do that because some of the things you're suggesting aren't within
the original amendment to the motion that she has on the floor right now?
Okay. Well, I mean, that's fine. Whatever procedure works.
I'd like to hear from Councillor Fogal, and I made withdrawal my second, and then it might just die.
I don't know.
Okay, well, Councilor Fogel does have her hand up. So, if I'll, uh, Councilor
Lawler, if you can defer to Councilor Fogel? Councilor Fogel?
Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I, that, what Councilor Lawler has talked about is not what I thought
she was going to say. I thought we were going to amend this by removing paragraph four
and five, like taking them out of the amendment. In other words, leaving them in the recommendation
approving all of that employment land. So if we amend my amendment by removing the words
that paragraph four and five be removed, then all of the employment land is back in.
Well,
I get what I'm suggesting is that not all of the employment land in 3A be left
in, that some of it be used for hospital and parkland and residential purposes, but
the total area to be added to the urban boundary would stay at 450 hectares.
it would be split differently. So I leave it to you, Mr. Chair, to I'll follow whatever
your lead is as far as that goes.
So I would like to make an amendment to my amendment
then I will make it and it is to remove from my amendment that paragraph 4 and 5 be removed.
the
effect is what you mean by paragraph four and five since we're dealing with
operative clauses they're what operative clauses are you referring to they are
they are the ones to do with employment land so in other words if the
amendment to the amendment passes all the employment land in the staff
recommendation would be included wouldn't be touched okay so in a the effect would
then be that we would be cutting in half the the community land from 400 hectares to 200 hectares.
That's all we would do except we would also delete paragraph nine that talks about
the future of agricultural land. I think we should just delete it.
I don't want to make anything permanent when it comes to any of that land.
I
would like to see a written copy of what was being proposed by a suggested amended amendment.
I would still rather see as either supporter to feed the first one and do that because it's
getting talking about paragraphs as opposed to operative plots.
We're not even using the proper terminology for them, so I want to make sure it is clear what
we are going to vote on.
Councillor Fogel, I'm wondering out loud, if this is what you're looking at, why don't
you withdraw your first amendment? And just deal with what you're looking at now because
putting an amendment on the amendment is going to be confusing. And I would like to, maybe
you can write it out, or Valerie will try to write it out, and we'll just take a two-minute
break or see what it looks like. Now, Councillor Johnson, do you have your hand up?
Is that to say to speak to anything or can you wait till this?
Councillor Johnson. No, it was, it was to comment on, it was to second or agree with the amendment. So I'll leave it for now.
But I'm happy to second it.
So I just want clarification, Councillor. Yes, I'm happy to follow that advice to withdraw the amendment and come up with a new cleaner one. Okay. So just give a couple minutes. Thank you.
So, Mr. Mayor, am I writing it?
Where is Val writing? Valery is going to try to write it.
So it should be a simple change from 400 hectares to 200 hectares and remove paragraph 9.
Councillors, would you prefer us to send you a quick email or are we okay to share the screen to show you the new motion?
I say share the screen. Okay, we'll do that.
How
far are still working on the resolution and senior staff are discussing any implications
on it.
So everybody be patient.
Thank you.
Everybody, we're back, staff are back, and I can remember the late Rob Ford one time,
I was watching Toronto Regional Council meeting with this law and he said, that's it.
everybody get up and dance and he's gone out the council of dance again re-energized
well I'm not about to dance for all of us you guys to dance of any of you want
to do it anyway not that's good a little stretching isn't a bad thing so
Melissa will put it on her screen
councillors can you read that as or is it too
too tiny on your screen.
It's pretty good.
Would it be easier if I read it to you?
Is that not the original motion? No, so this is the amended motion. So what we've
taken is the recommendation from the report and put in Councilor Fogel's amendments into
it to show you what it would look like if the amendments were passed.
So to some, I just
very bottom of the page. Yeah so essentially what we've done is in the third
paragraph down the and further that we've added the words a modified to concept
two. We've taken out the ninth paragraph as suggested and the sixth paragraph
where she was referencing the 200 hectares. The wording has been reconfigured in
there to
bring more clarity to the motion.
Question of staff at the appropriate time, Mr. Mayor.
Yeah.
I have a question regarding clarity.
Okay.
What we'll do, you want a clarity on what we're doing now, Councillor Lewis or a clarity on
the...
Well, I would find it easier to have it read, to read through it with a staff person and
And then point out, this has changed because.
Let's go.
We're going to be more informative to any way that would be watching. Thank you. And council, some reveal the sense similar to what you're going to ask. Or I was going to well, the question I was going to ask is it says a modified concept to, which it's really not. It's more modified concept 3a or 3b3c3d. I don't know where we are in the numbering because it has 70% of the densification. Is that a realistic one with?
the only 200 hectares of land being spoken about for possible use, which I have issues with as well.
Okay, so we'll go back to, thank you Councillor Somerville, we'll go back to Councillor Lewis's request.
And Val, I guess you'll read it.
Thank you, Mayor Bonett, and through you, what I will do is I will read the recommendation as which includes the amendments as suggested by Councillor Fogel.
So here's the full motion.
That report, PD, 2021, 0045, dated June 26, 2021, regarding the Houghton region official
plan review, growth concepts be received.
And further that, the town continued to advance a three-pronged growth strategy to the
2021 planning horizon comprised of the following elements, intensification inside the Georgetown
and acting built-up area with a focus on key strategic growth areas such as the Georgetown
down Go station, Mill Street corridor, downtown Georgetown,
the Civic Center District, the Guelph Street corridor,
and Downtown Act and Act in Go,
in accordance with locally approved policies
as may be updated from time to time,
compact residential and mixed use development
within designated Greenfield areas,
development within designated employment areas,
and further that the region be advised
that the general scale of growth associated
with a modified concept to 70% densification
limited Greenfield expansion is considered to align with the general direction in the
town's strategic plan and three-pronged growth strategy and further that in keeping with
the findings and objectives of the town's employment land needs study 2020, economic development
and tourism strategy 2021, foreign direct investment strategy 2020, and the business concierge program
2021, the region of Houghton be advised that council is supportive of the provision of approximately
only 450 to 500 hectares of additional employment lands within the town to the 2051 planning horizon.
And further that, building on the strategic location, development and investment attraction
momentum and designation as a provincially significant employment zone in accordance
with a place to grow, the growth plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the Houghton Hills
Premier Gateway, be prioritized for the location of additional employment lands to the 2051 planning
horizon and further that the region of Halton be advised that council is supportive of a modest
expansion to the Georgetown urban area of 200 hectares to accommodate compact residential
and mixed youth development once the existing DGA are substantially built out in the mid to late
2030s, along with providing opportunities for the proposed redevelopment of the Georgetown hospital
and further that any new additional urban lands be subject to appropriate phasing policies to
ensure a seamless and moderate scale and pace of development is in keeping with the
direction set in the town strategic plan and official plan and further that development
be in accordance with the town's green development standards as updated from time to time and
low-carbon opportunities continue to be pursued in keeping with the direction set out in the
town's strategic plan, the official plan and the low-carbon transition strategy once finalized
and further that the foregoing recommendations be utilized by the region of
Houghton in the development of a preferred growth concept for purposes of
updating the regional official plan to the 2021 planning horizon.
Well, Chris Mills are just like to make a change for a comment.
Thank you and through you Mr. Mayor and I apologize we just caught this as Val was
reading it out and I think it might go to one of the concerns that Councillor
or some reveal was raising.
In reading the overall recommendation now,
and in discussions with John,
there's no need to include the third and further that.
So the in further that the region
be advised the scale of growth associated
with a modified concept too,
and then talking about the densification
limited greeting field.
You've really stated your case in existing six,
which talks about the 200 hectares
to accommodate the compact residential. I think adding in the third one after giving
it some thought and adding in another concept name might just confuse the overall situation
and I don't think it adds anything in terms of relaying your direction to regional council.
So I offer that as a suggestion. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
here. Thank you.
Any Councillor Lohler, your hand is up.
Fall of the Council is somewhere. Yeah, and I just wanted to clarify, please, that the
suggestion of 200 hectares to accommodate compact residential and mixed use development, that's
correct not and not 200 acres. I think I think we were talking earlier about 200 acres, which is
closer to like 75 hectares for hospital and parkland and so forth. I guess what I'm seeing
with 200 hectares of residential and community land is really not all that different from the original number two.
So that's why I just wanted to clarify.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry.
It's late. What can I say?
Through you to the Councillor, just looking at what I understood Councillor Fogel had initially put on the table was to change it from 400 hectares to 200 hectares.
that is now what has been drafted in this revised motion for Council's consideration.
So it's basically a 50% cut in terms of what the staff report had set out.
I'll leave that to her to confirm that that was the intent.
I thought the original was 330 hectares was in the report, not 400, but anyway, okay.
Thank you, Councilor Somerville.
Well, I guess a question I would ask, it says about phasing policies.
Do we really need phasing policies if it's only 200 hectares we're talking about for the
hospital and a small park and other things because it's going to get eaten up.
Or is the phasing would it be better directed to say for employment land?
What paragraph are you on, Councillor?
Sir.
Top of the second page, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you.
It's further than any new additional urban lands be
subject to appropriate phasing policies.
We're only talking 200 hectares, what's in the motion.
How do you phase that when we heard the hospital might need 45 acres?
We're going to have a natural heritage system.
We're going to have roads.
And we have 100 acres of park we need.
I don't know what the hell we need to phase on that little bit.
Is there any comment on that from staff?
That's what happens when you take a motion and try to
juggle it with something else.
Yeah, they'll hear from staff in a moment.
So through the Mayor of the Councilor in context of the original staff report, the intent
was to make it clear that any additional urban lands would be phased.
I guess I would call that like a regional phasing line, if you will.
And then there might be additional phasing, local phasing, if I can call it that, as well.
So if you think of the regional plan now, there's a phasing line in terms of what was pre-2021 versus that
which would be occurring after 2021. And then if you look inside the vision Georgetown secondary plan,
there's a phasing line proposed there as well. So that's what it was getting at in context of
obviously the proposed expansion up to 400 hectares.
If it's a phasing provision now, I would think it would only really be in context of maybe
a regional phasing line.
I appreciate your point.
As you sort of shrink the land area involved, it does call into question how much phasing
would would be required.
I don't know if anything will ultimately turn on it, though, in terms of the final direction
the council wants to go on.
Those are my thoughts at the moment.
Thank you, John, I appreciate that.
The other question I would have is if we're looking at this
to add in anything for the hospital, would it not be better
to have it cleaner?
And I know I'm asking a process that because for the hospital,
we're not talking 2031 to 2051 lightly.
if that's the case, to have that, you know, to make sure that it's clear that, you know,
that we have that so that it's, it would be allowed to be able to develop at that time.
And that's whether this passes or defeat is defeated to make sure that's something that could be
advanced at a time that Halt and Healthcare would need it.
Through the Mayor of the Council,
I understand what you're getting at right now. There's a clause in the staff report as written
The talks about the lands being required, let's say in the mid-2030s or late-2030s, whatever
the case may be, the hospital may want to be in the ground sooner.
So I understand what you're getting at.
There's probably ways we could come up with some wording to suggest to the region that
it might need to go earlier, assuming they can find a suitable site.
And that could be a conversation.
I guess the other thing that we'd have to be clear on is really what this is saying
is that we are not expanding the urban boundary for any housing options.
So affordable housing, long-term care, anything like that.
And we'd have to be very clear to people that the only expansion that's being done,
like it says, compact residential and mixed use.
it'll be awful compact and and mixed use it won't be anything because there
won't be enough in that with 200 hectares.
Councilor Fogel, I have you next and I
just want to make sure that this is the wording that you're looking at or
your intent as well. Yes it is it's the right wording and I mean I would
certainly accept a friendly amendment from the CAO to remove that other paragraph.
Doesn't matter to me, if it seems cleaner, that's okay.
And I would just add,
the 200 hectares is 500 acres. It's half the size of Vision Georgetown.
There's going to be a lot of housing there just to be clear.
Thank
you, Mr. Mayor. I thought it might be helpful to clarify as well when you're looking at a
townwide park. Obviously this is the good work that Mr. Harris and Mr. O'Keemy have been doing.
That facility was not necessarily construed or likely to be within the expanded urban area.
It was always seen as a facility that would be close to that expanded urban area just because of
the sheer size. And certainly as you shrink wrap the urban boundary that's proposed of 200
hectares, it does create additional challenges if you're trying to fit that scale of a park
inside this amount of hectares as well. So I just think we should reference that and council
may want to deliberate in terms of that particular facility and how it might fit into this particular
a regular revised recommendation.
Because if I recall, Mr. Harris and Mr. O'Keeney
were talking about 40 hectares roughly
as an actual facility that they would be looking for.
Mr. Mayor, can I ask the question?
Let's respect to the procedure.
Yeah, it's a little bit of procedure slash protocol.
Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Is this the right thing to do, the right timing to do on such a major decision would be an ask to make. And here we are after eight and a half hours of being at a meeting. Still, I want to say struggling lately to arrive at what we're trying to get at. And if I was running a business, I tell everybody, go on home and come on back tomorrow.
when we're fresh and glad it why because it's so important to make a decision to
2051 and then to accommodate the things we're trying to accommodate and my
immediate reaction to this is this isn't fair to anybody to try to get to where
we're trying to get to in the manner we're trying to get there so I just simply put
that out and finding that this is getting I don't want to say confusing but I
That would be my comment, sir, that I don't know if arriving at a decision at 9.30 at night
after eight hours is the right thing to do and something so important.
Okay.
Councillor Lewis, Councillor Fogel and Summaryville, we have to join a regional council meeting tomorrow
that probably go on five, six hours, so we can't suspend it until tomorrow.
just let me defer with the clerk and with the acting CAO.
We
had a little conflab here and we would need...
Like I think Councillor Lewis has a point.
And I think we're all kind of punch drunk.
We've been going around for hours on this.
So what I'm suggesting is we suspend this meeting
to Tuesday at 9.30.
We have a workshop Tuesday afternoon at 130.
So we could suspend this at 9.30.
But in order to do this,
Councilor Fogel would have to withdraw your amendment and make a motion to refer it to staff.
And that's the cleanest way to do this.
I'd be happy to do that.
So, Councilor Fogel, you refer this to staff.
I will refer it to staff.
Okay.
I know I've got a speaker's list, but if everybody agrees, I just call a vote on it.
We just need a seconder. Who would second this?
Councillor Johnson is seconding it. I'm just going to call the vote unless I hear an objection.
So the idea is, as fortunately we do have a workshops Tuesday afternoon so we can reconvene this meeting at 9.30
to stay morning and I might give it some more ideas and again when this is for
anybody that you're still around from the public this is not to hear more
delegations this is the continuation of this meeting I just want to be perfectly
clear so is there any objection to to refer to staff any objection Mr. Mayor yeah
We have some questions of clarification for that for next week.
We should just contact staff to find out because I know that, you know,
it would be nice to know the park plan piece.
It would be nice to know what we see numbers that would be on that.
Are we talking net hectares?
Like there's a couple of questions that come up right off the bat
and is 200 the right number should it be 250?
right? To make sure that it's realistic for what we actually need in that area.
Councillor, absolutely. Any member of council, if you have any questions
to staff for clarification from now until next Tuesday, by all means,
Nick and I, those questions.
Chris Mills to suggested, if you send any questions
and to whether it's John, et cetera, to copy the clerk
so that we can have Chris suggested a running inventory
so that we can keep track of the questions being asked
to staff.
So everybody good?
I don't see any objections.
Everybody looks so tired.
I still say it's not going to go out and dance
and get your energy back.
Okay.
So it's officially referred to staff.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councilor.
And I think of anything we should say,
we should apologize to the people who have been on there with us,
waiting for a final decision.
But I think as to what we've just talked about here,
it's far more important to do it with a clear head
because it is a meeting decision that we've made.
So to our public friends that are on there,
and I think you said that,
I'd want to say we're sorry,
But we do appreciate the fact that some I've just checked here some have been hanging in as long as the rest of us so
We have to thank you very much
Totally great now turn it over to our clerk
Thank you, Marbonette and through you so we will now need a motion to
Deferred this meeting to Tuesday, July 13th at 9.30 a.m
So Mr. Mayor if you want to call for mover and second year
Councilor Lawler as a mover, and who would like to second?
Councilor Hearst has his hand up to second it.
Councilor Johnson, you look like you're going to ask a question, or are you just going
to move?
Okay.
Is there any objection?
No.
Madam Clerk, I consider this motion carried.
So now we're going to call this recess.
It's going to be the longest recess in the history of Halton Hills, and I think everybody's
part of it.
Have a good night everyone. It's a good thing to start a hockey game tonight. I've been a panic.
Thank you. Good night.