Land Use Planning
The land use planning process in Ontario is legislated by the Planning Act, which was adopted in 1990 and has been amended numerous times since then. The Planning Act outlines laws and regulations about land use planning throughout the province and spells out the rights and responsibilities of the provincial government, municipal governments, and other planning stakeholders as land use proposals are considered and decisions are made. It also lays out a number of provincial policies related to the public interest that all stakeholders have to abide by as these decisions unfold.
An important land use planning document used by most Ontario municipalities is the Official Plan. This document contains goals, objectives and policies that regulate the physical development of a community and aim to manage its social, economic, and environmental impacts. A second and related planning document is the Zoning By-law, which sets forth very specific rules for development, including: the use to which a parcel of land may be put; the size, type, and placement of buildings on that parcel; the density of new development; the size of parking lots and loading zones; the size, type and placement of signage; and whether accessory buildings and home occupations are allowed on that site.
In recent decades, environmental sustainability has become a much greater concern for Ontario municipalities than it has been in the past. Two excellent examples of this are provided by the official plans of Kingston and Kenora.
Kingston and Kenora, located in eastern and northwestern Ontario respectively, are mostly surrounded by rural lands. In many other parts of Ontario, however – particularly in the southern part of the province – many municipalities have grown into one another to the point where they have created much larger metropolitan regions. These include Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge and the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), the latter of which is a highly-populated conurbation that comprises the Regions of Durham, York, Peel and Halton, as well as the Cities of Toronto and Hamilton.
Over the past few decades, growth has not only been strong in these places, but has also spilled over into adjacent rural and small town municipalities. With this in mind, the Government of Ontario has taken a lead role in the development of land use planning policies for an area that it has referred to as the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH). The GGH includes stretches from the City of Peterborough in the northeast, the Niagara Region in the south, and the City of Brantford in the west. The GGH is one of North America’s fastest-growing regions; however, it also contains some of Canada’s best farmland, important water resources and environmentally-significant natural features, such as the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine, that are in need of appropriate conservation measures.
The provincial government’s role in shaping land use planning within the GGH has come primarily through its adoption of the Places to Grow Act in 2005 and the subsequent development of four related plans: the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the Greenbelt Plan, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the Niagara Escarpment Plan.
The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (first released in 2006 and most recently updated in 2017) identifies where and how growth should occur within the GGH and directs affected municipalities to plan for the building of “complete and strong communities that use land, resources and existing infrastructure efficiently, with amenities and community infrastructure to support a good quality of life”, and to promote “a healthy environment and a culture of conservation” (Government of Ontario, 2016).
Concurrent with the passing of the Places to Grow Act 2005 was the adoption of the Greenbelt Act that same year. This legislation formally designated a large part of Southern Ontario as Greenbelt lands and also authorized the provincial government to create a land use plan and development policies for this area. The Greenbelt Plan, most recently updated in July 2017, sets forth a very strict set of regulations about where urban development activities may not occur so as to permanently protect the Greenbelt’s agricultural land base, as well as the many significant ecological and hydrological features and areas found on these lands.
Along with the Greenbelt Plan, the Niagara Escarpment Plan “seeks to protect the geologic feature of the Niagara Escarpment and lands in its vicinity substantially as a continuous natural environment while only allowing for compatible development”, while the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan lays out land use and resource management policies for the 160-kilometre-long (190,000 hectare) Moraine, which runs from the Trent River in the east to the Niagara Escarpment in the west. In justifying the need for this plan, the provincial government notes that the Oak Ridges Moraine has a unique concentration of environmental, geological and hydrological features that make its ecosystem vital to south-central Ontario, including: clean and abundant water resources; healthy and diverse plant and animal habitat; an attractive and distinct landscape; and prime agricultural areas (Government of Ontario, 2017).
