Open For Business?  Not So Fast!

The mantra of modern day community planning is Live, Work and Play.  Loosely translated, community development should include a balance of residential, recreational and employment land uses, a goal which is reflected in the Official Plans of communities across Ontario.

The model is good in theory but has proved challenging in practice as communities struggle to fill the employment land with businesses that create jobs.

In early December, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, the Honourable Todd Smith, introduced Bill 66, called the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, which completed its first reading before Christmas.

This act incorporates many legislative changes, but the section that caused the biggest uproar was Schedule 10 which would have allowed municipal governments to reduce regulatory burdens by fast-tracking planning applications that would have create minimum thresholds of full time, permanent jobs through the planning approval process.  Circumventing a number of legislative hurdles was expected to guarantee an approval process that concluded within one year.  Eligible projects would have also been restricted to specific industries. The objective was to streamline the time frame and complicated planning processes that discourage companies who want to open new facilities and stimulate job creation across the province.

There was an immediate outcry from environmental and planning groups as well as some municipalities along the Greenbelt who publicly rejected the plan.  Others communities including Bradford and Niagara, left the door open, with leaders suggesting they will continue to make sound planning decisions regarding growth management and resource preservation that are consistent with existing environmental regulations including those in the legislation that would be by-passed, including the Greenbelt and the Clean Water Act.

To be clear, the Bill did not make it open season for development.  Streamlined projects could only be initiated by the municipality.

Bringing jobs to the area is one of the top priorities for Peterborough County Council and in January they passed a resolution in support in principle for Schedule 10 and its objective of streamlining the planning process for projects that create significant employment, with some caveats.  They asked that proposed exemption to the Clean Water Act be reconsidered, and that the scope of the proposed bill be extended to include institutions such as Long Term Care facilities as well as tourism related uses.

It’s clear the fledgling provincial government is searching for tools to push back against what it perceives as a wall of bureaucracy created by their predecessors and deliver on its mandate to stimulate the economy.  This section of the bill offered local governments the chance to stand up for significant local job creation opportunities by expediting the approval process within the parameters of the Environmental Assessment Act.  The bill also included a final check off by the province for any projects relying on this streamlined process;  a reminder to all municipal councils that the province remains firmly in charge of planning policy.

After some backpedalling, last week the government rescinded Schedule 10 of this bill, repeating its commitment to water protection.  They will have to come up with another mechanism to reduce the proliferation of “red tape” to allow businesses to navigate the development approval process in a reasonable time frame.  KG

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