Legislative Assembly of Ontario

PLANNING AND MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'AMÉNAGEMENT DU TERRITOIRE ET DES MUNICIPALITÉS

THUNDER BAY HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION

THUNDER BAY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

THUNDER BAY FIELD NATURALISTS

CITY OF THUNDER BAY

CONTENTS

Wednesday 14 September 1994

Planning and Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act, 1994, Bill 163, Mr Philip / Loi de 1994 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne l'aménagement du territoire et les municipalités, projet de loi 163, M. Philip

Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association

René Larson, member

Don Manahan, member

Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce

Dawn Powell, representative

Thunder Bay Field Naturalists

Dr Myra McCormick, past president

City of Thunder Bay

Jennifer Favron, general manager, planning and building department

J. D. Polhill, alderman and chair, planning committee

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)

Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)

Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)

*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)

*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)

Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)

Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)

Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)

Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)

Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Iles ND)

Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)

*In attendance / présents

Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:

Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND) for Mr Gary Wilson

Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L) for Mr Murphy

Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L) for Mr Chiarelli

Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski

Johnson, David (Don Mills PC) for Mr Harnick

Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND) for Mr Bisson

White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mr Winninger

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:

Ministry of Municipal Affairs:

Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to minister

Forrest, Norma, acting senior planner, municipal planning policy branch

Dewar, Diana, manager, municipal planning policy branch

Smith, Karen, manager, plans administration branch

Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna

Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1034 in the Airlane Hotel, Thunder Bay.

PLANNING AND MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'AMÉNAGEMENT DU TERRITOIRE ET DES MUNICIPALITÉS

Consideration of Bill 163, An Act to revise the Ontario Planning and Development Act and the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, to amend the Planning Act and the Municipal Act and to amend other statutes related to planning and municipal matters / Projet de loi 163, Loi révisant la Loi sur la planification et l'aménagement du territoire de l'Ontario, la Loi sur les conflits d'intérêts municipaux, et modifiant la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire et la Loi sur les municipalités et modifiant d'autres lois touchant des questions relatives à l'aménagement et aux municipalités.

THUNDER BAY HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): We're ready to listen to René Larson, who's the member from Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association, including Don Manahan. We're happy to be here in Thunder Bay and we welcome you to this committee.

Mr René Larson: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'm a practising lawyer in the municipal and land development field, and Mr Manahan is a practising private planning consultant. We work together with the Ontario Home Builders' Association and the Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association and they have asked us to come and bring their views to you. We do welcome you to northwestern Ontario and we very much appreciate the time and commitment of the members of the standing committee to come to this part of the province to listen to our views on Bill 163.

We recognize that northwestern Ontario is lacking representation on your committee and that your perspective from other parts of Ontario is different than ours. However, we know that your sense of fairness and justice will prevail, a common trait of Ontarians in general.

There's a definite contrast between the recommendations of the Sewell commission and the intent of the Ontario government as represented in Bill 163. While John Sewell spent a considerable amount of time and energy in northwestern Ontario listening to the people who live here, and his recommendations evidence that, Bill 163 appears to be a conglomerate of a select few of his recommendations taken out of context combined with an overabundant measure of self-interested reforms of the planning staff of the Toronto headquarters of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. You will find that we are not happy with the plans administration branch of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and we intend to tell you why today.

Sewell promised local administration and decision-making in planning matters in northwestern Ontario under an umbrella of relevant provincial guidelines. He proposed to do that by expanding local planning boards where municipal administrations were not available. Plain and simple, that is why the people of northwestern Ontario liked his ultimate recommendations. He saw our need to be able to make local planning decisions within a context of provincial standards. He cautioned us to learn from the history of planning decisions in other parts of Ontario, and we take note of that, and to have the highest regard for our natural environment, which surrounds us in all its abundance and beauty.

We did not love him for his views of a highly urbanized lifestyle, which quite frankly has no relevance to how we live and want to live in northwestern Ontario. We don't want to be an urban jungle. We want to have the opportunity to live on large lots without sewage systems that are central sewage systems in a municipality, and we believe that we can live in harmony with nature. We also believe that we can live on lakes, and if you fly over northwestern Ontario, you'll see there are a lot of lakes out there. We really think that we can live there permanently and also in a cottaging fashion and that there's two different types of residency that are compatible with each other and also compatible with our environment.

Unfortunately, the plans administration branch in Toronto that administers our area thinks that we can't live on lakes. Really, that's their viewpoint, and we're having tremendous problems dealing with the growth and settlement guidelines. Mr Manahan will get into that with you.

We had hoped that we would be able to take the best of the planning principles of the south, as enunciated in government policy statements, and apply these principles to our local situation with appropriate modifications to fulfil our dreams for northwestern Ontario. We need to "have regard to" provincial policies rather than "be consistent with" them, and to "be consistent with" them in the manner as interpreted by the plans administration people in Toronto. That's our problem, the interpretation, and we don't want to arm them with this extra gun of "being consistent with." We would rather "have regard to." We need local decision-making in planning our portion of this beautiful province.

Instead the government has given us in Bill 163 no local empowerment and a set of horse-choking policies which are in the hands of the MMA bureaucrats in Toronto who will still make the decisions and advise us what we want without listening to us. These policies, as interpreted by Toronto civil servants armed with the new ultimate weapon of "be consistent with," will seriously and irreparably harm and hinder our efforts to develop our local economies.

We in northwestern Ontario must look to our land as the major resource for economic development. The fruits of the land we currently enjoy, the forests and the minerals, require development, not protection. Our woodlots are our jobs. In southern Ontario you may wish to protect your trees from encroaching development, but to us our trees and their development represent one of our only possible avenues for preventing decline in our population, and we do experience an absolute decline in population over the years if you look at the statistics. The only growing area of population in northwestern Ontario is the natives.

We have countless acres of land with lakes suitable for cottaging, an activity that can draw Americans from the Midwest and by proven survey would inject a minimum of $8,000 per cottage per year into our local economies, not to mention the substantial benefits of initial site development and construction activity. Yet for at least two years we have been battling against MMA's growth and settlement guidelines and the interpretations of Toronto bureaucrats which would prohibit such cottage development on the grounds that such plans are beyond the needs of the local populace.

In other words, take the city of Thunder Bay. There are x number of people here, 110,000, and that means by some formula there would be y number of cottages and we can't develop any more than that. But we think that we should be looking outside of our boundaries of this province to the United States and inviting those people to come and partake in an environmentally proper and friendly manner in our economy.

1040

So give us your provincial policies with clear guidelines for implementation and clearly enunciated standards to adopt, make us "have regard to" same in our planning decisions and delegate the approval authority to the regional office of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. We sorely need the ability to talk to people in Thunder Bay in this case, and that's where the regional office is. All the other ministries that we deal with are in Thunder Bay. We can talk to them, but we have to talk to Toronto to deal with plans administration. We can talk later about further delegation to local planning authorities with appropriate government funding to carry out their mandate. Then we can sleep in the beds that we make for ourselves, and we're prepared to do that.

The Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association is a member organization of the Ontario Home Builders' Association and as such actively partakes in its activities, which include the land development committee.

The OHBA has prepared a response to Bill 163 dated August 25, 1994, and we wish to advise the standing committee that Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association wholeheartedly supports and endorses the OHBA position. We do not intend to repeat the submissions of OHBA point by point, but we would like to bring to you the northwestern Ontario perspective on planning reform in Ontario.

Having read about the minister's appearance before this standing committee on August 29, 1994, Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association seriously thought twice about appearing before you. What possible influence could we have on this committee which might result in positive changes to Bill 163, which would benefit northwestern Ontario as well as the rest of Ontario?

How could we have any effect upon these major changes in Ontario's planning law framework when the minister has announced that cabinet has adopted the policy statements which will not be changed and that the major change in subsection 3(5) from "have regard to" to "be consistent with" provincial policy statements is not open for discussion. I think that's a disgusting position for the minister to take.

In the face of the government's apparent non-negotiable position, Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association attends here today to appeal to the good sense of the standing committee's members. Please review carefully the well-thought-out and expressed position paper of OHBA. Please consider carefully why Ontario Hydro in subsection 62(2.1) shall "have regard to" provincial policy statements when everyone else must "be consistent with" them? Why is there an exception for Ontario Hydro? If this is good for Ontario, then it's good for Ontario Hydro also. Make it the same. Please do not be afraid to reject this key amendment to Bill 163.

You will find a built-in bias in the bill that public bodies are treated differently than other persons under various sections, and I've pointed them out, that are found in the bill. If developers come, there's one set of rules. We want to know what the position of the provincial bodies are, the ministries, but they don't have to submit their comments in the same time limits. They have different appeal procedures. Why is it different? If there's one rule for us, then make the provincial ministries and bodies comply with the same rules because we as developers have to get their positions before we know how we're going to go ahead.

What are more often than not delays caused by the failure of public bodies to perform their jobs in a timely fashion are the primary reasons for elongation of the process of seeking planning approvals and the ensuing increases and costs of such processes, both contrary to the professed purposes of the government to streamline the planning process.

Quite often, it will take a period of a week and many phone calls from Thunder Bay to reach the planner in Toronto through the voice mail system, to get his attention to ask him to get the file so that we can deal with the issues that are in the file. That's how frustrating it is. So let's make the rules the same for everybody.

Bill 163 requires public meetings for plans of subdivisions and any subsequent redline changes thereto. These are completely unnecessary and will both lengthen and escalate the costs of the planning process. The OHBA paper speaks to that.

I'm going to let Mr Manahan take over so that we can try to keep within the time limits.

Mr Don Manahan: Thank you, Mr Larson. The presentation that we brought to you today was intended to be in two parts. Mr Larson addressed the legislation and I'll narrow in very briefly on provincial policy statements.

As was suggested to you, it's our understanding that the various policy statements have been submitted to and adopted by cabinet and thus they probably offer very little opportunity for continued meaningful review and discussion. Notwithstanding this, the policy statements continue to be of significant importance in the overall exercise of what we wish to talk to you about today, that is, local planning. So we're going to spend a few minutes and comment on them.

Policy statements continue to be vague and amorphous, without a priority ranking and generally not in harmony with the conditions and with generally accepted thinking in northwestern Ontario. They represent situations applying to local participants, municipalities and planning boards, and not to all government ministries and agencies: not to Ontario Hydro, and Mr Larson touched on this.

Perhaps most important to the region, the policy statements are regressive and reclusive at a time when northern Ontario needs an outward-reaching vision to assist in dealing with an evolving global level of activity. In this region paper mills and mines are being closed and mills are being sold to their employees as an alternative to being closed. We need strong leadership. We need support. We need to showcase one of our strongest competitive advantages, the land in northwestern Ontario. In this respect the policy statements appear almost to apply to a different world. They do not help us. Further, it is of extreme concern that the concept of private ownership appears to be only a very minor component in the basis that underlies policy statements.

Of equal concern -- of primary concern now that policies are in place -- is, how will the polices be implemented? Our first hint comes from the legislative change that replaces the flexible and workable "have regard for" with the more rigid "be consistent with." This does not promise flexibility or the desire to fashion policy to local situations.

It is understood that amendment to this section has been suggested, to have the clause read something like "be consistent with the spirit and intent." If we must have this change, then such an amendment might be considered, but we would rather see the current "have regard for" concept continued as the basis for policy.

The second hint comes from the news release dated May 18, 1994, wherein the Minister of Municipal Affairs describes the planning system as now being one in which municipalities make development decisions -- which we take to mean to administer and to implement -- the province sets policy and the Ontario Municipal Board adjudicates disputes. This top-down approach is obviously consistent with the provincial line of thought, but it is not our concept of planning nor of a way to strengthen local autonomy. Nor is it the concept that we understood John Sewell to be discussing when he said that the province should articulate and clarify provincial interests in the process.

Our concept of meaningful planning is a system wherein the community participates in comprehensive discussion and review and in a systematic decision-making process that develops and articulates a vision for that particular community and develops and articulates the policies and programs that are required to achieve at least a part of that vision.

1050

The minister's statement now describes the process. The province sets policy, and there is little meaningful space left for the community to be a real and legitimate participant at the policy level. So we get a 30-metre noise buffer at the highway entrance to Nakina, a community of 1,000 persons, 70 kilometres north of Geraldton and located on a railway; or we get noise contours based on Toronto airport conditions applied to the small community of Sioux Lookout. We get limitations on the distribution of land to family members who wish to stay and become a member of a small community.

We also get a continued concept that unorganized communities such as Rossport, Savant Lake, Upsala and many, many more, will cease to exist if they are continually discouraged. If you are ever unfortunate enough to be driving our highways in a winter storm, you will begin to see these places in a much different light; and while you are stopped there, you cannot help but see a different value system.

What we are saying to you is that there exist some very fundamental differences in the concepts and/or in the implementation of policy statements relative to the beliefs and the lifestyles in the northwest. Please do not take this wrong. We do agree that the local area should be involved in the actual administration of planning as well, should be the agents that make the planning decisions, but it is also important that those decisions are meaningful and they target a community vision and not the policies of others.

Our second way of seeking out an answer to how policy will be implemented is to look at past experience, and this is frightening. The province hopefully now has removed that thing called "growth and settlement" policy, for it had become an unbelievably convoluted document whose application threatened to shut down development in northwestern Ontario.

For example, a proposal for cottage development for lands identified for cottage development in a municipal official plan was rejected by Municipal Affairs on the ground that the cottages might become permanent and, as such, they would then violate growth and settlement. Under the same policy non-serviced initiatives for economic development, for example, a simple truck stop in a small community, that would bring much-needed employment and tax base have been seriously discouraged. The words are different in this policy but the thinking has not really changed, and we expect that in the end the application will probably likewise not change very much.

This same cottage development proposal brings us our first practical example of application of policy relating to fish populations. Here an MNR official suggested that a particular watercourse may be critical to fish and wildlife, may support forage species such as pike and perch, may serve a nursery function, may support a waterfowl population.Based on these so-called facts, the ministry concluded that there would be irreversible and detrimental impact from a proposed cottage development of some 20 lots. They recommended denial. They did not suggest that we study, that we prove that the mays did or did not exist; they recommended denial.

A second example of how policy has been applied in northwestern Ontario involves discussions concerning the content of official plans that are under revision. Ministry staff indicated that provincial law was about to be passed that would ensure a second unit as of right in any single dwelling unit and then proceeded to encourage the municipality to consider enacting policy providing for three and not two such units. The suggestion was even made that this possibly was ministry policy that was under active consideration. The policy moves, it evolves, it's never the same.

In short, implementation of existing policy has been a marvellous and never-ending series of surprises to us. I tell my clients that I don't know what to expect in the processing of their new application, except that I do know it won't be the same as last time. Perhaps if the various policies were to have specific and periodical points of review, such as the five-year term that is required by the act or official plans, we might see less of this.

It will be extremely interesting to see what is intended by the province in its reference to terms such as a "mix of uses" or "intensification" or "having a compact form," terms that are used frequently in the policy papers and either are not defined or are defined so that there is not a quantifiable component in the definition.

It will also be interesting to see what level of demand will be acceptable for justification of recreational developments on lands that are not within the settlement area of a municipality, or what is intended by the statement that the justifications should include the amount of suitable land available for the proposed type of development, and Mr Larson alluded to this.

There are a great many communities, small communities, isolated communities that want cottage development as a part of their economic program, and they're trying now to get that to happen. This is a small, innocuous statement. It's a part of a larger policy, just one particular sentence, I think, and yet it's going to stop that kind of local initiative in northern Ontario.

It is also of interest to small, isolated and unorganized communities to see what is intended by the policy that permanent residential will not be permitted where opportunities exist in nearby communities. So far it means that the province would like to see these communities disappear and see what they call housing pressures that exist as needing to be beaten back.

What does affordable housing mean to Terrace Bay, a community of a couple of thousand people, to Shuniah or Emo, or to Pickle Lake, to communities of several hundred people? The problem is a Toronto one and only becomes an issue in the northwest when the planning process has to address a meaningless and inappropriate policy.

What we are attempting to bring to your attention is that the north is different. John Sewell saw this, and it caused him to talk about transfer of authority to enlarged planning boards and to discuss flexibility. The province does not appear to share the same view of the north and seems to see the need to be consistent across the whole of the province as more important than the need to make planning sense in northern Ontario.

To close on a more positive note, we encourage the province to take up the suggestion by John Sewell and to transfer powers to the north as soon as possible -- to use their field offices until the proper planning board structure is in place. We need to have a local appreciation and an application of these general land use concepts that are said to be government policy. We also need to have local accessibility, which does not exist at this time and which is quickly becoming almost impossible with the introduction of automatic answering functions.

We would like to repeat the message that you have no doubt heard many times: take time and do it right. The policy statements are not yet right for the north and they certainly do not implement the stated objectives that are being espoused by the province. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. There are approximately four minutes left. What I would remind the members in their minute and a half is that they be brief with either their statements or their questions in order to get an answer within that time frame. Mr Grandmaître.

Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I just wonder, Mr Chairman, one other point: We only have four presentations today. I wonder if we could be a bit more generous with time, maybe give us six or eight minutes for each caucus.

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): I would move that --

The Chair: The Chair will give that flexibility where it seems appropriate.

Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): The tone of your submission this morning is not a very enthusiastic one or one of hope. You seem to think it's a foregone conclusion that your appearance before the committee this morning -- you really feel that your presence this morning is useless, that it's a foregone conclusion that Toronto has made up its mind and it won't change.

My question is about the regional office of the MMA. Can you tell me a little more about this regional office? Is it staff or is it the policies of the government that make it useless?

1100

Mr Manahan: I spent 10 years in the regional office in one of the many iterations, Treasury and Economics, I think, at the time. At the time I was there, and this was about 15 years ago, we had the minister's stamp and we approved plans of subdivision consents for the region. We were instrumental in discussions with the municipalities in official plans, either in the first instance or in amendments.

All of those functions are now in Toronto. The local office is well staffed, very capable people, and has a very strong advisory function. For the most part they tend to deal with municipalities, where we tend to deal with the client end, so we don't come into contact, but we do know them as professional planners in the few times we do run into them. They have a strong function right now that is advisory and they perform well at it.

Mr Grandmaître: But it's the policies that the government makes.

Mr Manahan: It's the policies. It's the fact that the statements come out of Toronto, the implementation comes out of Toronto.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): Mr Chairman, on a point of order: There have been unbelievable pressures on this committee of people requesting to speak and address the committee. We have been very firm in the way we've allocated time to people throughout the process. If we bend the rules now, I would then propose that we bend the rules for all of those people who have been left out of the process in saying, let's extend the time and hear more people.

The Chair: I appreciate your point, Mr Perruzza.

Mr Perruzza: I think people know the time parameters. If Mr Eddy wants to move the motion to simply extend the hearings and allow more people throughout the process, that kind of thing, then that's something I would support.

Mr Grandmaître: We don't need a motion. We just carry on.

Mr Perruzza: So I think we need to have a clear sense from you on how we're going to proceed with this.

The Chair: The point is a good one. Just as a reminder to the members, we've heard a lot of critical opinions from a number of different people across Ontario and we did not extend the time. What I said I would do as the Chair is to allow some flexibility here and there, which has always meant 30 seconds or less. Just as a reminder to the members, we'll keep to that schedule, and I'm saying to you, please place your questions as quickly as you can so we can move on and keep to the agenda that we have before us. Mr Curling.

Mr Curling: So democratic.

Mr Perruzza: You haven't grandstanded until now.

Mr Curling: Now I get my time. That's so democratic.

I want to thank you for your presentation. What you are saying here is consistent to many, many people who have appeared before us. As a matter of fact, talking about how we treat the north, it cannot be the same, that the south will dictate policies.

I think the question I have, maybe not to you but directly to hear it from the parliamentary assistant, whether or not this policy that is chiselled in all this granite -- I know he is quite a reasonable man -- if he could tell us right now whether or not any kind of change to the policy could be forthcoming and be received with some sort of receptive way of changes.

Mr Curling: We're not going to extend our time?

The Chair: No, we're not. Mr Hayes, will you answer the question?

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Yes. I know the member who asked the question knows what the procedure is and he knows that the government does set --

Mr Curling: I don't know what the cabinet does.

Mr Hayes: Excuse me. He was in cabinet at one time and their government set some policies. What we do have with the policies, and I'm sure the members from the builders' association will realize, is an implementation advisory task force -- your organization also has representation on that task force -- to implement actually the guidelines and deal with the regulations. That is there and that is in place. There is input from many sectors all across this province. I think that we have --

Mr Curling: No policy change then is what I'm hearing.

Mr Hayes: I think it's very important for everyone to realize that you do set policies, and one of the big problems, Mr Chair -- as a past municipal politician, one of my biggest complaints, and I know for many municipal politicians across the province and developers and others their biggest complaint was that the provincial government didn't have real good policies or guidelines, or they weren't consistent with some of their policies and guidelines, and made the job that much harder for development and planning in some of the municipalities.

Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): I appreciate your deputation very much. I'm just going to say in my few minutes that I share your concern that there's clear direction that the minister and the committee apparently have made up their collective minds that there aren't going to be changes to this. So I share your frustration in making a deputation today.

I think very definitely there should be changes, and I for one will certainly be supporting and I know my caucus members will be supporting that we change the phrase back to "have regard to" as opposed to "be consistent with," because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that northern Ontario is different from Metropolitan Toronto.

I was a mayor in Metropolitan Toronto in the borough of East York for about 11 years and I know there are a certain set of conditions that we meet there, but it doesn't take a genius to understand that the kind of issues that are dealt with here in Thunder Bay and in the communities around Thunder Bay will be entirely different, and there needs to be local flexibility.

I don't know, for example, the business about having to have 30% affordable housing, and I think you've made that point. Does that make sense in some of the local communities here?

Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): Yes.

Mr David Johnson: You see, there is the reaction you're going to get from the government, yes. They're going to impose one set of policies right across Ontario. It just simply doesn't make any sense. I guess if we're stuck with this for the next year --

The Chair: Wind up, Mr Johnson, please.

Mr David Johnson: -- then we will deal with it when the new government comes in. But my question to you then is what's wrong with having in this area houses on large lots on a septic system when there are environmental controls? What's wrong with having a house on a lake? I don't see the harm in that.

Mr Larson: The government policy at the moment is to force all new housing on to urban sewage systems and to fail to recognize that we live in northwestern Ontario because we like the spaces, because can have large lots and can live in harmony with nature. We're not trying to damage the environment, because we live with it. It's worse for us if we were trying to make postage-size lots and live on them and cause damage. That's not what we're doing.

1110

Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): I think what this bill shows and this whole process shows is that politics is the art of compromise. You have your position; obviously I have mine. But in fact there are a lot of people in my riding and, yes, they are in southern Ontario and in fact it's at the very tip of the province -- it's St Catharines and Niagara-on-the-Lake -- and other groups who've come before us who in fact want the term "be consistent with" replaced with the term "shall conform to."

They wish it even much stronger than you have indicated. They feel that environmental policies -- and the Canadian Environment Law Association that presented to us yesterday made some very good comments with regard to this whole process and the compromises they feel that have been made in this particular bill, which they feel should be strengthened and firmed up to reflect the environmental needs across the province, not just in southern Ontario.

I think at this point, having made that remark, I know there are other people, I believe Mr Perruzza has a question for you, and I think Ms Harrington --

The Chair: No, there's not enough time for that.

Ms Haeck: I'm sorry. But if you wish to make a remark to that, feel free.

Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): On a point of order, Mr Chair: We'd like to clarify that the housing policy statement on affordable housing does not apply to communities under 10,000. Is that correct, planners?

Mr Hayes: That is correct.

The Chair: Very well. Thanks very much. I'm going to get Mr Hayes to make some quick, clarifying remarks and perhaps some staff person wants to make a point, then we'll move on.

Mr Hayes: Yes. I just want to mention to the members here that I know there are more but there's an individual by the name of Michael Power from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario -- I understand he's from Geraldton, Ontario -- and we have another person, Jeff Celentano, who is from northern Ontario, who is also on the technical committee. So there is certainly representation from people from the north.

The one issue that you raised about other ministries being consistent with, and they're exempt, which they have been, but that is an issue that has been raised several times with us and we are going to deal with that particular issue.

The other issue about meetings for plans of subdivisions, any subsequent redline changes, dealing with the redlines, that has been raised several times, and we're hoping we can deal with that.

For members to sit here and say there isn't going to be any changes, there will be changes. The opposition parties have the opportunity and the right to present amendments and the government will certainly be presenting amendments. We know that we'll be making some changes because we are listening.

I would also like to have Norma Forrest from the ministry clarify the policy on dealing with the cottages.

Ms Norma Forrest: Yes. Cottage lots are dealt with in two policies of goal B, policies 10 and 11.

Policy 10 deals with new cottage development proposals in organized municipalities, and it says that recreational and tourism development that's not an extension of a settlement area can be permitted if the type and scale of development is justified based on the demand for the development, not just in the municipality, but based on demand and the amount, provided that certain criteria are satisfied.

We're not saying you can't have cottage development. We just need to prove that there's a demand for that development and that it's not going to adversely affect the lake it's on.

Cottage development in unorganized municipalities is covered by policy 11 and that policy says that development's permitted if it's directly related to a resource and proximity to the resource is necessary, and certainly cottage development that needs to be on a lake would be covered by that policy.

What the policy does do, though, is make a distinction between that kind of recreational and tourism development and permanent residential development, which is covered in other sections of the policy, and much more stringent provisions are applied to those permanent residential developments.

So a municipality, based on past practice, can normally tell when there's a potential for conversion of seasonal residential development to permanent residential development, and what we're suggesting is that if there's that potential for conversion, of course, the policies regarding permanent residential development should be considered.

Mr Eddy: But there's always that potential.

The Chair: No, Mr Eddy, sorry.

Mr Eddy: There is a potential in any temporary --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, please. Do you have a quick comment in response to that? Very well. We just want to thank the Thunder Bay Home Builders' Association for coming this morning and communicating your concerns to this committee.

Just a reminder to the members, it's now 11:14. As the Chair, I won't let that happen again, so when I tell you there's this time limit, that's what you'll get. All right?

THUNDER BAY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Chair: We invite the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, Ms Dawn Powell. Welcome, Ms Powell.

Ms Dawn Powell: Good morning. On behalf of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to make our presentation. The chamber of commerce's base is committee-driven and our government affairs committee has worked hard over the past few years in responding to the Sewell commission and to the policy statements and through this entire process, and in that light I'd like to make our presentation.

The Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce is pleased that the government of Ontario is addressing the urgent need for planning reform. Procedural changes designed to decentralize the decision-making process are very important to ensure that development can occur within reasonable time periods and without adding costs to the process which simply get passed on to the consumer. The resolving of conflicts is as equally important in terms of time and cost.

We have had the opportunity to present our comments on two other occasions: however, our concerns have not changed, which would lead us to believe that perhaps our concerns haven't been addressed in the past. We do not believe that the proposed amendments will decentralize planning. The responsibility for planning decisions has been passed on to the municipalities; however, the authority remains in the hands of the province.

Since the policies are province-wide, locally based planning policy decisions, particularly important to northern Ontario, cannot be made. The initiative to deal with local issues has been taken away. The significant role of planning, whereby the structure and character of communities are determined, moves from the municipal level to the ministerial level. It is our understanding that these changes, the reforms, were intended to accelerate the approval process and eliminate abuses. Although strict time frames are to be adhered to, they appear unrealistic, particularly when you consider that our municipalities will be burdened with additional responsibility and cost when their time and resources are already at a breaking point.

The provisions restricting rural development do not reflect northwestern Ontario realities. There is abundant vacant land, often in unorganized areas, which is only suitable for residential or recreational development. There is a demand for this land which will increase the economic opportunities and allow people the freedom to choose the lifestyle which they wish to adopt. An urban lifestyle is not the only valid lifestyle.

We are pleased that environmental considerations will be incorporated into the planning process, but the wording of the policy statements is harsh. For example, goal 1.1 in policy A prohibits development which would negatively affect groundwater or surface water. We oppose all blanket prohibitions to developments, including this prohibition, and call for a planning policy that truly balances the various interests. A qualifying adjective such as "significantly" or "unduly" should be inserted before the word "negatively." Perhaps the policy will protect the groundwater at the expense of any economic benefit to be derived from such developments.

Even then, this policy will be a major disincentive for small-scale development, where the added cost of demonstrating compliance, together with the delay and uncertainty, will be disproportionate to the size of many developments. Another useful amendment would be to limit this provision, and many others in the policy goals, to developments of significant size. It appears that a person wishing to pave a residential driveway, build a deck or landscape a yard will need a hydrological study prepared. This is not acceptable.

We believe the reforms to the system do not go far enough. We continue to look for major initiatives to reduce and eliminate red tape. Each successive reform introduces new requirements which will increase the cost and delay, now at the municipal level instead of the provincial level. The result may be less development, fewer economic opportunities, fewer jobs and that lack of initiative on behalf of developers to become involved in a system that will be more costly, complicated, and where the municipal decision-making process becomes politically governed.

Now is the time for bold initiatives. We are pleased to see that the municipalities will be able to adopt a development permit system. In our second submission we discussed the replacement of official plans with broad flexible-vision plans that would not lag the system down with time-consuming and expensive amendments. It appears that the provincially governed policies have become more restrictive and that local flexibility, adaptability and long-range-vision planning will take a step backward instead of forward. Planning reform requires a clear mandate to promote growth. Economic development is particularly essential in northern Ontario. Although the planning process inevitably manages growth, a more powerful endorsement of progress is needed.

Many of the reforms are positive, however, since planning is so vital to the economic stability of communities, particularly in the north. We hope that the final decisions are not made hastily, without considering the time, cost and economic implications that these reforms will have on all of us.

1120

Mr David Johnson: Thank you for making the deputation on behalf of the chamber of commerce. I think you've raised a number of very excellent points. My own suspicion is that when this was developed in the first place, the Sewell process from which this comes, it was largely developed in response to a very heated development industry in Metropolitan Toronto back in the 1980s and there were concerns at that point.

Well, that was light years away, that was an entirely different economic situation, and probably not in response to any particular conditions in the north but with regard to Metropolitan Toronto. So I think the vein is somewhat anti-development, it's very strong in terms of environmental controls, and I think that sort of approach has been carried right through to today.

That has implications, I suspect, for you here in Thunder Bay and with the chamber of commerce, because the very things that you talk about in your presentation to us today -- fewer economic opportunities, fewer jobs -- are certainly going to have an impact on your community. It seems to me that the sense of this is intensification. The sense of this whole report is to promote intensification and to discourage larger lots, to discourage growth that we've been talking about, lake lots, for example, and that type of thing.

What kind of impact is that going to have on Thunder Bay, on the people you represent through the chamber of commerce, on the businesses in Thunder Bay, if this is implemented the way it is today without giving flexibility, without substituting, for example, "have regard to"? What do you see for the future economy here in Thunder Bay?

Ms Powell: You won't see the developers very anxious to proceed with large-scale subdivision developments like we've seen in the past. We need these developments in order to create the jobs. The construction industry -- you've heard the construction association. The home builders speak to that. We need these jobs. We need this development in order to maintain the economy that's very fragile here. We're losing our resource base. We're turning to a service industry. We're looking for every opportunity we possibly can in order to create jobs.

When you see developers panicking and rushing to get the approval of subdivisions in place before this is going through, it should be a clear indication that there are some major concerns by our members, the chamber members, the business community, that this is going to negatively impact the growth of this community or any community of the north.

Mr David Johnson: You talk about environmental protection and you say that this is a good thing, and I'm sure we'd all agree it's a good thing, but you talk about the need for a balance. I concur 100% that there need to be two sides of the issue and you can't just say, because there's some negative impact, however large or small or significant or insignificant, that a project should be thwarted.

Should there not be some sense of being able to remedy? If there is a potential environmental impact, should there not somehow be the opportunity for that to be addressed, and if the situation can be remedied, then rather than have it etched in stone in here as a tool for those who would oppose a development to grab on to, should there not be an equal statement that the developer should be able to remedy any sort of environmental impact? And if that's so, then it should be able to proceed.

Ms Powell: It sounds all very well and good and it sounds like it means another piece of legislation or adding on to existing environmental legislation. I agree with the statement that there should be some flexibility for these developments, but it's got to be a balance. If it's so restrictive that it's going to deter any sort of development or economic growth, we'd like to see whatever suggestions, whatever policy statements will encourage it and still maintain the quality of our environment.

Mr David Johnson: All right. You didn't really mention it quite as specifically as the previous delegation, but I presume you would support changing the words "must be consistent with" to "have regard to."

Ms Powell: Most definitely. We just feel it's very harsh. We don't feel there's any flexibility whatsoever in the wording as it stands.

Ms Haeck: I am very concerned with some of your remarks. On page 2 you refer to goal 1.1 and policy A. I would put to you, since you said you have been working with Mr Sewell, that you are probably as aware as I am that in his two-year review he found something like approximately one million septic systems existing in the province. There's no good, solid figure; it's assumed that it's around one million. In fact 60% to 80% of those aren't functioning properly and the kind of comments that you're making at the bottom of that second paragraph, the first full paragraph of your presentation, give me some cause for concern because you don't really address the need for preserving groundwater. In fact, you almost suggest, if I may be so bold, that development go ahead at any cost.

Ms Powell: That's not what it's saying. What we're opposing is anything that calls for the complete inability for development that will affect -- the wording is "negatively affect," and that seems to be fairly strong. When we were dealing with the Sewell commission on the septic systems, we understand that there have been failings with septic systems throughout Ontario.

Ms Haeck: That's true.

Ms Powell: However, perhaps that's not a planning problem. Perhaps it's an enforcement problem and an education problem for those people who are installing and inspecting the system. You can't blame the planners for that.

What we're looking for is, like I said before, a balance between the environment, between our lifestyle, between economic growth. We have to oppose all-out prohibitions against these types of development. We have to sustain ourselves in the north. Like the speaker before us, we do not abuse the environment here, and it appears that by such strong restrictions, you're implying that we're doing something terrible up here in the north, when all we want to do is maintain our lifestyle.

Ms Haeck: Before I turn to Mr Perruzza, my riding is on water too. It's bounded by Lake Ontario and the Niagara River and the Welland Canal. I mean, there are an awful lot of septic systems there and you can say that there are all kinds of planning decisions that have been made many, many years ago, and there would be those who say you can't blame the planners. There we have some different views on that occasionally, but the fact of the matter is that those systems do break down.

The enforcement issue is one that obviously needs to be addressed. Education needs to be addressed. But I think some caution about putting systems into place that in fact can and do negatively affect the environment, especially when you're talking -- my neighbour here represents an area that has had serious groundwater problems, serious water availability problems, and I think it's something that we have to take into consideration. I realize you have a lot of lakes up here, you have a lot of water, but groundwater has been an issue across this province and I think we have to handle that with care.

The Chair: There's only about a minute and a half remaining.

Ms Powell: May I respond to that?

Mr Perruzza: I just wanted to have an opportunity to get a couple of comments --

The Chair: Hold on, Mr Perruzza, she wants to quickly respond to that.

1130

Ms Powell: I would like to respond to that. There are a lot of rural properties, lake properties that are dealing on septic systems right now, and I can assure you -- I've gone through it personally myself in the past year -- they make it very difficult.

The requirements to put in a septic system for a cottage or a rural property are very tight, and now that that process is in place, you're not going to see the systems that were being developed 20 years ago. There is a process in place, but what needs to be done is it has to be monitored and those people that are making the approval process have to be educated and educate the installers that are installing the systems. It can be done to control and protect the environment.

Mr Perruzza: I would like to make a really brief comment. Just in response to that, there was one particular case I think of one particular county where the works department person responsible for the administration of the county's sewer system had developed one plan essentially for the sewer system, and that sketch was in his head.

Do the planners out there know where the septics are? Not necessarily. So it's just not an educational problem in terms of enforcement and having enough inspectors out there to go and to take a look and to make sure that all of these things are done properly. That's not solely the case, so there are other elements and other problems related to that. My question to you is simply this.

The Chair: Could you ask it quickly, please, because there's not much time left.

Mr Perruzza: Mr Chairman, I'll ask it another time. I see Mr Curling is getting --

The Chair: Mr Eddy.

Mr Eddy: I think he should be given the time.

The Chair: Mr Eddy, please continue.

Mr Eddy: Yes, thank you very much. I agree with you completely. It's a matter of education, and don't forget the users of septic tanks, because they know when something is wrong and they know how to use it. So it's a very important point.

Interjection.

Mr Eddy: Well, no, it needs the education, right. I don't want to use up my time. It's been said about groundwater pollution and surface water pollution. I want to tell you, come to southern Ontario if you want to see groundwater pollution, and it isn't the septic tanks per se. What it is in many cases is the industries that we allow to do it. You've heard about Uniroyal at Elmira. That's a big problem in Waterloo.

Talk about the St Clair River where the major industries have drains directly into the St Clair River and when there's a spillage, it goes right into the river. Ask the natives on Walpole and Stag Islands about it. Ask the citizens of Wallaceburg what they're faced with at times, the Love Canal in the Niagara River and so many other things.

Ms Haeck: It's on the US side.

Mr Eddy: Yes, it is in that case, but a lot of it is in southern Ontario and we have allowed it, so now we're putting this on you. You may be surprised that many people who have come before us have said the same thing: Since the policies are province-wide, locally based planning decisions cannot be made. Many people are saying that, and it's not so much -- I guess it is partly that the policy plans that we're faced with, the planning policies, are not debatable, they're not under review. They're forced, and they haven't had input from citizens in areas. I agree with you completely that we must have decentralization in the planning programs and we must have local input, and what's good for my municipality, which is a rural area in southern Ontario, is not necessarily the right thing for urban areas.

It's been said that we should stand back, now that we've had these hearings, or will be completing them shortly, and look at what we're going to get. There are the planning policies that are being imposed without input; the bill and amendments, and you don't know what those are; the regulations, and we don't know what they are; and then there are the implementation guidelines. Then there is the wording "be consistent with" and all of that. What is your opinion about that? I feel we have to tailor the planning programs more to the individual areas, and I'm sure that the leader of our party who happens to represent this area will be recognizing that and working towards that.

Ms Powell: I would like to respond and I think what the chamber of commerce would like to say is that there has been a lot of work done to the planning reform but there's a lot more work that has to be done, and it has to be done with consideration of everybody concerned here. We want input. We've been through this process several times and do not believe that our comments are being listened to.

We have valid comments, and I'm sure you're hearing them over and over again, yet they don't seem to be reflected in any of the policy or any of the work that's coming down. What may ultimately happen is that this planning reform will go through and we'll be sitting in front of a different commission in a few years' time reforming the reform planning policies.

Mr Curling: On many occasions inside your written report here and also when you speak you speak of the policy. On page 2 you talk about, "Goal 1.1 in policy A prohibits development which would negatively affect groundwater or surface water." On the next page you said, "It appears that the provincially governed policies have become more restrictive and that local flexibility, adaptability and long-range-vision planning will take a step backward instead of forward."

It would seem to me that you get the impression that one of the main things with this legislation is the policy itself, that it is based on this policy, and I've asked this question many times: Do you feel that we have to go back and look at the policy again in order to be sensitive to the north? Most of the time the kind of situation of planning in the south is that we gear our planning towards increased population, and in the north it seems to be a declining population. Do you feel we should really address the policy again in order to be sensitive to the north?

Ms Powell: I think the entire process needs to be addressed again, but the policy seems to be the starting point from which this whole system will take place, and unless there are changes to the policy, then everything else will follow through. We've been through these policies and it becomes very apparent we're not very pleased that they'll address all our northern issues, and perhaps province-wide.

The Chair: Mr Hayes with a quick clarification and Ms Forrest with a point to make as well.

Mr Hayes: Just getting back to the consultation about public input, for people to say that we have not consulted or listened to people, we've had the Sewell report, two years of public meetings with 65 different stakeholders. There was a 90-day wrapup after the Sewell final report for people to respond back to it. We sent out 28,000 documents for people to review and comment on and we've also had 600 written responses, plus over and above that, this committee has been travelling across this province and listening to people. For people to say we haven't consulted, well, that is a lot of bunk. So, Norma Forrest?

Ms Powell: If I can respond --

Mr Hayes: I'm not saying that you said it, but there were some irresponsible statements from over here.

Ms Powell: -- we're not saying you haven't consulted, but perhaps you haven't listened.

Ms Forrest: I'd like to talk about five different policy areas that you've raised and to show you how in fact in response to the consultation we have changed the policies to reflect some of the things we've heard.

The first policy relates to what are quality and quantity, and you indicated in your submission that policy 1.1 would not permit development that would negatively impact on water quality and quantity. In fact, what the policy says is that water quality and quantity should be protected, which is really reflecting the way the Environmental Protection Act and Ontario Water Resources Act, existing pieces of legislation, are administered.

The only cases where negative impacts are looked at are in cases where water quality and quantity have been prejudiced to the extent that the Minister of Environment and Energy would identify that that's a sensitive area. That's the only case where negative impacts have to be looked at, where it's really close to some line where any further development could have a really bad effect on water quality and quantity. Even in that case we're not saying no development, we're saying only development that wouldn't further diminish that water quality beyond acceptable levels.

That's a clarification in the policy and that clarification was made in response to the consultation, because the first policy said development will not be permitted if water quality and quantity are adversely affected. So that's one big change in the policy.

The Chair: Ms Forrest, I'm worried that if you have five, it's going to take some time.

Ms Forrest: I'll hurry.

The Chair: You're doing very well, of course, but --

Mr Eddy: It's the interpretation also.

Mr Perruzza: Listen up and learn something.

The Chair: Ms Forrest, please continue. That's fine.

Ms Forrest: I'll be fast. I'd like to talk to you about what the policies do about economic development, because I think that's a really valid point. The policies talk about each municipality developing an economic development strategy and implementing that through land use planning. I think that's really important for the north where single-resource-agent towns have been a problem. They're encouraging the kind of approach that was done in Sudbury as an example.

1140

The policies of goal F protect a lot of the resources that are the basis for the economy in northern Ontario, the minerals and petroleum industries and the mineral aggregates. Also the policies in goal A protect the other things that are a fundamental basis for the recreation and resource industries in northern Ontario: water quality, forestry -- forestry is not negatively affected by these policies, but forests are also protected.

The next issue I'd like to talk about is private services, because that's something you talked about. The policies don't say no development on private services; they say development on private services where you've looked at long-term impacts and have assessed them to be acceptable. That's to avoid situations where public money has to be spent going in after the fact and putting in full municipal services to correct existing problems, because that's a very expensive solution.

The next thing I'd like to talk about is the fact that implementation guidelines are being developed for all these policies in consultation with the task force. It has got representatives from a lot of different groups as was mentioned earlier.

The next thing is that northern issues have been addressed in some cases in the policies by making specific policies applicable to northern Ontario. The wetlands is an example where a specific evaluation criterion has been developed for northern Ontario. Policies for woodlands are different for northern Ontario than for the south. Significant woodlands are not necessarily precluded from development.

In a hurry, those are my points.

Ms Powell: I would like to thank you for the clarification on some of these items. It clearly demonstrates that there's a problem with how the interpretation and how the policy is written and that maybe additional work has to be done. I'm hearing over and over from our chamber members the same comments and they've interpreted the same way that we've made the presentation, so there is a problem there. Until that's clear, we're going to end up with further problems down the road.

The Chair: We thank you for coming and for participating in these hearings.

THUNDER BAY FIELD NATURALISTS

The Chair: We invite Thunder Bay Field Naturalists. Welcome to the committee.

Dr Myra McCormick: Thank you. My name is Myra McCormick. I'm a past president of the Thunder Bay Field Naturalists. My comments are going to be very brief and quite general. I have no written submission. I think we're more concerned about what we don't find here than what is there.

Sustainable development is becoming a catchword. I was impressed by Hamilton. They have basically got three legs to their stool: economic, which the chamber of commerce has been addressing; environmental, which we are of course very concerned with; and social, what the people who live in the community feel about it, how they see it.

There's very little in this act that I can see the way it's written that lets the people in the community participate unless they're willing to take time off work or unless they're educated enough to write a brief. Very few people are willing to put pen to paper, and in our economic climate at the moment very few working people would dare take the time off from work.

I can see nothing in this act about containment of urban sprawl. You may think we don't have a problem, but we have approximately 115,000 people and the city limits cover an area larger than the island of Grenada. If that isn't sprawl, I don't know what is.

The sections on the protection of the environment were very brief, very weak. There was no mention of watershed planning and, as you should know in southern Ontario, what your neighbour upstream does is going to affect you and it may affect you very badly if you don't get together before the fact.

I see nothing here about building on floodplains. Maybe this is part of another act, but I have seen what has happened in southern Ontario, where floodplain building is allowed, and I've seen what's happened in Thunder Bay when it's allowed. Mind you, the building went on long before people were planning cities, but we've had to build a very large diversion because people don't like their basements flooded and they don't like their garages swept away. We have difficulties here with watershed planning. Our conservation authority has no authority over any of the headwaters of any of the rivers that run into Thunder Bay. It's crown land and there's logging, and you know what happens when you deforest the upper reaches of watersheds.

There was no mention here of the specific content of any official plan or that the municipality even had to consider alternative plans, and there are usually other ways of doing things. Sometimes they're more expensive in the short term, but sometimes the cheap solution in the short term turns out to be much more expensive in the long term.

We're concerned here that only the Ministry of Municipal Affairs is bound by the act. I would agree that having to run plans through 18 ministries can be ridiculous, time consuming and cut off anything you want to do, but the way I read what's here is that only the Ministry of Municipal Affairs has input into this planning and that there's no input by anybody like the MNR or other environmental ministries.

I would agree that streamlining the process is very necessary. We have a case in point here, where some development is being held up by the municipal board, presumably because of the way the process is set up at the moment, and a number of people are going to lose their jobs because the building has not yet started. Some people would have lost their jobs anyway, as this company is downsizing, but there are going to be a number of people out of work because there is actually no building there because it's been held up by the process that they have to go through at the Ontario Municipal Board.

Another concern is these restrictions on the right of appeal. It reads as if you have to have your protests in place before the decision is made. Sometimes you don't know what the plan is going to be and it's very difficult to protest before you know what you're protesting.

We have minor variances here. There's no definition. Is there a definition in some other act? What's minor?

There's also a concern of the Lieutenant Governor in Council by regulation establishing a development permit system. I read it with all the exceptions that at any time the Lieutenant Governor could establish a regulation to allow any municipality to do anything it felt necessary.

1150

The local chamber of commerce, I hear, has been complaining about the restrictions on development. I have never yet heard of a municipality given free rein that would actually tighten up restrictions, because tightening restrictions usually costs time and money in the short term. I read some of these press releases and the thrust seems to be to get as many jobs as soon as possible rather than the long-term planning.

I don't think I have any other general comments at the moment. If I can answer any questions --

The Chair: I'll tell you what: We'll do that. Thank you very much. Five minutes per caucus.

Mr Perruzza: I just want to address the whole issue of urban form, which the previous speaker had talked about and which was picked up again by Ms McCormick, and how urban form is permitted to happen here in Thunder Bay. It's not necessarily a bad thing to try to encourage compact urban form, because I believe that while the chamber of commerce is interested in the economic security of its own membership, very often they have very little regard for the security of the sort of public institutions stakeholders, which is the public. Obviously, by encouraging sort of sprawling urban form, the public, by and large, has to pick up the costs of that. Roads and sewers spreading over large areas have to be paid for by someone.

Mr Eddy: Like the city of London, 64,000 acres.

Mr Perruzza: My question to you -- if Mr Eddy will permit me to ask the question -- often the knee-jerk reaction by many of the chambers of commerce is, "Yeah, allow our membership to be able to do whatever we want," but then they say, "But Jeez, don't raise the taxes, because now we have a big problem," and you say, "But how are we going to pay for all of this stuff that you're asking on one hand and saying you don't want on the other?" My question to you is, could the members of the chamber of commerce continue to make money while a compact urban form is encouraged, in your view?

Dr McCormick: I should think in some ways it would be easier to make money, but I'm a physician, not an accountant, not a businessman. I don't see why travelling long distances to get to businesses is a good thing. This city is enormous. There are continuous complaints about the bus service and because public transportation is not very good, everybody drives a car and then everybody complains about the parking, then the city has to build very expensive parking lots and everybody complains about paying to park.

We're a small town; we're actually an amalgamation of two small towns. We've got businesses moving out of the core into malls and then the malls are half empty because businesses can't afford the rent. I really don't understand business very well. I look at all these malls and I say, "Where are all the businesses?" A friend of mine who teaches in university in Victoria says: "They just move from mall to mall. That's what they do."

Mr Perruzza: I'll give you one example of something that we have happening in Metro --

The Chair: You don't have much time. There are about two minutes and a half.

Mr Perruzza: Just very quickly to pick up also on something that Mr Johnson talked about earlier and Metro council, we have one sewer line in Metro that has combined sewage systems. Metro council doesn't know and can't accurately monitor how much untreated raw sewage is actually going into the lake. Their guesstimate based on computer simulations is something around 70,000 cubic metres of untreated raw sewage from one sewer line. It would take close to $600 million to correct that little problem. What does that cost for people? I'll end on that.

Ms Haeck: I think you've raised some very good points, and one of the things that you raised, and I wrote down your words, you said that often it's difficult in fact for residents or activist groups to come forward and raise an objection because they don't know what the plan is going to be.

We've had that happen in our neck of the woods where a simple town house project has evolved into something that it was at one point up to 130-some-odd units, down to 106 now, on the floodplain, and this is currently happening. This is not even with this legislation, but it's something that is currently being dealt with at the OMB.

Mr Dale Martin has proposed -- he has been acting as the provincial facilitator -- he has been advocating something called the complete application, so that the various commenting agencies and the residents have an idea of what the site is going to look like. Everybody knows what it is, and it's obviously an evolutionary thing. But before in fact it goes through those final approvals, the neighbours know. You have a chance to make your comments. Would you in fact support that kind of a process?

Dr McCormick: I think it's necessary.

Mr Curling: Thank you for your presentation. I would agree with you in some of the comments that you made, especially in the sense that minor variances have not been defined properly and it has been causing a considerable amount of problems and people have expressed those kinds of concerns.

I also would totally agree with you that the lack of regulation leaves us little in order to understand what the direction is and where this government is going to go with this ill-defined legislation or coming from a base of a policy that many, many people have expressed they did not agree with, starting from a wrong base.

I would also say to you and agree with the parliamentary assistant that Mr Sewell has done a very good job going around in consultation. Whether we agree with it or not, the breakdown came and the government interpreted it in this kind of legislation. I know also that you know that there are 10 million people in this province, over 831 different municipalities, of which about 70% of those municipalities have less than 5,000 people within them.

The fear of people coming to a city, especially in the north, is not one of the fears at all that is in fact about the north. So I think that a chamber and people like that who are strategically looking at how we deal with -- I don't want to call it the critical mass, but the mass -- is very important and profit is not a bad word at all. That's why we are all here today, because of investment.

I'm not quite sure -- maybe you are quite familiar with it -- are you familiar with this document, Looking Ahead: A Wild Life Strategy for Ontario, which the Ministry of Natural Resources has funded and brought about? What I am saying is it seems to me the government has made a tremendous amount of effort -- and I could not and would not fault the government for not listening to the environmentalists and having some part being placed in this legislation or so. Do you feel that there is still more that should be done by the government to listen to the environmentalists and the naturalists to put this in the legislation?

Dr McCormick: Oh, I'm afraid we always think that. Every group thinks that, but -- how can I phrase it? We've certainly found in the past that municipal planning tends to go through the short-term, relatively cheap solution that has not turned out to be so cheap in the long term.

1200

All you have to do is look at the McIntyre River, which is a few blocks over that way. The Thunder Bay Field Naturalists were consulted many years ago, and we said -- I was not a member at that time; I didn't even live in Thunder Bay at that time -- they said, "Don't cut down the trees." The city, the conservation authority, whoever, cut down the trees, planted grass and said, "Oh, the banks are washing away." People had built very high priced houses on either side with a road on either side of the river, and they had to do something, so we now have a large stretch of the river where the banks have been paved. You can't tell me the upkeep on that is cheap.

Mr Curling: But I didn't ask the other part of the question.

Dr McCormick: It provides jobs, mind you.

Mr Curling: Could I ask the other part of the question? What I did ask was if the environmentalists and naturalists had input into this legislation and policy, and I think the other part is the economic and the social aspect of it. Do you think that enough has been heard and reflected in the policy, not in the Sewell report but in the policy, on the legislation? Forget the regulation; that will come anyhow. But do you think that enough has been put in here to reflect that other aspect of it, the things that the Ontario home builders are saying, the things that are said by the chamber of commerce?

Dr McCormick: You mean in Bill 163? I don't think there's enough on the environment there.

Mr Curling: No, no. I'm talking about the economic and the social part, not the environment.

Dr McCormick: Economic, probably. Social, I think there's still room to ease in local input and to get the people in the city on side with the plans. Most of these plans come down and everybody says: "Oh my God, how did that ever get through? We don't like it, but it has passed and we're stuck with it."

Mind you, you have to educate the people in the community, but you also have to facilitate their input somehow. It's possible; it's time consuming. Most politicians on city council or otherwise have more than enough to do without having to go out and educate their constituents as to what's going on. It's not a problem with an easy solution. But if you want to bring in something that's controversial, you have to get the population to buy in, to see why you're going to spend money now to alleviate a problem later.

Nobody wants their taxes up. I'm a home owner and I don't want my taxes up. But on the other hand, I might be willing to pay more taxes if I can see things like recycling systems and so on. Our city council turned it down because they were afraid it might cost them money, so we have no recycling in Thunder Bay at the moment. We did have paper recycling, but that seems to have gone by the board again.

Maybe we're not doing enough to educate our city councils, but it concerns me when so much is left to the local government, that if they're not environmentally aware, socially aware and they go strictly for the economic thing, we can find ourselves in bad trouble down the line.

Mr David Johnson: Just carrying along on that theme, Dr McCormick, I thank you for your presentation and your presence here today. I wanted to talk about the local autonomy, because it seems that one of the main issues that's coming up here today is should various councils, city councils, particularly in different parts of Ontario, have some flexibility or should they be put in a provincial straitjacket? Now there are people who would interpret this differently, but certainly we've heard that kind of deputation here today, that northern Ontario, for example, is different, shouldn't be hamstrung with the same definite policies, for example, that would be implemented in Toronto.

Personally I think that a city such as Thunder Bay needs to have flexibility to deal with local situations, needs to be able to deal with local citizens such as yourself, such as your group, to look at different circumstances that are in place here in Thunder Bay. Certainly Thunder Bay is a whole lot different than Toronto. Shouldn't a local city have that kind of flexibility to be able to work with you and other people here and develop your own made-in-Thunder Bay kind of planning process?

Dr McCormick: Well, I think every municipality has that right, but what I would like to see is a strong set of principles that shouldn't be broached and that the municipality should have to say, "Okay, we'll find our own solution to living with those principles." I don't think that Thunder Bay should negatively affect ground and surface water to sustain development. I mean, we have as much right to clean water as Toronto does. But they should be allowed to find their own solution to developing and still not destroying the water.

Mr David Johnson: Thunder Bay is up next, and I'm quite sure if they have the time, they'll say they don't want to destroy the water either. But they probably would say that to remedy possible environmental conditions may take different approaches here in Thunder Bay, given a different water situation, than it would in Niagara Falls or than it would in Metropolitan Toronto.

Dr McCormick: Well, we have quite a different water situation here. We get our water from a number of different sources. The south end gets it from Loch Lomond. There has been considerable concern from pollution in Loch Lomond because the planes going into the airport overfly it. We get our water in the north end from Lake Superior. You'd kind of like to know where the sewage was going.

One of the previous MOHs was a friend of mine, and I was in her kitchen on a Saturday morning when she turned the tap on and got a small fish -- a well-chlorinated fish, mind you, but a small fish -- and she said, "I will take it to my next meeting, because I have been saying we need finer filters on our water intake."

We don't depend here on our rivers so much, but the fishermen who used to fish there as children are complaining because the waters within the city limits don't sustain the same fish they used to. They used to be able to go out in their back yard and catch fish and there aren't any there now.

Mr David Johnson: Dr McCormick, can I talk to you about jobs? You've mentioned that a couple of times. From my experience in the past actually, the city of Thunder Bay is somewhat renowned for its economic development policies and planning in general. I thought that Thunder Bay was doing an excellent job, although you seem to indicate perhaps not so. I'd just like your comments. It seems to me in any city there needs to be a balance» The environment has to be protected, but there have to be perhaps remedies to do that. But at the same time it's important for people to have jobs, because that affects our whole wellbeing.

Dr McCormick: Oh, yes.

Mr David Johnson: Isn't there a situation where we can balance that off? I think the chamber of commerce is saying the same thing. Yes, we can protect the environment, but we can remedy environmental problems that may come up with regard to water or air pollution or land pollution or any pollution you name. But we need to concern ourselves with jobs as well as the environment.

Dr McCormick: This is always the problem, and it's one of the three major things in any community. If you don't have an economic base, you don't have a community, but if you don't have a good environment and if you don't have a pleasant social structure, that's not a very good community.

1210

Thunder Bay being in the north here, we had major problems with our economic base, but you don't really want to have economic development at the price of sacrificing the environment either. You're right, there has to be a balance and we're going to have to find some very innovative solutions up here.

Unfortunately, each group tends to get mired in its own interests. People see economic base at all cost and we, with an interest in the environment, don't particularly want to see that, but we do realize people have to have jobs. We'd just like to see the balance, and we'd like to see the balance a little further in our direction. We'd like our third of the territory, not a little bit on the fringes, as protesters that are considered a little peculiar, worried about things that aren't really important. But they are. We all live here, we all breathe the air and drink the water.

The Chair: Dr McCormick, we're running out of time and I thank you. Ms Forrest has some comments.

Ms Forrest: I'd just like draw your attention to the comprehensive set of policy statements that were part of the planning reform package. These policy statements have been adopted by cabinet and will come into effect at some date in the future when Bill 163 would be proclaimed.

These policies deal with those three legs of the stool that you were talking about. They deal with social considerations and, for the first time, social considerations are to form a part of the land use planning process. They deal with environmental concerns. The floodplain planning policy has been summarized and included here. There are policies regarding wetlands, regarding contaminated sites, regarding energy-efficient development, regarding urban sprawl. All the things that you've talked about are covered in this document.

I think that your comments about watershed planning are well founded. Watershed planning may be one of the ways that municipalities may choose to take to make sure that they're looking at all the things that we're covering off in this set of policy statements.

Regarding the role of the Minister of Municipal Affairs in the land use planning process, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs will be approving the official plans of all the upper-tier municipalities and certain lower-tier municipalities in the meantime, and as part of that process will certainly be consulting with all the other ministries, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment and Energy.

All of the ministries that have a role in the land use planning process will continue to have that role, except that through the planning reform process we hope that that role will be much more of a policy development role rather than commenting on individual applications at the end of the process. I think you'll be happy with this set of policy statements and the fact that a lot of your concerns have been addressed in that set.

Mr Eddy: But the major one is the headwaters of the rivers that flow into Thunder Bay.

Interjection.

Mr Eddy: No, it's left out. It's not part of the --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, can I ask you, when --

Mr Eddy: -- headwaters of the river --

The Chair: Mr Eddy, you're doing this again. It's a problem. What we'll do as we go along is, we'll give you the opportunity to make those remarks so that we don't extend the discussion as we do that.

Mr Perruzza: Can we request --

The Chair: Mr Perruzza, hold on. Dr McCormick, we thank you for the personal interest you've taken in responding to this bill. Thank you for coming today.

Dr McCormick: Thank you for listening.

Mr Eddy: Good points you've made.

CITY OF THUNDER BAY

The Chair: City of Thunder Bay, Alderman J. D. Polhill and Ms Jennifer Favron.

Mrs Jennifer Favron: My name is Jennifer Favron. I'm the general manager of the city of Thunder Bay planning and building department, and with me is Alderman J. D. Polhill, the chairman of the city's planning committee.

We are appearing before the committee today to express the city's concerns with respect to the Planning Act amendments set out in part III of Bill 163. We also wish to express our concern with the consultation process being utilized to give municipalities and other stakeholders an opportunity to express their views on the proposed legislation.

The city is particularly concerned that the proposed legislation in its present form and the accompanying policy statements will result in a land use planning system which is more difficult, more complex and more complicated than the system it is intended to reform.

Because the province has not released a draft of the regulations to be prescribed under this legislation, it is difficult to assess the full impact and implications of this legislation.

It is suggested that the proposed legislation will give municipalities greater local control over the development process. However, this control will be exercised within the very tight framework established by the province. The province has released a comprehensive set of policy statements and the proposed legislation requires that municipal decisions be consistent with these policies.

In this regard, the city is vitally concerned with the process which will be followed when issuing future policy statements. Municipalities and the public must be given adequate information and time to assess the effect of proposed policy statements and an opportunity to influence the content and implementation of such policy statements. The implementation guidelines must be developed before these policy statements are brought into effect.

Under the proposed legislation, municipalities must prepare an official plan which contains certain prescribed information, and the province suggests that "Once these plans are in place, municipalities will have the power to approve development without further approval from the provincial government."

Under the current legislation and the authority which has been delegated to the city of Thunder Bay, further provincial approvals are not required for planning applications which conform to the official plan. Under the proposed legislation, the province retains the power to approve official plan amendments and several new steps are added to the process to be followed when amending an official plan. The legislation makes no provision for future delegation of approval authority for official plan amendments to municipalities, even where such amendments are consistent with provincial policies.

As stated by the province, the proposed amendments to the Planning Act provide a comprehensive and regulatory framework for integrating environmental concerns in land use planning. The requirement for municipal decisions to be consistent with these policy statements provides a strong mechanism for implementing these policies.

Although the province is suggesting that there will be a level of flexibility to allow for local considerations, such flexibility has not been demonstrated in the application of current provincial policies in the city of Thunder Bay. Municipalities will be compelled to support and implement these policies, whether they agree with them or not.

The province suggests that there must be local control over planning in Ontario. It is further suggested that planning is a partnership between municipalities and the province. The development and processing of this legislation does not support this concept; nor does it recognize that Ontario municipalities have the capabilities and strengths to plan well. It also does not support the stated belief that planning the development of Ontario cities, towns and rural areas can best be accomplished by the people who live there.

As indicated earlier, the proposed changes to the legislation, while claiming to streamline the process, in many instances will in fact increase the amount of time required to process development applications. Of particular concern are the changes made to the process which must be followed when reviewing plans of subdivision or condominium.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs delegated the approval of such plans to the city of Thunder Bay on January 4, 1994. The city will continue to have the authority to approve plans, but Bill 163 proposes additional requirements to notify persons or agencies that may be affected by the approval of a plan and to provide information to those persons and public bodies specified in the regulations.

In addition, in some instances there will be a requirement to hold a public meeting at least 30 days before a decision is made on the plan. The proposed legislation would require the city to give notice of the decision on the plan to any person or agency who asked for notice or who submitted written comments during the circulation of the plan. In addition, notification of the decision will have to be given to any other person or agency outlined in the regulations.

1220

The new legislation would allow an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board by any person or public body who is given notice of the decision. Any such person or agency would be allowed 30 days to submit an appeal on any decision made by council on a subdivision or condominium application or with respect to any condition to an approval of such an application.

Where a condition is changed following draft plan approval, and this is quite common, notification of this change must be given again. The same persons or public bodies once again have 30 days to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. This proposed change to the legislation is particularly critical. Draft plan approval is normally given to a plan before the final survey of the lots has been completed. In many instances, when the final plan is submitted for approval, minor changes are required to reflect the actual dimensions of the lots.

The subdivision approval procedures adopted by the city allow minor revisions to the draft plan approval to be made by staff so that final approval can be issued quickly. It is not known whether the new procedures will permit this. Considerable time will be lost if the city must now circulate notice of such minor revisions and wait for a 30-day appeal period to expire.

The existing legislation allows the applicant to appeal any condition imposed on the approval of a plan to the Ontario Municipal Board. Such an appeal can be lodged at any time before final plan approval is given. In addition to this right of appeal, the new legislation will now allow any public body to appeal at any time until the plan has been given final approval.

In addition to the above, the regulations will likely require the submission of environmental impact statements for certain types of plans. It is not clear which public body will have the responsibility of reviewing these documents.

Due to the increased requirements for giving notice of proposed plans, the expanded rights of appeal, the requirement to be consistent with additional provincial policies and the requirements to meet tougher environmental standards, it is expected that the plan approval process will take longer to complete.

The notion that disputes over what is appropriate land use will occur at the policy development stages rather than over development approvals is not supported by the increased requirements for giving notice when processing development approvals.

The processing time for minor variances and consent applications is also increased under the proposed legislation. Although the Sewell commission recommended that the appeal period for minor variances be reduced to 14 days, Bill 163 increases the appeal period to a maximum of 45 days. In addition, the legislation now requires additional notice to be given on consent applications.

Where the current legislation makes concurrent processing of minor variance and consent applications quite easy, the changes to the legislation will make concurrent processing difficult to achieve. Not only are the notice provisions different, appeals on minor variance applications are now heard by the municipal council while appeals on consent applications are heard by the Ontario Municipal Board. The procedural requirements to be followed by a municipal council when reviewing a committee of adjustment decision are not clearly set out in the legislation or the supporting documentation.

One of the positive changes to the act is allowing the municipal board to dismiss an appeal without a hearing where the applicant did not make an oral or written submission to council before the decision was made. This provision is included in all of the processes which include the right to appeal to the board, with the exception of section 34 of the act related to zoning bylaws. Was this deliberately excluded or is it simply an oversight in the legislation?

It is suggested that the planning process will be streamlined for establishing time frames for making certain decisions, after which the matter can be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. Given the increased requirements for notice and additional opportunities to object to or appeal a planning decision, it is not clear how the OMB backlog will be eliminated to ensure timely scheduling of matters before the board. It remains to be seen if the OMB will exercise its authority to dismiss appeals where land use planning issues are not identified or the appeal is thought to be frivolous.

One thing that is overlooked in the whole idea of streamlining the planning approval process is that not all development requires planning approval. In fact the majority of development proposals conform to the regulations in effect and a building permit can be obtained without further planning approval. In the city of Thunder Bay an average of 1,400 building permits are issued in a year. Approximately 60 applications for amendments to the zoning bylaw and 100 applications for minor variances are processed in the same time frame, and not all of these amendments are required to permit new development.

With the increased requirements to be consistent with provincial policies and for integrating environmental concerns in the planning process, it is likely that more development proposals will be subject to planning approvals under the proposed legislation. Because the province will stipulate mandatory contents for an official plan, these documents will become more rigid in their application and will likely require the processing of more site-specific amendments with the requirement for provincial approval.

The amendments to the Planning Act as contained in Bill 163 will not result in a planning process which is more timely. Many of the procedural changes will result in a process which is more complex and certainly more costly for the applicant and the municipality. The changes to the legislation will increase the workload for municipal staff and council and represent a further downloading of responsibility by the province. While the city may have more responsibility in the planning process, the province will retain significant controls over local planning decisions.

It is our opinion that the government is proceeding too quickly with the implementation of these planning reforms. Without an opportunity to review the regulations which will accompany this legislation, municipalities are unable to determine the full impact of the proposed legislation on the processing of planning applications. Although the province is seeking input with respect to this proposed legislation, the fact that the city of Thunder Bay was not formally advised of the standing committee hearing is indicative of the government's intention to have this legislation in effect early in the new year, regardless of the concerns of municipal councils and others involved in the land use planning process.

The year 1994 has been a very difficult year for most municipalities. With the implementation of the social contract, municipalities have been hard pressed to maintain service levels while reorganizing and re-engineering to achieve the permanent savings required to operate after the social contract ends. Many municipalities will have found it difficult to find the time required to review Bill 163, the proposed policy statements and their implications in the very short time frame provided, particularly during the summer months.

The city of Thunder Bay is asking the committee to recommend an extension to the consultation period to provide an opportunity to review and comment on the proposed regulations before the legislation comes into effect.

The city of Thunder Bay is also asking the committee to ensure that municipalities and all of the stakeholders, including the province, are given adequate time to review the implications of this legislation and develop appropriate and workable implementation strategies before it comes into effect.

Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to the committee for entertaining our thy-hour request to make this presentation. We also wish to thank you for making the trip to Thunder Bay to hear some of the concerns of this region. We can only hope that the concerns that you have heard here today will be addressed before Bill 163 is proclaimed.

Mr J.D. Polhill: Mr Chairman, I have one or two comments to make if you will allow me, sir. I've been chairman of planning for longer than I'd like to remember, but through the years we have in our process of restructuring and whatever that we have done to make our department more efficient got to a point now where the developers are quite pleased with Mrs Favron's handling of the department. We have very, very few complaints and the fear of city council at this time is that legislation that you're bringing forth will quite possibly foul up the whole process that we have worked on so diligently. We only have four months of construction up here and we have to push things through pretty quickly.

1230

The Chair: M. Grandmaître, four minutes.

Mr Grandmaître: I'm sure that you're familiar with the Comprehensive Set of Policy Statements.

Mrs Favron: Indeed we are.

Mr Grandmaître: I hope that you were present when staff quoted goal B, economic, community development and infrastructure policies: "To manage growth and change to foster communities that are socially, economically, environmentally, and culturally healthy, and that make efficient use of land, new and existing infrastructure, and public services and facilities."

Do you think that Bill 163 responds to all of these great qualifications?

Mrs Favron: What I would have to say at this point, we had reviewed the provincial policies in the original circulation. The city of Thunder Bay submitted their comments to the ministry. I think some of the goals are quite laudable and we're not necessarily opposed to the overriding concern for the environment. Perhaps the tone in my presentation was suggesting that we're not concerned with the environment at all. I think what we really want to say is, we are already taking into account those environmental considerations in the process we're following today. But, no, I don't think in the case of the city of Thunder Bay, and probably to a greater degree in some of the outlying rural municipalities, that the spirit of this legislation is going to improve our opportunities for economic development.

Mr Grandmaître: In the last couple of weeks that we've been on the road, very few municipalities, or maybe one or two, that we've spoken to do agree with the objectives of the government but they don't think that Bill 163 is the answer.

My second question is about appeals, minor variances appealed to the OMB. Do you agree that minor variances shouldn't be appealed to the OMB or shouldn't make appeals to the OMB?

Mrs Favron: If minor variances and the committee of adjustment are operating within the spirit of the legislation as it exists, I think the function of a committee of adjustment is important. A zoning bylaw is a very inflexible document and there are always going to be exceptions to the rule which make the minor variance process reasonable. Councils cannot deal with all of those decisions, but what this legislation is really setting up is effectively making council the committee of adjustment and their decision is final. Again, it simply is going to compound the workload of council in order to deal with planning issues.

Mr Polhill: I'd like to just add one thing to that. If you realize that council does oversee the goings-on of the committee of adjustment -- in fact our council has taken the committee of adjustment to the municipal board and reversed their decision. So we ride pretty sound herd over all our departments.

Mr Grandmaître: You've had 100 applications for minor variances. How many were appealed to the OMB? Very few?

Mrs Favron: Very few. Two or three perhaps.

Mr David Johnson: I'd like to thank you as well for your deputation today. It's interesting that one of the first points you made is that in some cases -- in many instances as a matter of fact -- you say that the development process will be actually lengthened by Bill 163. I wonder if you could just give us a few examples. I think you're pointing particularly at subdivision or condominium approvals.

Mrs Favron: The reason I focused on subdivision was one of the lures to accepting this, because we requested the delegation under the current legislation, or at least as it was when we received delegation. We had to ask for it, the minister could not impose it upon us, as this legislation will allow municipalities to get it. One of the carrots that was held out to us was that the decision was going to be made locally, we were going to avoid sending it down to Toronto to get approval.

In this process that's being established now, the rules of procedure that we agreed to when we accepted the delegation of subdivision approval from the ministry may very well not meet the requirements of this new legislation and I can't see how it's going to do anything but lengthen the process. I'm not suggesting necessarily that the end result would be a bad decision. You may get a better decision but you're not going to get a better decision faster.

Mr David Johnson: So if the objective was to do it faster, then it's not going to achieve that. I guess when you do your plans, and the subdivisions are part of the plans and the public has an opportunity to speak to it at that point, what I'm seeing is that perhaps you're having to have a second public hearing for subdivisions. Is that the concern?

Mrs Favron: I think it's naïve to suggest that people will get involved at the policy formulation stage. We can go out there and advertise public meetings until we're blue in the face, and until the bulldozer pulls up on the property, that's when we get the phone calls and people say, "Why did you let this happen?"

It's very difficult to mobilize the public when there's not a perceived and immediate threat to their neighbourhood. I don't fault them for that. We all have lots of things in our lives to be concerned with and it's difficult to keep up with all of it. We don't get the comments on the official plan amendments; we get the comments on the implementing zoning bylaw. That's where the problem is.

Mr David Johnson: Can I shift to the environmental impact statements? You made a comment on them. This is my first day on the committee and I'm just trying to bring myself up to scratch a little bit. I think there was a concern expressed at one point that you could go through the planning process -- certainly for plans there is a great deal of attention. I know Thunder Bay would spend a whole lot of time on environmental aspects of a planning process. Is it your concern that you may have to go through a second environmental process as a result of the policy statements?

Mrs Favron: Without seeing the regulations and how it's going to be implemented, what the legislation is suggesting is we could incorporate into our official plan the processes that would be required for an environmental assessment, so that at the end of the day you've combined the two processes. The most recent changes to the Environmental Assessment Act and the class environmental assessment process have suggested that, if you can bring those two together and if it's shown on an approved development plan, then it satisfies the class EA. Again, that may not necessarily be bad, but it's not going to be fast.

Ms Harrington: Thank you to the city of Thunder Bay coming before us today. We've heard that you are a very large municipality in area. How long have you had an official plan for the amalgamated city?

Mrs Favron: There was a Lakehead official plan prior to amalgamation, so there was always a planning board. With amalgamation we actually brought in a city of Thunder Bay official plan.

Actually, we operated under a portion of the Lakehead plan and it kind of got broken up into the various regions. We had the preceding municipality zoning bylaws in fact until 1983.

Ms Harrington: Are you satisfied with the vision in your official plan for your rural area as well as your urban area?

Mrs Favron: If I can respond to that by highlighting a problem that we see, what has tended to happen in the past is we've been going along doing reasonably well and a southern Ontario problem has been solved and the solution to that problem becomes our problem.

For example, in the city of Thunder Bay, when we're talking about intensification, we're talking about semidetached dwellings. We fight major board hearings on four-unit apartment buildings. We were making significant inroads in the area of affordable housing. We had created smaller lots for single detached dwellings. We had created a two-family zone that prohibited single-family dwellings, because zoning property for two-family dwellings doesn't guarantee anybody's going to build the two-family dwellings. If they want a single, they're going to build a single. We had lots of illegal basement apartments, and for that part of Bill 120 to take that problem away, I have no great problem with that.

Ms Harrington: That's good to hear.

Mrs Favron: However, the problem that we do have with Bill 120 is, in a municipality like Thunder Bay where people for whatever reasons put a lot of value on living in a single-family neighbourhood -- we tried to eliminate our R-1 zone when we did the new zoning bylaw. You can't take away that status. You've taken away that with Bill 120, and what you're going to do is force more pressure on suburban development and development on septic systems, because they can't have apartments. That's the only guarantee you're going to have to live in a neighbourhood that doesn't have two-family dwellings, and it's an emotional issue. In Thunder Bay we have a high percentage of home ownership and a very high percentage of single-family dwellings.

Ms Harrington: I wanted to get the overall view that you are satisfied with your official plan, that it's updated.

Mrs Favron: We now have a city of Thunder Bay official plan and we're undergoing our five-year review at the moment.

1240

Ms Harrington: On the last page you ask that adequate time be given to develop appropriate and workable implementation strategies for this bill, and I think that's a fair request. But what I wanted to ask our staff is how this process is going to happen. I know you mentioned it earlier. How is the implementation of this bill going to happen so the people in Thunder Bay understand?

Mr Hayes: I'll speak to that, if you don't mind. Certainly it is a real concern about having input and being heard. I don't know if you're aware, I mentioned it earlier with one of the other presenters, that we do have an implementation advisory task force, which consists of people from the housing associations, from AMO, which all municipalities are, or most of them are at least, part of, the environmental watch. Then we go over to the technical committee which there are solicitors' groups, there are landscape architects, there's the Canadian Bar Association, there are municipal engineers, and the list goes on about people that are there with the input and the implementation committee dealing with the guidelines and regulations.

Ms Harrington: I wonder if you had any comments.

Mrs Favron: If I may put on my planner hat for the moment, planners are conspicuously absent in that implementation strategy and planners are being blamed -- the comment was made about planners have put in septic systems, planners have done that. We've done our best to control development within the framework that we operate in now, and we are also going to be the ones who will become the scapegoats for this unsuccessful attempt at reforming the planning system.

Ms Diana Dewar: I'm Diana Dewar from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. The implementation advisory task force is comprised of members of the Ontario Home Builders' Association, Urban Development Institute, AMO and the Ontario Environment Network. There are two planners that I am sure you know, Jennifer, representing the planning profession on that task force -- they are also AMO representatives -- Nick Tunnacliffe and Malcolm Boyd. In addition to that, there's a technical subcommittee and Ron Shishido of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute is on that committee.

We have certainly tried to include the planners to the greatest extent possible and the planning profession has been making a tremendous contribution to the implementation of the bill. There are regular meetings and at the regular meetings all of the implementation guidelines are put before the committee. There's a lot of discussion and also the regulations, as they become available, are put before the committee.

I would also like to clarify a couple of other points. In your presentation you mentioned that the ability of the Ontario Municipal Board to dismiss an appeal did not apply to zoning. I believe that subsection 34(25) of the bill would cover your concern.

Mrs Favron: In the official plan process it quite specifically says in the notice of the public meeting you have to tell people that if you don't participate at this stage you may lose your opportunity to appeal later. When the board considers an appeal, they can dismiss it if the appellant did not make a submission to the council in the original public meeting, either an oral submission or a written submission. That is not included in the zoning process.

Ms Dewar: Perhaps we could talk to you about that.

The other thing I would just like to mention is that the city of Thunder Bay will be assigned the authority to approve plans of subdivision under section 51.

Mrs Favron: We have it now, but it's delegated.

Ms Dewar: The act automatically assigns that authority to Thunder Bay. You're quite correct, it has been delegated so, in effect, there should not be a significant change with respect to subdivisions.

Mrs Favron: That's right. We have more restrictions on what we were already able to do under the current legislation.

Ms Dewar: There will be some subdivision requirements that are included in Bill 163 that are not contained in the current legislation, for example, the notice on a plan of subdivision, as you've mentioned, and the minister will remain the approval authority for official plans and official plan amendments.

In your presentation you talked about municipalities having to "prepare an official plan which contains certain prescribed information and the province suggests that `Once these plans are in place, municipalities will have the power to approve development without further approval from the provincial government.'"

Mrs Favron: That's a quote from the publication that you're circulating with the material.

Ms Dewar: I believe that that applies to the counties. Counties will be required to have a plan and, once that occurs, then that authority will be delegated. I just wanted to clarify what the legislation contains as it applies to Thunder Bay.

Ms Karen Smith: I guess the distinction is, Thunder Bay already has a plan.

Mrs Favron: Which I presume we will have to bring into compliance with.

Ms Smith: But you will not lose your current authority or your approval ability.

Mrs Favron: No, we'll have to change the rules to comply with the new process.

Ms Smith: Yes, but there will not be a deadline.

Mr Hayes: On your concern that you raised about the changes following a draft plan of approval and then having to have another 30-day notice, we've heard that everywhere we've gone and we are certainly taking a look at that particular part of the legislation.

The other thing, I think just in all fairness, when you talk about not being formally advised, no one has been formally advised. It's a procedure that has been in place for years, and it's advertised --

Mrs Favron: My point exactly.

The Chair: It's advertised to the world.

Mr Hayes: It's not because of this legislation. It has been there for years and it's not a reflection on this government about pushing things through. I think we should make that clear. It has been advertised in all of the papers and this is a procedure that has been followed many times.

The Chair: It's what we always do.

Mr Hayes: We're really pleased that you are here, though.

The Chair: It works, most of the time. Thank you, Mr Hayes. Thank you, Alderman Polhill and Ms Jennifer Favron, for presenting this brief and presenting your concerns to this committee. This committee is adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1247.