Ontario’s Greenbelt land swap causes debate among landowners in rural Erin

Open this photo in gallery:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford landed in a heap of trouble when he tried to subtract land from the province’s environmentally protected Greenbelt. But in rural Erin, 80 kilometres northwest of Toronto, his government has been facing criticism for its move to actually add property into the protected area.

Mr. Ford’s government extended the Greenbelt’s boundary here last year, adding about 2,800 hectares of Erin’s rolling hills and farms into the 800,000-hectare Greenbelt, which arcs around the Greater Toronto Area.

However, the move was meant to partly offset the government’s plucking of about 3,000 hectares out of the Greenbelt to allow for housing construction.

After an outcry fuelled by an Auditor-General’s report that concluded those Greenbelt removals favoured a small group of developers who stood to gain an estimated $8.3-billion from increased land values, Mr. Ford apologized and rescinded the carveouts. The RCMP has launched a criminal investigation.

But the addition of the new land into the Greenbelt in Erin still went ahead.

The protected area’s boundaries were extended to cover just a sliver of a much larger ecologically sensitive zone known as the Paris Galt Moraine.

Still, with the original reason for the offset rescinded, the inclusion of this land in the Greenbelt has sparked a local debate among farmers, landowners and municipal politicians – with some saying the government should reverse it, too.

Wellington County, of which Erin is a part, has asked the province to reconsider, arguing that the land was already reserved for agriculture under its local official plan and protected from any large-scale development that would harm the moraine.

Some landowners have complained that they will no longer be allowed to apply for a severance on prime agricultural land, even to build just one extra farmhouse for extended family.

But on a narrow 3-2 vote, Erin’s local council voted in December not to follow suit.

Mayor Michael Dehn, a local alpaca farmer who won election in 2022, said the Ford government’s process was “not well thought out.” But he said he supports keeping the new area inside the Greenbelt.

“You’ve got to place a value on environmental loss,” the mayor said in an interview. “Why would you move to Erin, if you live in Brampton or Milton today? People move up here to get away from the city.”

The mayor points to the fact that thousands of suburbanites drive north to his community on December weekends to cut down Christmas trees, making agriculture a major tourism driver.

He warns that allowing extra houses to pop up on local farms puts the agricultural future at risk: Livestock farmers can find themselves unable to expand, for example, because of rules on how far barns must be from residences.

Over the past few decades, Mr. Dehn said, the area’s agricultural lands have been threatened with a “death by a thousand cuts,” as more farms are split and granted severances for additional homes.

The town has already been battling for years over the construction of a new water-treatment plant – now under way – that will allow for several new subdivisions.

The new plant will make it possible for Erin to grow to a population of about 16,000 to 19,000 people over the next two decades, up from its current 12,000. (Mr. Dehn opposed the water-treatment plant, which was approved before he was elected.)

Erin Councillor John Brennan says he wants the province to reconsider the Greenbelt addition, given that it has offered little rationale for its decision.

“It doesn’t seem to follow what would be logical environmental boundaries for including in the Greenbelt,” Mr. Brennan said.

Caught in the middle is Des Layland, whose family owns a 149-acre property in the newly designated Greenbelt area. There is already a late-19th-century farmhouse, a barn, a couple of sheds, and the crumbling foundations of an older farmhouse there.

He had hoped one day to apply for a small severance to build an extra house on the land for children from the next generation of the family, as many of his neighbours have already done.

“I feel we’ve been sideswiped. There was no reason to extend the Greenbelt to here, except for the now-withdrawn Greenbelt removal,” Mr. Layland said in an interview.

Mr. Ford’s government has reversed a number of its key decisions after public outcries, including the Greenbelt carveouts. Just a few months ago, when Mr. Ford was still defending his Greenbelt carveouts, he compared the imposition of the protected area on landowners to something out of “Communist China and North Korea.”

But asked if the government would reconsider the expansion of the Greenbelt in Erin, Alexandru Cioban, a spokesperson for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, said the legislation passed to restore the Greenbelt now only allows future changes via a “transparent process” with legislative approval.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who represents the nearby riding of Guelph, has long called for the protection of the entire ecologically important Paris Galt Moraine, which encompasses more than 20,000 hectares and stretches about 130 km northeast from Brantford to Erin.

But Mr. Schreiner said he also empathizes with landowners in Erin caught up in what he says is an arbitrary process: “This is exactly why you need a science-and-evidence-based decision around what Greenbelt boundaries are, and not just some back-of-the-napkin decision.”