Ontario Premier Doug speaks during a press conference at Queen's Park in Toronto on Nov. 7.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Amid the controversy over the Ontario government’s proposal to carve up chunks of the protected Greenbelt land for housing development, another raft of land carve outs is being criticized for rewarding specific landowners while doing little to deliver housing in the near term.
On Nov. 4 – the same Friday night it announced plans to redevelop portions of the Greenbelt – The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing released more than a hundred of amendments large and small to several official plans in the Golden Horseshoe region as well as for the City of Ottawa. The amendments addressed a range of provincial priorities but in many cases they included adding thousands of hectares of land to urban boundaries against the will of such councils as Hamilton, Halton and Ottawa. Now, local politicians are questioning whether the changes will positively impact housing affordability.
“Many of the changes were not minor, the amendment the province added in their approval of our plan would add up to 3,300 hectares of land to our urban area. We’re still working to try to understand what the implication of these changes,” said Tom Adams an Oakville city councillor and chair of Halton Region’s planning and public works committee. The region’s infrastructure plans also do not extend to the newly expanded areas, meaning it could be a decade or more before it is able to begin the hugely expensive water, sewer and transportation servicing necessary to build homes there. “The land being contemplated isn’t really required, it’s not going to do anything for in terms of getting more homes built in the next 10 years,” Mr. Adams said.
Inside the plans there were dozens of site-specific changes that in many cases redesignated employment or farmland to community or urban use to allow for housing construction. A search of the land registry shows several long-time PC party donors have interests in a number of sites the ministry favoured in its amendments, and others are owned by land developers who lobbied the government extensively.
In four cases Aird and Berlis lawyer Peter Van Loan – a former federal Conservative Party of Canada cabinet minister – is recorded in the provincial integrity commissioner’s lobbyist registry pitching for a client that obtained a site-specific change to an official plan.
In July, the registry records an entry from Mr. Van Loan describing his lobbying of the Office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), the Office of the Premier and Cabinet Office on behalf of Branthaven Homes. Branthaven has an application in Burlington, Ont., to build eight towers of mixed residential and commercial between 11 and 30 storeys tall on Oval Court that could account for 1,996 housing units. In the Nov. 4 official plan amendments this site was redesignated from employment to urban use.
Since 2018, Steve Stipsits, president and owner of Branthaven, has donated $10,710 to the PC Party of Ontario, including a 2020 donation of $946 to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark’s own Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lake riding association.
Also in July, Mr. Van Loan Lobbied MMAH and MPPs on behalf of Burloak Marketplace. The Burloak site at 3515-3545 Rebecca St., in Oakville was then removed from employment lands designations on Nov. 4. Property records show Starwright Management Inc., purchased the Burloak site for $10,504,865 in 2016 (it has since been transferred to two other related corporate entities for $2 in 2017 and 2018).
In August, Mr. Van Loan lobbied on behalf of Paletta International, and on Nov. 4 several sites controlled by Paletta companies in Burlington were redesignated from employment to urban use. The Paletta family is connected to a number of meat processing businesses and is one of the largest landowners in Burlington; Since 2019 CEO Angelo Paletta has personally donated $7,395 to the PC Party, bundled together with other Paletta family members the donations exceed $22,000.
The registry records that in October Mr. Van Loan lobbied several ministries – Economic Development Job Creation and Trade, MMAH and Transportation – on behalf of Argo TFP, which obtained a site-specific amendment covering 4144 Fourth Line, the site of The Oakville Executive Golf Course. Property records show Argo River Limited Partnership purchased that site for $20-million on Jan. 13, 2022. The CEO of Argo Development Corp. is Gord Buck, who donated $13,251 to Ontario politicians since 2018 (all PC Party with the exception of $1,200 for former Liberal Finance Minister Charles Sousa in 2018).
“The Minister is doing the right thing, by ensuring that these major planning decisions accord with the legal requirements,” Mr. Van Loan wrote in an e-mailed response to a request for comment on his lobbying activity. He said his submissions to the minister were based on a view that both Hamilton and Halton’s official plans failed to meet the standards set by the Province’s Growth Plan. “The fact that both Councils ignored, and overrode, the advice of their own professional planning staff is a pretty clear indication of why the Minister had no choice but to modify the plans to deliver an appropriate quantity and mix of housing,” Mr. Van Loan wrote.
“The Minister has the responsibility to ensure that these plans will maximize housing outcomes for all Ontarians,” Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing spokesperson Melissa Diakoumeas said. “That is why, after careful review of the plans and review of all of the comments received through consultation, the Minister took the necessary action to accommodate the significant growth the province is experiencing.”
Phil Pothen, a land use planning lawyer who is counsel for Environmental Defence, a registered charity and advocacy group, said the number of times Mr. Clark has used his powers over planning in the province to select specific areas for rezoning using the Ministerial Zoning Orders is unprecedented. “They have been picking and choosing particular sites based on who walks in the door. … It’s astounding the arbitrariness that results in this approach to development.”
Mr. Pothen also argues the latest changes seem to have little to do with building more housing sooner.
“Currently there are vast areas in Halton [for example] of existing designated greenfield areas sitting unused for ages,” he said. “What this is, is stacking a vast glut of land on top of an existing glut of land. [The redesignations] multiply the value of that land many times over. … It’s a giant increase in the wealth of people who found these golden tickets.”