Is it the 'Wild West approach to planning"?

Caledon rezones land for development despite local, provincial concerns

- NOOR JAVED

Mayor Annette Groves defended the controversial vote, saying said all “third-party comments” about the planning process had been received and thus there was “no planning need to wait until later in the year.”

With just one vote, Caledon’s mayor and council approved 11 developments with open-ended zoning — including some that will double the town’s housing stock in the next 20 years and cut through sensitive Greenbelt lands — despite widespread criticism from residents, the region of Peel and even the province, who all expressed concerns about the rushed process and the feasibility of the developments. Last Tuesday’s vote also raised fears among critics and experts who say the Ford government’s overhaul of the provincial planning process has created a “Wild West” system, where developments can be approved with little oversight or study, and without a development application to inform residents of what will be built right next door.

Many of the developments approved by Caledon council include single-family homes, but they also zoned the land for dozens of other “mixed-use purposes” ranging from daycare to funeral homes to grocery stores.

“It’s madness,” said Cheryl Connors, a member of the local citizens group Democracy Caledon. “They gifted the developers with the future of Caledon. The public is now cut out of the process; the residents will have no say in what those communities will look like, because they are already zoned.”

Connors said five of the properties that were zoned didn’t even have applications, and were simply “based on conversations” with planning staff.

Phil Pothen, with the eco-advocacy group Environmental Defence, says the Caledon vote could only have happened because of the province’s systematic dismantling of the planning process, including changes to minimum density requirements and the removal of checks and balances such as the input of conservation authorities.