Bill 23: What You Need to Know
Bill 23 : More Homes Build Faster Act
- Abolishes 50 years of upper tier (regional) planning in most of the Golden Horseshoe
- Restricts 75 years of progressive environmental management and stewardship of Conservation Authorities by removing their mandate for watershed planning
- Reduces developer parkland requirements by 50%
- Limits municipal authorities related to architectural and landscape design
- Limits municipal rental housing protection powers and caps inclusionary zoning requirements for affordable housing units to 5% and 25 years
- Severely weakens municipal heritage protection powers
Bill 39 an affront to democracy
- Allows the Mayor of Toronto and other Heads of Council to pass by-laws with only 1/3 or more council votes
- Repeals the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act which permanently protected about 5,000 acres of land sold at agricultural rather than development land prices by the Harris Government on the promise it would be protected in perpetuity as agricultural and natural land – thus selling out Ontarians investment in the protection of these lands
Greenbelt and Farmland Land Grab
- Removes 7400 acres of land from the Greenbelt Plan – including the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve
- Overrides new official plans adopted by duly elected municipal councils to convert tens of thousands more acres of farmland to urban use – including 5,435 acres and 8150 acres in Hamilton and Halton respectively
- Abolishes the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe .
Undermining Conservation Authorities (CAs)
- Removes “conservation of land” and “pollution” as purposes of the CA Act
- Orders CAs to inventory their landholdings with a view to selling land for housing
- Permits the Minister to require CAs to freezes fees and impose severe restrictions on commenting (under 10 different acts), appeals and permitting
Controversial plan to rebuild Ontario Place
The Government is privatizing a large piece of Ontario Place having entered into a deal with a private company to allow a 10 acre spa under glass while providing $200 million in servicing and site preparation – with recent revelations that it would also contribute $300 million for a 2000 car, 5 storey underground garage – all of which requires the removal of 850 trees and is dependent on high admission fees.