Boundary decisions pending

A crucial council meeting on whether to expand the urban area onto farmland is set for Monday October 25. It is promising to put residents, councillors and city planning staff in difficult situations partly of their own making but also greatly exacerbated by the recent interference of Ontario’s progressive conservative government led by Doug Ford.

Multiple items on the boundary expansion issue that normally would be examined in separate meetings have been piled onto this single agenda as planning staff respond to tight timelines set by the province. Untangling and making sense of these items, even before any decisions are made about them, will sharply limit community involvement although nearly 30 delegation requests have already been submitted for the meeting.

The agenda includes the first formal opportunity for council to receive and discuss last July’s public survey where more than 18,000 residents voted over 90 percent for the “no urban boundary expansion” option. That result stands in direct opposition to the recommendations by city planning staff to convert thousands of acres of prime farmland into residential subdivisions over the next three decades. October 25 will reveal whether or how planning staff and council will respond to this massive public endorsement.

The meeting will also receive a peer review of the Lorius and Associates consultant report filed late last year that argued a boundary expansion is absolutely required. The integrity of the peer review process has been called into question because Lorius filed an “update” after the review was ordered but before it has been released (or perhaps even written).

The Lorius update is dated July 21, while the public survey was underway, and contends that the no boundary expansion option strongly favoured by the public is impossible. His update was then forwarded to the province without first being provided to councillors. It only became public as an attachment to the letter from the province last month that caused an uproar at the most recent council meeting.

Further discussion on that provincial letter that states that the no boundary option does not conform with provincial rules has also been referred to the October 25 meeting. The letter was criticized by several councillors as bullying and interference in the city’s decision-making. It was also denounced by the provincial NDP and subsequently defended by Donna Skelly, Hamilton’s only Progressive Conservative MPP.

October 25 is also the meeting when a first formal staff report comparing the expansion and no expansion options will be unveiled. It is being prepared by Dillon Consulting and promises to use ten criteria to decide which of the two options is best. Citizens tore into the report’s ‘evaluation framework’ when it suddenly was released in early August without public input and got council to order a ten day comment period. It has not been revealed whether the public input resulted in changes to the framework.

On top of all this, city planning staff will submit their final recommendations for the growth strategy at this meeting, and seek council agreement to circulate this to the public and the provincial government. They contend that this aggressive schedule is required to meet the Ford government’s deadlines which they say requires an absolute final decision by council no later than February.

The provincial deadlines effectively demand that Hamilton and other municipalities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe from Durham region to Niagara decide before next June’s provincial election exactly how much urban expansion will be needed for the next 30 years and also submit official plan amendments to immediately add all these lands. Both Hamilton and other municipal councils have objected to the timelines.

The provincial pressure to open more farmland and rural areas to residential and commercial development is taking place across the Greater Golden Horseshoe. It involves tens of thousands of acres, including the watersheds of Bronte Creek and Sixteen Mile Creek in Halton region. Because Hamilton is closest to a decision, what happens here may set a pattern across the province.