Bill 23 (continued from page 27)
• Lowering, to the point of almost an absence in the most intensely developed urban areas, the requirement for a developer to dedicate park space. • Changes to the Development Charges Act that will impact the ability for a municipality to fund new park investments For many decades, planning policy in Ontario has been based on the principle of growth paying for growth, and that parks are as fundamentally important to community as roads, recreation services and waste water pipes. Therefore, growth should both provide land and space for parks, and contribute toward the development of these spaces. Earlier changes by the provincial government seemed to have supported this – driven by changes by Bill 108 in 2019, Development Charges were increased for soft services, including parks, and a requirement for new Parkland Dedication Bylaws and Parks Plans was created, to be met by September 2022 for municipalities to define what their communities need for parks were. The Planning Act has always contained limits – limits on what was ‘reasonable’ to expect development to contribute. For land, this was in the Planning Act, and a decade or so ago had been reduced once before; the current proposal halves once more, the limits within the Planning Act. For Development Charges, sufficiency for future communities could not exceed the historic service level provided for those in the past. If a municipality wanted to serve its communities with a higher service level – more parks or more amenities – such a service level increase could never, and was never, able to be supported by development. The reduced limits for parkland are a significant lower than they were; indeed, in some intensification projects in future, there could very well be no publicly owned or operated
park space provided at all – either in cash, or land. Changes to the requirements and caps on both cash in lieu and land requirements mean future communities, particularly those in dense, infill and re-development intensification areas, will be served with negligible land space. While communities and municipalities can, as before, deliver a service level that is higher than the legislated minimums, this shifts the cost from development, to tax payers. Growth will no longer pay for growth to a service level equitable with past practice, but a new, lower service level. COVID 19 and more than 20 years of working in parks and open spaces have shown me the incredible value people and community place on parks and the demand for these spaces, more acute than ever. I have also seen the social value they bring – and the social challenges that are encountered when parks and open spaces are absent. We will only truly know the impacts of this new, lower provision of parks in a generations time, but I fear that this will erode a sense of community and lead to urban landscapes that do not meet the needs of residents at best, and at worst, will see increasing social isolation and fracture. • Changes to who can define ‘suitable’ park space • Changes to what can be used to meet park space needs Historically, municipalities have been able to determine what is a ‘park’ in their community, supported by the Planning Act. Through Official Plans and Parks Strategic Plans, municipalities have frequently indicated that land, to be considered a parkland dedication, must come to public ownership, and should be functionally able to be used as a park without restriction – i.e. it should have good soils, be reasonably level so it can have amenities added and should be free of encumbrances that might limit its use as a park. When a developer dedicates land, it should be land that is needed by the municipality to Musings Winter 2022 (continued from page 4)
…/29
The Green Sward – Winter 2022
Page 28
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online