
Greenbelt 2.0? Why Doug Ford's boundary changes in Ottawa and Hamilton could make developers rich
CBC
On the same Friday afternoon last November that Premier Doug Ford's government announced its plan to take certain developers' land out of the Greenbelt, it also made moves that benefited developers who own rural land on the outskirts of Ottawa and Hamilton.
It did so by expanding each city's boundaries, instantly turning certain parcels of agricultural land from rural to urban, opening them up to future housing development and sharply increasing their potential value.
Opposition parties believe these moves have strong parallels with what Ford's government did in selecting 15 parcels of Greenbelt land for housing development, potentially boosting their value by $8.3 billion, until ultimately reversing course last month.
That's prompting calls for investigations into the Hamilton and Ottawa boundary changes, focused on why certain land parcels were picked despite objections from each city council.
"We see some connections … and we want to get to the bottom of it," said NDP Leader Marit Stiles.
Stiles says some of the same developers who stood to benefit from the Greenbelt removals still stand to benefit from the government's expansions of urban boundaries.
"What we suspect has happened here is the system has been rigged by the Conservatives to give certain land speculators preferential treatment on these particular pieces of land," Stiles said in an interview.
Stiles wrote to Ontario's auditor general's office on Friday to request an investigation into the government's expansions of urban boundaries in Ottawa and Hamilton, as well as its changes to other official land-use plans, such as Waterloo, Niagara and York regions.
Revelations from the auditor's August report into how the government selected Greenbelt properties for housing development helped trigger a cascade of resignations and, ultimately, Ford's late September announcement that he's scrapping the plan.
The auditor estimated that the Greenbelt removals boosted the value of previously agricultural land by a factor of at least 10 times.
Both Ottawa and Hamilton city councils want the government to reconsider the boundary changes, and so far the government is refusing.
"The province follows a standard official plan review and amendment process that is open to the public and which has the goal of ensuring municipalities are properly prepared to accommodate growth," Alexandru Cioban, a spokesperson for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, said in an email to CBC News.
"The province has and will continue to take decisive action that ensures municipalities are properly prepared to meet their housing targets and build the homes their residents need," Cioban said.
The government's expansions to Hamilton's and Ottawa's boundaries went against what the two city councils wanted, adding hundreds of more hectares to each city despite concerns that it would encourage sprawl.