Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark says he fears a decision by the Hamilton Conservation Authority to create a policy to potentially let developers move wetlands will see them lining up to do so.
Authority directors on Nov. 12 directed staff to draft a policy of “last resort” to allow developers to bulldoze wetlands in some cases if they offset the loss by creating similar habitat elsewhere.
Six of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities have such policies and they are designed for instances where “no reasonable alternative exits to locate the development elsewhere,” a staff report stated.
The move to create a policy came in response to a developer’s request to relocate a “low-quality” wetland to make way for a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse in Ancaster’s airport employment growth district.
Clark said a similar Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority “biodiversity offsetting” policy ran into controversy when it supported destroying 13 acres of provincially significant wetland for a massive Thundering Waters development in Niagara Falls.
The ensuing public furor forced a reversal, but only after several politicians who backed the scheme were defeated in the last municipal election, he said.
Clark, one of three HCA board members who opposed creating a Hamilton policy, said allowing wetland relocations “just seems so wildly inconsistent and incongruent” with the authority’s mission.
It also ignores wetlands' importance in regulating water flows and as climate-change carbon sinks, he said, and threatens to return Hamilton to a “1950s mindset” of burying them.
“As soon as you create a policy that enables it, you’re in essence saying you’re permitting it. So, ‘Come to us and we’ll consider your application,’” Clark said.
“If we become that permissive, that we’re willing as a conservation authority to look the other way when it comes to protecting a wetland, I’m not sure we deserve the title.”
Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, who chairs the authority and led the push for a policy, said most authorities in other major urban centres, including in the Greater Toronto Area, allow wetlands to be moved in limited cases.
The Grand River Authority’s last-resort policy, for instance, permitted the Valery Ancaster Business Park by Duff’s Corners to remove a wetland in return for creating a retention pond elsewhere, he said.
Ferguson said the policy will set strict conditions and is needed quickly because the province is proposing changes to the Conservation Authorities Act to let developers appeal permit denials to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.
He said the Ancaster developer’s request to move a wetland at 140 Garner Rd. E. seeks to overcome building limitations on land earmarked for industrial growth to create jobs and tax revenue.
“If they can enhance that wetland and keep it on the same property, then we can give consideration to it, but we don’t want to do them one-off. We want to wait until we get the policy done,” Ferguson said.
“It has to meet a lot of conditions why they can’t leave it in place, and then we’ll give consideration to it and then we’ll come up with a design of how to do it.”
Mike Waddington, a McMaster University expert on wetlands, said he’s not a fan of moving them, whether provincially significant or not, and Ontario has plenty of developable land without doing so.
He said if a wetland is in poor shape, it’s often because development has degraded the surrounding landscape, not because it no longer performs a critical function.
“Wetlands are where they are for a reason. You can’t build a better one if it’s not in the same spot that it used to be,” he said.
“These are ecosystems that punch more than their weight when it comes to the area that they occupy. They are really critical ecosystems between the aquatic and terrestrial landscape.”
Waddington said he’s also discouraged by the province’s plan to let a cabinet minister potentially override conservation authority decisions on development by wetlands.
“Last I saw, our ministers don’t have backgrounds in environmental science,” he said.
Sergio Manchia, consultant for the proposed Garner Road development by Toronto client One Properties, said the wetland is in the middle of the 69-hectare property, “a hole in the doughnut” that makes it virtually impossible to build there.
“We’re not undermining the need and trying to enhance it,” he told authority directors in an October presentation. “We’re just saying let’s slide it over and we have basically a million square feet to build.”
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: We wanted to dig deeper into the HCA’s decision to create a last-resort policy allowing wetlands to be moved.
Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark says he fears a decision by the Hamilton Conservation Authority to create a policy to potentially let developers move wetlands will see them lining up to do so.
Authority directors on Nov. 12 directed staff to draft a policy of “last resort” to allow developers to bulldoze wetlands in some cases if they offset the loss by creating similar habitat elsewhere.
Six of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities have such policies and they are designed for instances where “no reasonable alternative exits to locate the development elsewhere,” a staff report stated.
The move to create a policy came in response to a developer’s request to relocate a “low-quality” wetland to make way for a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse in Ancaster’s airport employment growth district.
Clark said a similar Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority “biodiversity offsetting” policy ran into controversy when it supported destroying 13 acres of provincially significant wetland for a massive Thundering Waters development in Niagara Falls.
The ensuing public furor forced a reversal, but only after several politicians who backed the scheme were defeated in the last municipal election, he said.
Clark, one of three HCA board members who opposed creating a Hamilton policy, said allowing wetland relocations “just seems so wildly inconsistent and incongruent” with the authority’s mission.
It also ignores wetlands' importance in regulating water flows and as climate-change carbon sinks, he said, and threatens to return Hamilton to a “1950s mindset” of burying them.
“As soon as you create a policy that enables it, you’re in essence saying you’re permitting it. So, ‘Come to us and we’ll consider your application,’” Clark said.
“If we become that permissive, that we’re willing as a conservation authority to look the other way when it comes to protecting a wetland, I’m not sure we deserve the title.”
Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, who chairs the authority and led the push for a policy, said most authorities in other major urban centres, including in the Greater Toronto Area, allow wetlands to be moved in limited cases.
The Grand River Authority’s last-resort policy, for instance, permitted the Valery Ancaster Business Park by Duff’s Corners to remove a wetland in return for creating a retention pond elsewhere, he said.
Ferguson said the policy will set strict conditions and is needed quickly because the province is proposing changes to the Conservation Authorities Act to let developers appeal permit denials to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.
He said the Ancaster developer’s request to move a wetland at 140 Garner Rd. E. seeks to overcome building limitations on land earmarked for industrial growth to create jobs and tax revenue.
“If they can enhance that wetland and keep it on the same property, then we can give consideration to it, but we don’t want to do them one-off. We want to wait until we get the policy done,” Ferguson said.
“It has to meet a lot of conditions why they can’t leave it in place, and then we’ll give consideration to it and then we’ll come up with a design of how to do it.”
Mike Waddington, a McMaster University expert on wetlands, said he’s not a fan of moving them, whether provincially significant or not, and Ontario has plenty of developable land without doing so.
He said if a wetland is in poor shape, it’s often because development has degraded the surrounding landscape, not because it no longer performs a critical function.
“Wetlands are where they are for a reason. You can’t build a better one if it’s not in the same spot that it used to be,” he said.
“These are ecosystems that punch more than their weight when it comes to the area that they occupy. They are really critical ecosystems between the aquatic and terrestrial landscape.”
Waddington said he’s also discouraged by the province’s plan to let a cabinet minister potentially override conservation authority decisions on development by wetlands.
“Last I saw, our ministers don’t have backgrounds in environmental science,” he said.
Sergio Manchia, consultant for the proposed Garner Road development by Toronto client One Properties, said the wetland is in the middle of the 69-hectare property, “a hole in the doughnut” that makes it virtually impossible to build there.
“We’re not undermining the need and trying to enhance it,” he told authority directors in an October presentation. “We’re just saying let’s slide it over and we have basically a million square feet to build.”
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: We wanted to dig deeper into the HCA’s decision to create a last-resort policy allowing wetlands to be moved.
Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark says he fears a decision by the Hamilton Conservation Authority to create a policy to potentially let developers move wetlands will see them lining up to do so.
Authority directors on Nov. 12 directed staff to draft a policy of “last resort” to allow developers to bulldoze wetlands in some cases if they offset the loss by creating similar habitat elsewhere.
Six of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities have such policies and they are designed for instances where “no reasonable alternative exits to locate the development elsewhere,” a staff report stated.
The move to create a policy came in response to a developer’s request to relocate a “low-quality” wetland to make way for a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse in Ancaster’s airport employment growth district.
Clark said a similar Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority “biodiversity offsetting” policy ran into controversy when it supported destroying 13 acres of provincially significant wetland for a massive Thundering Waters development in Niagara Falls.
The ensuing public furor forced a reversal, but only after several politicians who backed the scheme were defeated in the last municipal election, he said.
Clark, one of three HCA board members who opposed creating a Hamilton policy, said allowing wetland relocations “just seems so wildly inconsistent and incongruent” with the authority’s mission.
It also ignores wetlands' importance in regulating water flows and as climate-change carbon sinks, he said, and threatens to return Hamilton to a “1950s mindset” of burying them.
“As soon as you create a policy that enables it, you’re in essence saying you’re permitting it. So, ‘Come to us and we’ll consider your application,’” Clark said.
“If we become that permissive, that we’re willing as a conservation authority to look the other way when it comes to protecting a wetland, I’m not sure we deserve the title.”
Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, who chairs the authority and led the push for a policy, said most authorities in other major urban centres, including in the Greater Toronto Area, allow wetlands to be moved in limited cases.
The Grand River Authority’s last-resort policy, for instance, permitted the Valery Ancaster Business Park by Duff’s Corners to remove a wetland in return for creating a retention pond elsewhere, he said.
Ferguson said the policy will set strict conditions and is needed quickly because the province is proposing changes to the Conservation Authorities Act to let developers appeal permit denials to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.
He said the Ancaster developer’s request to move a wetland at 140 Garner Rd. E. seeks to overcome building limitations on land earmarked for industrial growth to create jobs and tax revenue.
“If they can enhance that wetland and keep it on the same property, then we can give consideration to it, but we don’t want to do them one-off. We want to wait until we get the policy done,” Ferguson said.
“It has to meet a lot of conditions why they can’t leave it in place, and then we’ll give consideration to it and then we’ll come up with a design of how to do it.”
Mike Waddington, a McMaster University expert on wetlands, said he’s not a fan of moving them, whether provincially significant or not, and Ontario has plenty of developable land without doing so.
He said if a wetland is in poor shape, it’s often because development has degraded the surrounding landscape, not because it no longer performs a critical function.
“Wetlands are where they are for a reason. You can’t build a better one if it’s not in the same spot that it used to be,” he said.
“These are ecosystems that punch more than their weight when it comes to the area that they occupy. They are really critical ecosystems between the aquatic and terrestrial landscape.”
Waddington said he’s also discouraged by the province’s plan to let a cabinet minister potentially override conservation authority decisions on development by wetlands.
“Last I saw, our ministers don’t have backgrounds in environmental science,” he said.
Sergio Manchia, consultant for the proposed Garner Road development by Toronto client One Properties, said the wetland is in the middle of the 69-hectare property, “a hole in the doughnut” that makes it virtually impossible to build there.
“We’re not undermining the need and trying to enhance it,” he told authority directors in an October presentation. “We’re just saying let’s slide it over and we have basically a million square feet to build.”
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: We wanted to dig deeper into the HCA’s decision to create a last-resort policy allowing wetlands to be moved.