Through encounters at an industry event and emails sent by their lawyers, developers successfully lobbied the Ontario government for the removal of environmental protections on land they own in the Greenbelt.
An aerial view of protected farmland in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve in Pickering, Ont., that the provincial government has removed from the Greenbelt to allow housing development.into Ontario's controversial Greenbelt land swap was how a small number of real estate developers were able to use their access to a high-level government staffer to have protected land — some of which was recently purchased — opened up for housing development.
Lysyk found 21 of the 22 sites the team considered for removal were brought to the table by Amato. Only one was identified by the non-political public servants, who signed 93 confidentiality agreements as part of their work.Doug Ford insists Greenbelt swap was made to address housing crisisOntario Premier Doug Ford insists the need for new housing drove the decision to free up some Greenbelt land for development.
One of those encounters took place on Sept. 14, 2022 at the Building Industry and Land Development Association's chair's dinner event. After the BILD event, while the project team was still conducting its work, Amato said that the "developer for the DRAP site" made requests to also remove three additional sites from the protected Greenbelt: a Hamilton, Ont., site owned by Fieldgate Homes, a site in Richmond Hill, Ont., and another in Vaughan, Ont., both of which are owned by Tacc Developments, according to Lysyk's report.
Asked by a reporter at an unrelated news conference on Friday if Amato will be the "fall guy," shouldering all the blame for what the premier has called a "flawed process," Ford replied: "First of all, we're going to follow the recommendations. Duff Conacher, co-founder of advocacy group Democracy Watch, said the Greenbelt removal process violated the public interest.
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