Several thousand acres of development are being pushed on a region that barely has capacity to support growth that’s been planned for years.
It’s hard for Brigitte Sopher to reconcile what she sees when she drives by the community of Seaton with the vision sold to Pickering residents more than a decade ago., promised to be one of the largest residential and commercial developments in Canadian history — a “walkable, transit-supportive community,” according to Pickering’s website, surrounded by nature, that would eventually accommodate up to 70,000 new residents.
To critics, Seaton is what they fear the future could look like in Durham Region as it faces a massive amount of growth being pushed on it by the province through the opening of 4,500 acres of Greenbelt lands, requests for minister’s zoning orders by local politicians, and an urban boundary expansion of 9,100 acres — at a time when the region barely has capacity to support growth that’s been planned for years.
“We don’t have capacity of water or sewage for what we want to build now,” he said, adding that for the second phase of Seaton, which is supposed to accommodate 22,600 people, “we aren’t even close.” Sjogren said the “relatively slow uptick in permits since then” was a result of how long it took to build the infrastructure, such as roads, water treatment plant expansion, water mains and utilities.
“If the Ford government has mandated that the DRAP be developed for 50,000 homes, does that mean that the region is provincially mandated to give unplanned, unserviced, un-scoped land priority over all the ones they have already done work on?” said Parish. “Developments will require planning approvals from the municipality and the province will require that environmentally sensitive areas are set aside and protected before any construction begins,” said Victoria Podbielski, spokesperson for Housing Minister Steve Clark, in an email, adding that “our commitment remains that if these projects do not move forward within the next two years then these lands will be returned to the Greenbelt.
But in an email to the Star this month, Bridgeman said the region will be giving priority to DRAP, “but not at the expense of other lands already in the development pipeline.” Henry said in addition to servicing costs, municipalities also must pay for transit, waste services, schools and health care. With changes in the recent housing bill that cut development charges, the region is estimating a shortfall of $280 million over the next five years, he added.
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