The PenOpticon

The Toronto Star’s Catherine Porter has written a lovely catalogue of the global warming horrors that await Toronto and the GTA in the coming decades: drought, flash floods, algal blooms, power shortages, water shortages, mosquito-borne disease… you get the idea.  My only quibble is that nowhere does Porter acknowledge that all of these problems will be exacerbated by population growth and development.  Prosperity in Ontario is fueled by population growth and that population is rapidly pushing east, west and north around the Golden Horseshoe. The Ontario government has decreed that four million additional souls will feed off this land over the next 25 years. God knows how many of us will be sustained in 2050.

This growth will come largely because of federal immigration policy which is slated to admit some 300,000 immigrants per year.  As a Queen’s University study notes “Immigration has become the central dynamic in both population and labour force growth in Canada.”  The authors of this study explain that in the late 1980’s Canadian immigration policy moved away from setting immigration levels to match short-run economic conditions.  Instead, our government now takes  an optimistically long view of things and ignores current unemployment and economic performance when setting immigration targets.  I would add that the feds also ignore environmental factors and the carrying capacity of the land when setting these levels.

Instead, the problem of where to house those extra four million bodies has been downloaded to Ontario.  And Ontario, with dubious wisdom, has cranked out the “Places to Grow” plan. This “plan” is really more like a menu that details how the southern half of this province will be carved up and served to developers. I ranted over the folly of this plan a while back, and groups such as the Neptis Foundation have found their own faults with it.  They point out that Ontario’s Places to Grow plan:

1. Does not contain measures that would result in the better, more productive development of currently unbuilt areas within urban boundaries, nor in significantly increased re-urbanization of the built-up areas of the region.
2. Does not provide strong protection for environmentally sensitive lands not associated with the Greenbelt. Much stronger policies are needed in a growth management plan.
3. Does not protect agricultural land across the whole region. The proposed policies retain the standards currently in force, which have failed to protect farmland.
4. May not decrease automobile use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the plan’s support for transit, complementary measures to reduce automobile dependence are not included.
5. Contains few specifics on how success will be tracked and measured.

Even the Neptis critique, while it makes valid points, never questions the fundamental assumption that Ontario’s population needs to grow significantly beyond current levels.  Of course, the issue of immigration — since the majority of Canadians are immigrants or the children of immigrants — is a touchy one. But it is an issue that must be addressed if we are to make real progress in reducing our environmental footprint in order to ensure long-term survival and a decent life for our children.

Development, Environment, Toronto Neptis, Ontario Places to Grow

If you happen to live in an urban area, you probably walk, cycle or drive by a stormwater retention pond almost every day. If you are not sure, just look for a medium-sized, murky body of water surrounded by a few acres of grass and geese (and the requisite industrial arrangement of precast stone, shrubs and riverrock).  That’d be the one. Your local retention pond may smell like something leaking from the bottom of a supermarket dumpster, but it plays an important role, catching run-off from roads, parking lots and over-fertilized lawns, and filtering it so that less bad stuff finds its way downstream into rivers and lakes. From the civil engineer’s perspective, these ponds are utilitarian machines, but to the real estate developer they can be a powerful marketing device. "Live with Nature", the developers tell us, and "Ravine Lots Available". Where I live, such signs usually denote nothing more than the fact that a creek or drainage ditch will be allowed to flow behind a row of houses, connecting one storm retention pond to another.

It seems to me that this kind of "life with nature" contributes to an urban idea of the nature world that is simplified, artificially controlled and patently false. It is also sometimes dangerous. Last weekend, two young boys decided to walk across a stormwater retention pond that had partially iced over. After testing the thickness with small stones, they began to cross over. One fell in and the other drowned trying to save him. Was this tragedy caused by a mistaken faith in their own youthful immortality? Or, have we merely created an over-developed urban landscape that makes it impossible for people to viscerally experience the beauty  — and the danger — of a truly natural world?

To further confuse the issue is the fact that stormwater retention ponds actually provide poor habitat for fish and birds.  But beggars can’t be be choosers, so some species try to make a go of it regardless of the water quality.  According to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s manual Stormwater Management Practices (OMOE, 1994), "stormwater ponds should be considered treatment facilities and not a replacement for natural wetlands", but this is exactly what they have become.  Today we went out for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count and found northern and shrike great blue herons, along with the usual suspects, at local retention ponds.  We are supposed to enjoy looking at these ponds, but god help you if you fish or swim or otherwise "use" one of them. After last week’s drowning, the president of the development made this clear in an interview with the Toronto Star:

"This is a very vital pond," said Madden, president of Diral Development Corp. Unfortunately, the increasingly complex array of municipal, provincial and federal approvals required for stormwater retention ponds is forcing developers to landscape these areas to look like parks, he said. "It’s not a lake. It’s not for recreational use. So don’t entice people to go there," he said in an interview today.  "Don’t put walkways around it. Don’t landscape it like it’s part of the parks system. Landscape them with tall grasses to keep people away."

In other words, buy into the "live with nature" marketing dream, but once you move in, just look at "nature" from a safe distance — don’t come near it.  Am I mad to think that this way of living is madness? Am I crazy to question Ontario’s "Places to Grow Plan", which anticipates the population of the GTA will double within 25 years? Am I wrong to think that we have essentially reached the carrying capacity of our own environment?  We’re full up folks, although there appears to be plenty of physical space in which to put people.  This is all the more worrisome when you consider the millions of environmental refugees that are expected to flood into developed countries in the coming decades. By trying to become the lifeboat of the world, will we all drown?

Development, Environment

Yesterday the Green Party of Canada elected Elizabeth May as their new party leader. Given the fatigue that many Canadians feel for the old left-right, liberal-conservative binaries, let’s hope that May will bring something new to Ottawa politics. It would be about time.

After all, here in southern Ontario, there is very little healthy green space left. Conservatives and Liberals alike have encouraged endless growth and watered down laws designed to encourage sustainable land use. With a surging GTA population now living in L.A.-style sprawl, air quality is terrible and we no longer have the capacity to adequately deal with the region’s sewage or the chemical soup we call “storm water”. And let’s not talk about the even bigger issues of global warming and fossil fuel depletion (Harper is certainly trying not to). Liberal and Conservative governments continue to run this country like a pyramid scheme: keep bringing in new bodies to devour resources in order to expand the infrastructure to bring in more bodies to devour resources… The Ontario Liberal “Places to Grow” plan calls for an additional 4.4 million people to move to this region over the next 25 years. Most of this growth is expected to come from immigration and is presented as a fait accompli — although groups such as Immigration Watch Canada are calling for dramatic reductions in immigration intake.

It will be interesting to see how May and the Greens tackle the problem of immigrant-driven growth, given that the current population of Canada may be approaching the carrying capacity of the country. Certainly population will have a major impact on Canada’s ability to meet what ever kind of greenhouse gas emission policy the Harper regime manages to come up with. May has announced she will run in Cape Breton during the next election. She should have more than a fighting chance, given her credentials and the good work she did to get the Feds to relocate residents affected by the Sydney tar ponds. Let’s hope so. Ottawa can use all the political biodiversity it can get.

Canadian Politics, Development

A week ago or so I was bemoaning the loss of a bike lane – an 18-inch strip of pavement that made commuting by bike feel a little safer. Well, it seems I’ve been asleep at the switch. In truth, I’m not allowed anywhere near the switch, but I must have been sleeping ’cause I missed the fact that a number of GTA regions are currently conducting “Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan” studies. As part of this process, the Town of Markham has added 100 Km of urban bike/pedestrian trails over the past year and has plans to connect most schools, libraries and community centres. More power to them. This contrasts with the City of Toronto’s grand plan to add 1000 Km of new bike lanes and trails. With a budget of over 2.5 million dollars, the city managed to add one — yes “1″ — kilometre of new bike path over the past year. Perhaps Toronto City officials are spending too much on the three “C”s: Conferences, Computers and Catering?

In spite of my previous gripes, things may soon get better for cyclists north of Toronto. York Region, is apparently coming to the conclusion that it is not healthy to cede absolute control of the landscape to roads and automobiles. Development in this region has proceeded so quickly that there are areas where walking (never mind cycling) is all but impossible. The Region has now taken a baby step to fix this problem by unveiling its own Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan Study. This was introduced to the public at the end of May, but it is still early days, so it is possible to get involved. If you happen to live here or have cycled the Region’s glacier-made, rolling countryside, then you can provide direct feedback through an online survey.

It’s too easy to be cynical about efforts such as these — especially when you live in a region where the developer has reigned supreme for so many decades. But an expanded network of bike lanes and bike/pedestrian paths is just too important for this region to allow for cynicism. In any case, there are a few reasons to remain optimistic. Cyclists are known to be unusually stubborn and persistent and they rarely give up. Consider the number of Canadians and Americans who cycle coast to coast each year. Or consider the recent attempt to break the world cycling speed record in Casa Grande, Arizona. The recumbent bicycle is the preferred human-powered vehicle for these races in which top spinners sustain average speeds of over 80 Km/hour. The world record-holder, Sam Whittingham, is Canadian from British Columbia and the proprietor of Naked Bicycles, “a custom bicycle and accessory fabrication company based on Quadra Island, B.C.” Are you lobbying for an expanded network of bike lanes, Sam?

Cycling, Development

If you think about it, information technology — particularly word processing and PowerPoint — has had a tremendous effect on the way governments communicate with their citizens. Yesterday we saw a provincial plan for nuclear development and just a day later, the Ontario government released a brand new "Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe". The 54-page document, entitled Places to Grow: Better choices. Brighter future outlines the Province's intentions for the north shore of Lake Ontario. As I read it, much of this document appears to be a cut and paste job, a collection of abstract, touchy feely ideas and political talking points — a vision statement, if you will. The crux of the matter is that over the next 25 years, the area's population is expected — if not encouraged — to grow by close to 4 million people. To accommodate this growth, the plan calls for a series of connected areas of high-density housing and commercial activity. It will also attempt to protect Ontario farmland by using a system of economic rewards and penalties to favour urban intensification instead of sprawl. The grand plan also provides practical information for local governments such as the following advice on the kinds of infrastructure that will be needed:

"Investment in community infrastructure — such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, and affordable housing — should be planned to keep pace with changing needs and to promote more complete communities."

The report's generous use of italics is ironically appropriate, because presumably it will be up to the community to pay for all of this infrastructure. Conveniently, the Places to Grow document makes no mention of the police, fire-fighting and ambulance services that will be required to meet the needs of 4-million additional bodies. It also makes no mention of daycare, mental healthcare and other costly social services. It should also be noted that the word "taxes" is no where to be found in this document. No, this generic, highly abstract, flight of fancy is more concerned with logistical issues such as housing, "moving people" and "moving goods". Ok, so it's a "Vision statement", not a "Growth plan". They had to start somewhere, right? The trouble is, as a vision, Places to Grow provides no indication that growth must also be limited by what the land can bear. It needs to account for the fact that large tracts of land are needed for forests and wildlife that contribute to the overall health of the land. Whatever Places to Grow really is, we have seen similar kinds of announcements in the past. On June 5th, 1973, Premier Bill Davis "boldly" announced the Ontario government would "freeze" development to curb urban sprawl and protect 1.3 million acres of land in order to create a "green strip all around Toronto". In fact, Bill Davis’s “Green Belt” has become a grey belt of industrial complexes which surround highway 407 and the marching lines of power transmission towers which are omnipresent in the north end of Toronto. Today, the reality on the ground is that thousands of acres of agricultural land within Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham are being carved up for "traditional" low-density housing. Those suburaban residents will primarily be commuters — as indicated by the number of new homes with 2 and 3-car garages. To pave the way for this kind of development, York Region has begun to widen a number of outlying arteries, including a stretch of Dufferin street and Major Mackenzie Drive. Dufferin Street between 16th Avenue and Major Mackenzie Dr, Richmond Hill Up until a year ago, this stretch of Dufferin was a tree-lined two-lane road that included bicycle lanes which had been used by commuting and recreational cyclists for many years. To prepare for the sprawling subdivisions which will soon pack both sides of this road, Dufferin has now been widened and the bike lanes have disappeared. West side of Dufferin, south of Major Mackenzie Dr, Richmond Hill The topsoil has long been scraped off. Gas and water mains and a few roads have been installed in preparation for the rapid development of low-density housing that will soon fill this tract of former farmland. Formatting the future As a product of the modern information technology era, the Ontario Plan can be commended for its typography and overall graphical treatment. That's about the best one can say about it. Although it conveys some pretty feelings about preserving farmland and a handful of good ideas, such as tying the development of housing with the creation of local jobs, this plan — if it is actually followed — will acomplish too little too late. Our children are suffering from poor air quality and diminishing water quality now. Too much farmland and natural habitat are being destroyed now. This document is based on the illusion that an ever-growing population can be shoehorned into a finite patch of land — with finite resources — in a way that is sustainable.

Development, Environment