Your Greenbelt controversy questions answered

The months-long Greenbelt controversy plaguing the Ontario government made waves this week following Steve Clark's resignation Monday as municipal affairs and housing minister.

In the days since, Paul Calandra has replaced Clark, the province has announced plans for a review, and that review could mean even more land removed from protected areas to develop homes.

CBC has received many audience questions about the ongoing situation. Here's what you wanted to know:

Why is this being referred to as a land swap? 

The Greenbelt is a vast 810,000-hectare area of protected farmland, forest and wetland stretching from Niagara Falls to Peterborough. It's meant to be permanently off limits to development.

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The reason the government's Greenbelt plans are being called a land swap is because when the original decision was made in December 2022 to remove 2,995 hectares of protected lands to build housing, there were also 3,804 hectares added to the Greenbelt elsewhere.

The province has to offset removals from the Greenbelt because the Greenbelt Act prohibits an overall reduction in protected area. The province added 13 new river valley areas and lands in the Paris Galt Moraine, a unique landform northwest of Toronto. 

"Ostensibly, the goal is to provide developers with an opportunity to develop land currently in the Greenbelt," said Chris Cochrane, an associate professor and interim chair of the department of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

At the same time, Cochrane said the goal is to add lands to the Greenbelt that are "less suitable for development" — meaning it could be difficult to implement infrastructure like sewers, water or electricity.

But, "the ultimate implementation of that plan didn't actually transpire as it was supposed to," he said.

As Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk revealed in her report, a small number of real estate developers used access to a high level staffer — Clark's former chief of staff Ryan Amato — to get the land they wanted opened up. 

Instead of assessing the infrastructure availability of potential sites, the team of bureaucrats making selections simply checked if they were adjacent to an already developed area, according to Lysyk's report.

Plus, environmental advocates say simply swapping Greenbelt lands defeats the purpose of the Greenbelt. But we'll get to that next.

Why is the government doing this on the Greenbelt when other lands are available? 

In February 2022, a provincially commissioned housing task force found a shortage of land is not Ontario's issue when it comes to creating more housing. 

"Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts. We need to make better use of land," the report read. 

This is something Ford has been asked about repeatedly, but he maintains the advice doesn't apply today because the province's population has grown since. 

"You keep repeating the message," he said to a reporter on Aug. 11. "I'm going to repeat our message: That was 19 months ago, 19 months ago."

According to Ontario's first demographic quarterly of 2023, in the 12 months leading up to April 1, 2023, the province's population increased by 504,618. The prior year's growth was significantly slower, per the quarterly, with only 222,396 new people.

The task force recommended Ontario meet its housing targets by increasing density in neighbourhoods with single-family homes. 

About two months after the task force's report, the Ford government released a new housing plan that didn't include that recommendation. 

"I value the task force report. I think they put some very bold ideas forward," Clark, then minister, told reporters at the time. "Perhaps the recommendations were a bit too bold for some communities."

Politically, Cochrane says that strategy can be a challenge. 

"That can obviously cause a lot of opposition from people who don't want higher levels of density in their neighbourhoods," he said. 

Plus, he said, the province is almost entirely reliant on the private sector to build its new homes. And, as Lysyk's report revealed, developers were intent on unlocking Greenbelt lands. 

"If developers don't feel that they are in a position to profit sufficiently from the development of land, they won't build houses on it," Cochrane said. 

We're in a housing crisis, can't we build on the Greenbelt and then protect more land?

This question ties back to the purported vision of the Greenbelt land swaps. But as mentioned, environmental advocates say that wouldn't work. 

"The whole idea of adding other land to the Greenbelt is a bit of red herring," said Phil Pothen, Ontario program manager with advocacy group Environmental Defence. That's because the Greenbelt is supposed to permanently protect the land that's under the greatest threat of development, he said.

Victor Doyle, who led the development of the Greenbelt plan nearly 20 years ago, said it's protections were never meant to be swapped. 

"Legislation talks about the Greenbelt never getting smaller, which has been misinterpreted to allow or provide the basis for the government to take land out in one place and move it to another," he said.

Taken to its extreme, Doyle said the Greenbelt could stay the same size but keep moving, which would impact the region's environmental sustainability.

Environmental advocates and critics of the land swaps have previously told CBC Toronto that protected lands provide many species with space to live and migrate, and that developing on the Greenbelt will create more car-dependent communities — something experts say can undermine green innovation meant to cut greenhouse emissions. 

How does the government define affordable housing? And will the greenbelt developments include them? 

How the provincial government defines affordable housing depends on which document you're looking at. The definition matters because developers rely on it to access discounts and exemptions.

In the 2020 Provincial Policy Statement, which provides direction on matters related to land use planning and development, it's described in multiple ways.

For owning, it's the cheaper of two options: 

• A price that ensures someone is paying no more than 30 per cent of their household's yearly income on their housing, if they're in a low- or moderate-income home. 
• Housing that costs 10 per cent less than the average price in the area.

For renting, it's also the cheaper of two options: 

• Rent that is at most 30 per cent of someone's yearly household income, if they're in a low or moderate income home. 
• Rent that's at or below the average in the area.

However, in a 2022 bill, affordable housing for renters is defined as any rent capped at 80 per cent of average market rent, while affordable housing for homeowners is defined as any cost of purchase less than 80 per cent of the average price. 

Prior to his resignation, Clark had said he planned to update the provincial definition this fall. A spokesperson for his replacement, Calandra, said the ministry intends to propose changes to the provincial definition of affordable housing that would tie affordability to income, bringing it in line with the 2020 policy statement. 

The spokesperson said the ministry expects "at a very minimum" that 10 per cent of homes built on former Greenbelt lands be affordable. 

"If these expectations are not met, the lands will be returned to the Greenbelt," Victoria Podbielski said.