Environmental group raises concerns after Ford government fast-tracks development in Innisfil

The Ontario government has issued a ministerial zoning order to allow a development in Innisfil but an environmental group says the project would add to urban sprawl, nearly double the size of the town and lower water quality in Lake Simcoe.

Claire Malcolmson, executive director of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition, said the good news is that development would put a new GO station in Innisfil, but the bad news is that station would not be near existing communities and that would mean more sprawl. 

The development, known as the Innisfil Mobility Orbit, envisions a planned neighbourhood built in concentric circles around the GO station. Commercial and residential properties, with the highest densities — including condo towers —  would be at the centre. 

"I just feel it's not a great fit for the Town of Innisfil," Malcolmson said on Wednesday.

Innisfil, south of Barrie, is on the western shore of Lake Simcoe. The project is to be built on what is now farmland.

"If we really want high density development, then we should putting those into built-up areas, as per the government's own laws in the growth plan, and that would be Barrie and Newmarket. Those are the biggest cities in the area. That's where this kind of development is appropriate," Malcomson said.

According to the municipal affairs and housing ministry, the ministerial zoning order, or MZO, will pave the way for the construction of about 7,000 new homes to support an estimated 16,000 to 21,000 people.

Ministerial zoning orders (MZOs) are a provincial tool — used infrequently before Premier Doug Ford took power in 2018 — by which the government can immediately authorize development, regardless of local rules for land-use planning decisions. Between April and early December of last year, the Ford government had issued 33 of them, more than successive Liberal governments had issued in the previous decade, according to the Ontario NDP.

'The lake is already in trouble' 

Malcolmson said this particular order would nearly double the size of the town.

"I'm no fan of the MZO as a so-called planning tool," she added. "We need to say no to MZOs and we need to push back on this example because the sustainable claims are going to be very difficult to meet."

As for Lake Simcoe, Malcolmson said it's already suffering from the development on its shores.

"I'm really concerned about the impact on the lake. The lake is already in trouble," she said.

"Lake Simcoe seems to be at its max capacity for development impacts, unless we want to just say goodbye to good water quality. It's not a good time to approve something in a way that's as sort of black box as an MZO is."

According to the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, phosphorus, a naturally occurring element, has been a problem in the lake for decades. Excessive phosphorus can threaten native aquatic life, such as cold water fish, according to the Ontario environment ministry.

"We think that the development that is planned for Lake Simcoe could potentially double the amount of phosphorus going into the lake from development and that would move us way farther away from the objective of reducing phosphorus loads," Malcolmson said.

Zoe Knowles, spokesperson for Steve Clark, Ontario's minister of municipal affairs and housing, confirmed in an email on Wednesday that the province has issued a ministerial zoning order for the Innisfil project this week. 

Knowles said the order comes at the request of the Town of Innisfil.

"We are listening to municipalities to hear what they need to address local challenges in their communities," she said.

Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin said on Wednesday that she and town council wholeheartedly support the development.

"We know growth is coming. All we have to do is look to the south of us and we know what's coming," Dollin said. "This is a way of getting that growth more concentrated in one area into a complete community that's walkable."

Dollin said she believes the development will actually cut down on sprawl.

"What do we do? Do we just keep building single family homes and gobbling up more and more land? We know that that's not even financially sustainable, to put all of that infrastructure in the ground and then end up with gobbling up the entire municipality with rows and rows and rows of subdivisions," Dollin said. 

Dollin said the GO train access will be a positive for the environment. She added that the town would never do anything to harm Lake Simcoe.

On its website, the town says the development will create a new community known as the Orbit.

"Living at the Orbit means residents would no longer have to travel to Barrie or Toronto, thanks to a full suite of amenities ... designed for local entrepreneurs and traditional and non-traditional industries, year-round sports and recreational options, arts and culture spaces and more." 

'No justification' for development this size, says NDP

In a letter to Ford Thursday, the MPP for Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas and the NDP's environment critic, Sandy Shaw, said she is deeply concerned about the environmental impact of the MZO and believes it has been issued to bypass critical environmental protections. 

"There is no justification for pushing through a development of this size on the environmentally sensitive Lake Simcoe Watershed without trying to determine and reduce the environmental impact," she said. 

"The people who live in these communities will pay the price if wetlands and farmlands are paved over and infrastructure costs skyrocket."