The Decibel - Your Ontario Greenbelt questions, answered

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Ever since Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would open up parcels of land in the environmentally protected Greenbelt, there’s been drama. From revelations of developers having ties to the Ford government, to probes from Ontario’s auditor-general and integrity commissioner, to resignations including one from Ford’s cabinet.With all the twists and turns of this story, we wanted to answer questions listeners have about what’s going on with this land. Today on the show, The Globe’s Ontario provincial politics reporter, Jeff Gray joins us to answer your burning Greenbelt questions.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

So you've been following this closely. How would you describe the Greenbelt saga? What's the word to use? I mean, one of my words I'm using lately is banana pants. It is just crazy and it seems to get crazier and crazier. And in addition to all the allegations that have come up from it, you know, it is just it's bewildering that how this could have all happened the way it did. Bewildering and banana pants. Great. Let's get into this.

By now, you're probably familiar with the Greenbelt. The large swath of protected land in Southern Ontario has stirred up a lot of controversy over the past year. So the ignition on this really starts in November of 2022, when, surprise, the government announces that they are going to break repeated promises they'd made over the previous four years and open up part of the Greenbelt to development in the name of building more housing. Jeff Gray is the Globe's Ontario Provincial Politics Reporter, and he's been covering this story extensively. It was then revealed that some of the developers that benefited from these Greenbelt extractions

were large donors to Mr. Ford's Progressive Conservative Party. There were also allegations of developers attending his daughter's wedding, a pre-wedding stag and doe party. And the opposition asks for the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner to investigate. The Auditor General said it was biased. It favored certain developers. The bonus for the developers, the lucky developers that were involved in this process was $8.3 billion at the minimum.

So the result of that is we end up with the chief of staff, Ryan Amato, he resigns. And we then, after vowing to stay on, the housing minister, Steve Clark, he also resigns. And then on Wednesday, MPP Khalid Rashid also resigned from the PC caucus. The twists and turns of this story had us wondering whether you, our listeners, had questions. And you did. So today, we're dedicating this episode to all the Greenbelt questions you sent in. And Jeff is here to help us make sense of it all. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms,

and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Jeff, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. We have a lot of listener questions here, Jeff, so let's just jump right in. And I want to start with one that looks at the really broad strokes of the story. So the question is, what are the potential positive and negative facts and effects that would come from the Green Belt opening up? So Jeff, can you just lay out why the government says it wants to open the Green Belt and what the argument against it is? So the government repeats, you know, the premier and his new housing minister,

his old housing minister, that the line they repeat is, we have a housing crisis. I don't think anybody debates that. Housing is very, very expensive. It's very hard for people to buy homes. Rent is spiking, and it's a serious situation with large consequences. So they say that we can build 50,000 homes on the Greenbelt on this land, which is a small, it's a small portion of the larger green belt the green belt is 800 000 hectares we're talking about 3 000 under 3 000 hectares the government has this goal it says we need to build 1.5 million homes uh by 2031 okay uh now uh few problems with that one is there were reports uh multiple detailed expert reports that show that Ontario already has enough land earmarked for

housing to meet its housing goals. A couple of reports suggesting that we have 1.5 million homes, 2 million homes, already enough land to do that. Okay. So the government says housing crisis, we need this land to build. But the counter to that is we have other land already earmarked for building that we can use instead. Right, right. The premier suggested the Greenbelt's a scam. It's something out of North Korea. Once you show that you're willing to open up the Greenbelt, land prices in the Greenbelt will also start to go up because speculators will buy more land thinking that two years from now, maybe we'll get more land out.

And so that undermines the way the thing works. Okay. We've got lots of other questions about the land here. I just want to ask about the environmental impact of this because we talk a lot about the Greenbelt, but the purpose of it really was to preserve this area, right? So there was a question, how many of these removed properties interfere with wildlife corridors or key streams, rivers, and aquifers? So basically the environmental impact. That has not been talked about as much. It has been an issue with the largest chunk, which was called the Duffins Rouge Agricultural

Preserve. It's east of Toronto and Durham region. Most of the land we're talking about is actually in that area. And it was preserved for farming, but it is right next to the Rouge National Park, a federal national park. And Parks Canada and the environment minister, the federal environment minister,

have raised concerns and are doing studies about the impact of development on land right next door and how that will affect the goals of the park to preserve wildlife. The minister has actually threatened to block development if he thinks it will harm endangered species and that whole thing. You know, wildlife corridors, all that stuff is all a live issue there. Okay. I mean, the Greenbelt had three purposes, really. Preserve farmland, contain sprawl, you know, let's build more densely, and the environmental sensitive wildlife, aquifers, all that stuff is also a piece of it.

OK. All right. That gives us some context. One listener wants to know about consultation with First Nations and they say this is significant and in the public interest as part of reconciliation with First Nations. Jeff, how were First Nations involved in this process? Were the people consulted? So not at all. And the Auditor General's report, I think, wraps the government's knuckles for that. With the controversy kind of rolling, the new housing minister and the premier have said, we're going to review the entire Greenbelt. The Greenbelt requires a 10-year review. And they say that they will consult First Nations in that review.

But they also say that review could see them take more land out of the Greenbelt. So they're going through it all and naturally looking it all over. It's a double down on it for sure, yeah. Let's talk about the land here again. So an Ontario Auditor General's report released in August said landowners of the 15 sites that were removed could see their value increase by $8.3 billion. And a listener wants to know, what was the value of the land prior to the original Greenbelt announcement? What do we know about that, Jeff? So $8.3 billion is how much more money the developers are getting based on what the land was worth before the Greenbelt was opened up and

after. So it's not the total amount. It's the uplift. It's the bonus they're getting. Most of this land is owned by private landowners. So it's not actually public land, most of it. None of it is. I mean, there are some public lands in the Greenbelt, but the land we're talking about is all owned by private individuals. But in the 1970s, the Ontario government expropriated a whole bunch of land and they wanted to build

sort of the community of the future or something or whatever. And they also wanted to preserve a large chunk of it for farmland. They agreed to sell it back to the farmers starting in 1999, in the early 2000s, on the condition that it was to be agricultural forever. This is even before the Greenville. And so they sold it back at very low prices. When land is zoned for agricultural, it's worth a lot, lot less than if it's zoned for houses or factories or whatever. So that land, much of it has ended up in the hands of developers who also got it at low prices. But now, because it's not greenbelt anymore and it's not preserved for agriculture anymore,

it's worth way, way, way more. We have a few questions about what's actually planned for the land here. One listener wants to know, what kind of housing is being planned for land extracted from the greenbelt? We don't know. It will depend on each site. And the reason we don't know is the plans are being drawn up behind closed doors in discussions with this arm of the provincial government, municipalities, and the developers. But you said the government says about 50,000 houses is what they imagine.

They gave a 50,000 number. That's a rough estimate. They've promised complete communities. They've said that the developers will have to pay for a lot more of the infrastructure than they would normally pay for. They're talking, you know, schools and roads. And the new minister of housing has said that he'll tell us when the deals are done, we'll get to see those deals by the end of the year, he said. But these are detached houses and these are not apartment buildings. Well,

I think it's going to be, it's going to be a mix. I think a lot of what the industry is building now is, yeah, is sort of townhouses that call them stacked townhouses that, but you can't just put a high rises in the middle of what's now a farmer's field with no transit, no roads.

They've also said that the 10% will be attainable slash affordable. The government's not defined what either of those terms mean in this context. And so we don't know what shape that will take. Okay. This actually kind of leads well into the next question here because someone is asking about timelines. One person wrote to us saying, is it not possible to build more affordable homes with better access to transit and all infrastructure required? If homes are built where there is already transit and infrastructure, could homes not be built faster? That is the argument many people make. And this is getting a bit beyond the green belt issue, more the the problem of resistance from residents that are already there and and city councils that are are representing them you know the nimby problem but i mean to be

fair the government is also imposing large densities on top of transit stations in existing communities as well. But this is an interesting point though, because if we're talking about like farmer's fields, like there's no, I guess, sewage system transit, like there's none of that, right? That's the whole problem. So the way this was sold was we're going to find spots on the Greenbelt we can develop really fast.

They've set aggressive timelines. They said it's got to be, we've got to have significant progress on approvals, whatever that means, by the end of this year. And we've got to have shovels in the ground by the end of 2025. And so the government believed that there were lands on the Greenbelt because developers told them there were evidently that they could do housing quickly. But as the Auditor General's report has revealed, and the Integrity Commissioner's report as well chimes in on this, the process was done so quickly,

and it was driven by this one political staffer, that they didn't really have a lot of information. In fact, criteria that they had set for examining these suggested lands about servicing, you know, their pipes, their roads, and can we get it done quickly? And also, is it environmentally sensitive? All that criteria was either altered or scrapped completely because there either wasn't time to evaluate the land properly

or these lands wouldn't have passed any of those tests. Or they also made the bureaucrats working on this sign non-disclosure agreements. So they couldn't ask other experts. They couldn't ask the municipalities, hey, can you guys get this land ready quickly if we put it out the greenbelt? So subsequently, of course, the Durham region said this large plot of land, the Duffins Rouge lands that we were talking about earlier, one estimate to build out that whole area with the proper infrastructure would take 25 years.

Wow. So this is a really interesting point here, because the whole idea of building here seems to be the government wants to get houses built fast. But if you have to start from scratch like this, yeah, of course it would take a long time. time now there is a part of that land that can be done more quickly with existing uh infrastructure uh and it's about 1200 homes but that's a lot less than the 30 000 that they promised for that chunk and that 30 000 is a big chunk of the 50 000 that they've said that they'll get on the green belt we'll be back in a minute. All right, so we've talked about the land itself, Jeff, but let's get into the political controversy surrounding this Greenbelt saga. A central figure of this part of the story is Ryan Amato. He was the chief of staff of the housing minister, previous housing minister, Steve Clark. In August, that Auditor General report that was released said that Amato handpicked all but one parcel of land that was ultimately removed from

the Greenbelt. So, Jeff, you've been covering Ontario politics for a while now. How exactly was this process done? And is that how you would expect this kind of decision to be made? Okay, so no. That is, I think, the heart of this thing that has been so bizarre, is that the way this all went down is that the premier in a mandate letter, which is the sort of letter you give your cabinet ministers and tell them what you want them to do, which the government has been fighting to keep secret. In that mandate letter, which we know about because of the integrity commissioner's report, the premier asked housing minister Steve Clark to look at ways, processes to remove, swap land from the

Greenbelt, despite, of course course them having promised not to touch the greenbelt and the premier's office also hires this fellow ryan amato to be steve clark's chief of staff and the entire task according to these two reports is basically left with mr amato and he ends up meeting with developers at an industry banquet, in one case, where two prominent developers give him their proposals in envelopes for what land they would like removed from the Greenbelt. But this always blows my mind when I hear this, though. We're talking about an industry banquet and then envelopes, essentially, of information is what's being exchanged here. Right. And we have a political staffer in charge of a process. There were some bureaucrats involved.

We know that the criteria that had been set out was scrapped. And the lands that he put forward, all but one of them were lands he put forward, ended up being removed from the Greenbelt. So you have a politically driven process is what these watchdog reports have said um and uh you know normally you would think if you were making a decision that a could make a bunch of people eight billion dollars in profits overnight um at b was a huge uh centerpiece of of what your government was now doing in the middle of this housing crisis you might think that would be the process would be a little different maybe you'd have a bunch of experts or you'd have it would take a while you might have hearings you might let if you did want to would be the process would be a little different. Maybe you'd have a bunch of experts or you'd have, it would take a while. You might have hearings. You might let, if you did want to open up the green belt,

you might let people who have lands apply publicly. So they would know, I mean, that's the center of, of, of what the auditor general got at that. This process was biased because not everybody knew to slip their envelope to Ryan Amato.

Only certain developers did. And other developers, you know, there's, there's seven or 800 longstanding requests, six, 700, maybe from people, municipalities, developers that wanted lands taken out of the greenbelt. Well, they didn't get their shot, did they? Wow. So this whole process, like it does really center around this guy, Ryan Amato. And as you

said, he's a staffer. And usually these decisions do not fall to political staffers. He worked for the housing minister, not directly with the premier's office. And the premier, Doug Ford, has repeatedly said he was unaware of Mr. Amato's selection process. But a listener did ask us, Jeff, has possible communication between the premier's staff and Ryan Amato been investigated?

Well, I mean, the Auditor General's report and the Integrity Commissioner's report go through all that. They interviewed a whole bunch of witnesses. And, you know, this is what they've come up with, that for the premier to not be involved in the details of it is one thing. For the housing minister to not be involved in the details of this centerpiece policy is is another thing entirely and that's why we ended up with steve clark resigning when the integrity commissioner concluded that he had broken queens park's ethics rules by failing to oversee this process you should have been involved that was the uh he's the minister he's responsible there and so we so and of course ryan amato's also resigned. So we have two resignations that have come out of this.

The reports that we're talking about, were there any, I guess, direct links to the premier? Well, the only direct links are that the premier's office hired Amato, made him the chief of staff to to the housing minister. Is that normal? That is not uncommon, but Steve Clark said he was involved in the hiring of some of his previous chief of staff. Okay. And then you have the mandate letter. The mandate letter only says something to the effect of look at processes

to codify how we would remove land, swap land from the Greenbelt. It doesn't say go and get land out of the Greenbelt right now, but that's how it was interpreted, and that's what ended up happening. Wow. Okay, so as a result, we've had these resignations. We've also had the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police, referring the matter to the RCMP for investigation, right?

So there is more to come here potentially. All right, another person, Jeff, asks, now that we have two reports identifying flaws in this process, is it not possible to reverse the transactions and hold all developments on these parcels of land for now? Oh, it's possible. And the opposition has asked for that. But the government has shown no indication they want to do that. The closest they've come to that is they promised this review. I mean, nothing's being built right now. We're still in these closed-door talks to determine how much the developers are going to contribute to the infrastructure and what's going to be built.

So we're still in that. And the government has said, even though they're doing this review, they still want shovels in the ground on these plots of land by the end of 2025. But they said if the review determines that some of this land should go back in the greenbelt, they would put it back in. Okay. Another listener asks,

hi, they greeted us. So I noticed on the map that there is a lot of land around the greenbelt that doesn't seem to have buildings. Why don't you just build there instead? Just wondering. Well, yes. I mean, that is,

if we're talking about the land inside the greenbelt, we're talking about what people sometimes call the White Belt. Because on the map, the Greenbelt's green. The built-up areas of Toronto and its suburbs are yellow often. So the White Belt is farmland that's not protected. And that is where development has been occurring uh uh for decades okay um and that's where uh a lot of experts say there's plenty of land to build on that you don't need to go into the greenbelt that said um there's also a lot of people who say we should preserve as much of that land as we can for farming. And we want to keep communities compact.

We'd like to not have this sprawl problem, which is hard to service with transit, means everyone has to drive. Now, the government, in fact, forced municipalities in some cases move to expand the amount of white belt that it wants to build on for housing. In fact, the numbers of hectares that it did in that case dwarfs the amount they've added of green belt land. I mean, they have expanded massively into building into the white belt already. And that goes back to the experts who say there's plenty of land when we don't need the green belt. You could build on the white belt and not have to touch the greenbelt. Right. Or even better, what a lot of people say, a lot of experts say, we should be building

more inside existing communities. So just to end here, Jeff, what will you be watching as this greenbelt saga continues to unfold? Well, the life of a reporter at Queen's Park starts to get busier because the MPPs all come back and the House reconvenes next week. And so we'll have question period every day. The opposition will be able to raise these and other issues. There's also more integrity commissioner investigations coming about other issues that have been raised. Lobbyists that were involved.

And, you know, this review, will it actually put any of this land back into the Greenbelt? Will they take more out? I mean, it's a story that's just never going to end. The story continues. Jeff, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wells.

Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer. And Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.