InnisfilToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is from an Angus resident regarding the number of minister's zoning orders (MZOs) being requested in Simcoe County. The provincial orders cannot be appealed to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT).
*************************
The number of minister's zoning orders (MZOs) being "requested" by Simcoe County municipalities is disturbing. It seems that approximately one-third of all MZOs in Ontario approved by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark were for projects in Simcoe County.
That's staggering.
Even more staggering is that the Simcoe County municipalities themselves are requesting and/or endorsing many of these MZO applications, negating their own standard planning processes and appeal processes altogether.
MZOs were used sparingly in the past, primarily intended in areas without municipal organization that could do planning, such as northern Ontario. It seems unprecedented that the timing of the pandemic has factored into the use of MZOs in regions with municipal governments.
Developers and some Simcoe County town councils appear to be taking advantage of COVID by trying to fast-track development across Simcoe County and the province by using a formerly rare approval process meant for use in unorganized territories – a loophole now being exploited and abused by developers and local town councils of Simcoe County.
The Government of Ontario has been approving MZOs to expedite these development projects, but the process for some of these projects is entirely hidden from public view – no public notice, no public meetings, no information provided, and no right to appeal the approval.
What about the public’s right to know about proposed major development projects before the principle of development is established?
What about our right to question the proponents at public meetings, and to explain concerns to local councils before planning decisions are made?
What about our right to appeal such decisions as provided under the Planning Act?
MZOs circumvent and override the processes that ensure public consultation, environmental studies, and their impact considerations to agriculture and endangered species.
But now, we’re seeing blatant abuses of this tool as it is used to rush past due process, padding developer profit, expediting previously stalled projects and, more importantly, denying the voice of residents.
What began a few years ago with the county’s overriding “approval” of the large development in Midhurst appears to have now ballooned into three other county municipalities by taking advantage of a provincial loophole.
Simcoe County MZOs have become more popular since the provincial government outlined its support of them as a quick way to get things built by removing “red tape."
The reasons and motivations of MZOs by each of these municipalities may never be fully known. But it is unconscionable to have local democracy eroded and abused with this practice by those council members elected as their residents’ voices. And during a pandemic, no less.
MZOs silence and eliminate the voices of the very residents that elected them.
Angie Belanger
Angus
*************************