'Intrusive' legislation is deemed unfair
A call for fairness!

The Peel-Halton Landowners Association [PHLA] is a group of rural land owners in the Regions of Peel and Halton who are concerned with the recent deluge of intrusive legislative initiatives. Many pieces of legislation clearly place unfair and d i s p r o p o r t i o n a t e responsibility on rural landowners. The Greenbelt, Places to Grow, Oak Ridges Moraine, nutrient management, provincial policy statements, conservation authorities "generic" regulation, Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act all claim to benefit the general public good of all Ontarians, particularly nearby urban ones, but at the expense of rural landowners. The responsibility, risks and economic burden of owning lands identified as producing "ecological services" are born by the countryside landowner without compensation.

There are many inherent problems in current practises, according to former Caledon councillor Ian Sinclair. Identifications of environmental features which produce these ecological services such as wetlands and habitats of endangered species are carried out in secret using unpublished protocols unavailable to the public, without any notification to the affected land owner, and without any formal appeal process, he said. The end result are legal land use restrictions on privately owned lands which have been implemented through official plans and zoning. No direct compensation for the loss and enjoyment of private lands is offered to the landowner when the legal restrictions are implemented. This situation is unfair, Sinclair stressed.

The members of the PHLA do not argue that the ecological benefits produced by rural lands are unimportant. What they are deeply concerned with is the associated loss of value to their identified lands, the increased costs and delays in obtaining permits (for grading of a building for example), the secrecy of the identification processes, the vagueness of the legislative terms used to restrict their lands and the implicit assumption that city dwellers may come out and casually access their lands for recreation. Ever increasing taxes must still be paid on the lands and rural landowners are still liable for safety on the lands however, no compensation is offered.

The legislation mentioned was all provincial, top down, politically driven initiatives. However, the Town of Caledon and the Region of Peel have been working on an environmental zoning bylaw which implements land use restrictions on land identified for environmental functions.

This time it is our local council that is in a position to implement land use restrictions on lands identified as producing ecological goods and services, Sinclair observed. The PHLA shall be asking council not to approve the proposed environmental zoning bylaw and to rely instead upon the existing hazard land zoning which has served us so well since 1979 and the current Official Plan environmental policies which govern all major development proposals.

"We shall be asking council to become an advocate for fairness by demanding the province to fund direct compensation to affected landowners for their loss of enjoyment and use of their lands by adopting the simple formula: public good = public pay."

For more information contact Ian Sinclair, iansinclair@sympatico.ca.