Mayor's Report
Looking at the big picture of development
By Marolyn Morrison

As your mayor, I believe that it is my responsibility to use the tools provided to me, like my weekly mayor's column, to keep you informed of the future big picture for the Town of Caledon.

Whether we like it or not, the Province of Ontario enacts legislation that greatly affects the direction of our municipality. Over the next few weeks I am going to share with you some of the recent legislation that our members of council have been dealt by the province. I will leave it up to you to decide if these initiatives are positive or negative.

There are three pieces of legislation that I would like to concentrate on over my next three columns and they are:

The Places To Grow Act; GTA West Economic Corridor; the Clean Water Act & Source Water Protection.

The Places To Grow Act came out after the Greenbelt legislation and designated where the growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe would take place over the next 25 years.

The mapping showed that the Town of Caledon will be required, by the province, to take some of the 3.7 (from 2001) million people expected to settle in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. When you look at the map and discuss the mapping with the province you will find that there is approximately 30,000 acres set for growth in Caledon.

A map highlights the 30,000 acres and is commonly referred to as the White Belt. There is a white belt in most northern GTA communities from Clarington to Niagara Falls. This is the area that is expected to house the 3.7 (from 2001) million people moving into the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Caledon is approximately 700 square kilometers and the white belt represents about onefifth of the area land mass.

The time line for this growth is very interesting. I have been told at one meeting I attended that this is a 25-year time line and at another meeting, it was referred to as a 30-year time line. In my estimation for Caledon this should be a 50- to 60-year time line, that would be phased in over that period.

At the Town of Caledon we will take control of the planning of our community and come up with a made in Caledon solution. We need to plan for the growth, but in a manner that is acceptable to our residents, and with a time frame that we all can live with.

I will leave you with one thought. When I looked at the potential of almost 30,000 acres I thought "my good heavens that could be 300,000 people along Mayfield Road," until I mentioned that to another councillor and he said, "oh no, it means 500,000 to 750,000 people when totally built out."

You see the province has also told us the densities that we must have per hectare. My number was arrived at, in my mind, because I was allowing for substantial setbacks from environmentally sensitive areas.

The province is now commencing a study on a GTA West Economic Corridor, with our white belt in their study it is looking like a new 400 series highway may be built through southern Caledon. Next week, I will expand on this topic, and mark May 8 from 4 to 8 p.m. in your calendar, as the province will be holding a public information centre at the Brampton Fairgrounds regarding this highway study.