[URBAN NOTE] "Province considering 600 requests to remove Greenbelt land"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Alex Ballingall reports on pressures to undermine the greenbelt of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

The province is considering more than 600 applications to remove land from the official Greenbelt, prompting worries from environmentalists that parts of the protected area might be opened for development.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs said in an emailed statement that any changes to the Greenbelt would be “minor.” The government has received these “site-specific requests” over the past 10 years, and is now assessing them as part of an ongoing review of the Greenbelt Plan, which was created in 2005.

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said he’s been told several times that the province has no intention of compromising the 1.8-million acre Greenbelt area, which was established to protect wild areas and farmland against the encroachment of suburban sprawl. Even so, he said, removing any land from the Greenbelt could legitimize calls for development in the protected corridor around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

“The whole point of creating the Greenbelt was not allowing incursions into it,” Gray said.

“Every inch you give, you then are asked to give a mile. That’s the risk.”