Clarington is revisiting its plan for future parkland following new cuts for developers.
In an effort to stem the housing crisis, the provincial government reduced parkland and cash-in-lieu targets for developers. The move was intended to speed construction of new units and increase affordability, but has been criticized by municipalities for jeopardizing the quality of future neighbourhoods.
“It is unconscionable,” said Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster. “I don’t think the public realizes how devastating this is. If you look at the quality of life people expect and deserve in this municipality, one of the No. 1 things people want is greenspace, and one of the big things we learned during the pandemic is people want greenspace.
“Now we’ve got rules forcing us to increase density, and increase density frequently where there’s no development charges to support that. This is significantly less funding, and the option to keep us where we are today would be a vast increase in property taxes.”
In a report titled The Perfect Storm – Impact of Provincial Changes on our Community, Clarington staff outlined the potential impacts of the new parkland requirements on the Southeast Courtice Secondary Plan (SECSP).
The planning document outlines a basic blueprint of future development in the area, including the location of parks. The plan, which was approved in 2022, has a planned population of 12,694 residents and 5,036 residential units and includes a linked system of parks, trails, and greenspace with eight neighbourhood parks and five parkettes.
“Some developers within active and approved Secondary Plans have reached out to staff demanding that their allocations be reduced accordingly,” the report explains of requests received in the wake of the new parkland requirements laid out in Bill 23.
“Without intervention, the municipality has the potential to lose a minimum of 8.5 hectares of parkland within the SECSP area, ultimately eliminating all five parkettes and three neighbourhood parks.
“Alternatively, the municipality could move to purchase the land from the developers, totalling approximately $42.5 million dollars at today’s rates. The distinction regarding land values is important given that any purchase would be staggered over several years and market rates are only likely to increase,” the report adds.
As Foster noted, the $42.5 million represents parkland costs for one single secondary plan. The municipality has a total of 12 secondary plans, with four approved and eight in varying stages of progress.
“So, we have secondary plans that identified parks needs that took years to do and developers are now insisting they don’t need to provide the parks they agreed to provide, because the legislation says they only have to provide half as much,” Foster said
“The total amount of discretionary funds available to us today is about $48 million,” he continued. “So, one secondary plan, one piece of Clarington, would use up all our discretionary funds just to give the community the existing level of service so people moving into that area would enjoy the same amount of parks tomorrow as what residents are enjoying today.”
Councillors voted to complete Fiscal Impact Assessments for all secondary plans in order to understand the full impacts of the new legislation. They also approved a new municipal communications campaign to raise awareness of the changes and their impacts.
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