Hamilton Conservation Authority directors blast ‘depressing’ attack on wetlands

Hamilton Conservation Authority directors say they fear new provincial legislation that hopes to build 1.5 million homes in the next decade will allow developers to bulldoze vital wetlands, leading to increased flooding of streets and houses.

Known as the More Homes Built Faster Act, Bill 23 exempts some permit requirements and no longer allows authorities to comment on conservation of land and pollution when reviewing development applications, directors heard at their Nov. 3 board meeting.

Chief administrative officer Lisa Burnside said authorities will be limited to reviewing five natural hazards: flooding, erosion, dynamic beaches, unstable soils and bedrock.

They will no longer be able to comment on a development's impact on natural heritage, wetlands, ecology or biodiversity, she said, affecting possible strategies to reduce those impacts.

Burnside said Bill 23 also won't allow the authority to continue agreements with the city and County of Wellington to review ecological impacts of planning applications while potentially freezing fees for permit applications.

She said the bill proposes to require the authority to identify portions of its 4,450 hectares of land that could be sold for some of the 47,000 new homes the province has targeted for Hamilton.

Burnside said that's a concern because conservation areas not only contribute to the public's mental and physical well-being but help prevent flooding and lessen the impacts of climate change.

Also worrisome, she said, is a proposal to re-evaluate what constitutes a provincially significant wetland and potentially allow wetlands to be developed if a replacement is built, known as offsetting.

Authority directors rejected such a plan last year that would have bulldozed a wetland by the headwaters to Ancaster Creek to make way for a massive warehouse complex on Garner Road.

We're concerned that in these policy proposals, interconnected watersheds, wetlands and natural areas could be dealt with in a fragmented way," Burnside said.

Deputy chief administrative officer Scott Peck said a proposed re-evaluation of provincially significant wetlands will only examine them individually, no longer considering their interconnection.

It also removes considerations like breeding habitat for significant species, he said, making it less likely wetlands will qualify as provincially significant.

Big picture, there's an overall weakening of the wetland protections in Ontario," Peck said.

Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark called Bill 23 truly depressing," suggesting streets and home basements will pay the price if wetlands are bulldozed and no longer able to hold back flood water during big storms.

Treating wetlands individually will enable developers to pick away" at them and dismiss environmental concerns because of weaker evaluation criteria, he said.

It seems Machiavellian to me that you'll deliberately, as a part of this process, force the disassembling of these wetland complexes into individual pieces that puts them at risk," he said.

City appointee Cynthia Janzen said conservation authorities are being seriously declawed to the detriment of our environment."

It also appears that our provincial government doesn't appreciate that we all live downstream and that everything is connected," she said. It certainly is depressing."

Directors supported a staff submission to the province's environment registry detailing six concerns about the proposed changes and agreed to write letters to Premier Doug Ford and local Progressive Conservative MPPs Neil Lumsden and Donna Skelly.

Dundas citizen rep Dan Bowman said a Nov. 24 deadline to submit comments allows little time to assess a complex bill, including for councillors just elected in the Oct. 24 municipal election.

Everything about this is unfair," he said.