Doug Ford didn’t wait long before creating another stir within municipal government.

This time it’s not Toronto, but dozens of towns and cities left wondering what changes the province has in mind with the appointment of special advisers to review regional governments in order to make “better use of taxpayers’ dollars.”

Unlike Toronto’s appalling experience, where council was slashed nearly in half in the middle of an election campaign, the province is starting with consultation this time. But once again, the Ford government has identified no specific problems with how all these municipalities are working, just the usual vague references to cutting red tape and finding efficiencies.

That’s certain to create turmoil from Oxford County to Muskoka and the big city regions of Halton, Peel, York and Durham in between, with politicians and staff scrambling to figure out what any of this will actually mean for them — good, bad, or perhaps in the end, not much at all.

But all that noise has already served to divert attention from another announcement the government made on Tuesday to overhaul Ontario’s growth plan.

And with this one, we do know what it means — and it’s not good.

The government is dramatically rolling back the density targets brought in under the Liberals and encouraging urban sprawl with single-family homes that can’t support public transit.

These changes, along with others in Bill 66, the government’s wide-ranging omnibus legislation introduced last month, are bad news for protecting the Greenbelt, and more broadly the very principle of compact, sustainable growth.

The government’s plan would take Ontario backwards by green-lighting urban sprawl once again and saddling future communities with neighbourhoods that have such low density they can’t even support a bus service. That means long commutes and more gridlocked highways for everyone.

That’s not to say this won’t be a popular move. In some quarters, it’s bound to be. That’s because the Ford government is selling it as what’s required to get more housing built.

With the price of housing rising far faster than incomes, lots of people are being priced out of the housing market across the GTA and the whole Golden Horseshoe region. There certainly is a shortage of affordable housing, both ownership and rental.

And there’s no shortage of developers who are quick to claim that those problems would be solved, if only the government would open up more land for development.

But it’s just not true. There’s plenty of land approved for development already.

Numerous reports have shown there’s enough land already set aside for development to accommodate the housing needs of the Greater Golden Horseshoe region and its expected population growth for the next 20 years or more.

Still, there are always developers who want more land, or land that’s easier to build on, or simply in a more lucrative area. And they constantly push local and provincial governments to make unnecessary and shortsighted changes.

As Steve Parish, who encountered much of this as the long-time mayor of Ajax, once put it: “The demand for more pavement is relentless.”

Doug Ford fell for this once before. Ahead of last year’s provincial election campaign he promised a group of developers that he’d “open a big chunk” of the Greenbelt around Greater Toronto and Hamilton for development. Swapping something he referred to as “just farmers’ fields” for single-family homes was, he told them, “my plan for affordable housing.”

After a video of that came to light during the campaign, Ford was forced to back off on that particular promise. But his government does seem to be coming up with more subtle ways to achieve similar ends.

Bill 66 exempts commercial developments from a myriad of environmental laws and makes it possible for the municipal affairs minister to approve an office or factory on land within the Greenbelt. And the plans announced on Tuesday would weaken things further.

If these changes go through, municipalities will be able to approve new development on greenfield sites with as little as half the density they’re currently required to meet. In some areas that could mean as few as 40 residents and jobs per hectare, while provincial planners say it takes twice that many to support regular bus service.

That’s short-term thinking in the extreme.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe is one of North America’s fastest-growing urban regions and is expected to be home to four million more residents by 2041. Accommodating that growth in an economically and environmentally sustainable way requires smarter, more disciplined development.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Intensification isn’t easy and it’s not always popular, but it is necessary. Just as dealing with climate change isn’t easy but also must be done.

The government’s plan doesn’t address the need for affordable housing but it does fuel urban sprawl. And that, ultimately, will be very expensive.

This is far from the growth plan that Ontario needs in 2019 and beyond. The Ford government should go back to the drawing board before it’s too late.

Read more about: