Developers in driver’s seat as city eyes major planning change: Critics

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Does London have to expand its urban footprint? Observers outside the development community are not so sure.

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City council’s planning and environment committee has given the green light for London to expand its urban growth boundary that dictates where in the city residential and commercial development is allowed, for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The justification is the London area’s population has exploded in recent years, and is forecast by Queen’s Park to swell by more than 50 per cent, creating a housing and affordability crisis.

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But for Brendon Samuels, chair of the city’s environmental stewardship and action advisory committee, that’s not entirely convincing.

“I think we are in a position of not really being able to put any kind of criticism to plans to increase the amount or availability of housing,” he said. “If you say housing crisis three times, a genie appears and any sort of debate kind of ends, because we need people housed.”

Full council will need to weigh in at its Dec. 17 meeting, but six politicians including Mayor Josh Morgan have given a thumbs up to the city adding 1,476 hectares (3,647 acres) to the urban boundary to accommodate the next 30 years of projected population growth.

Committee members also endorsed asking the province for its support of an urban boundary expansion of 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) for more than 30 years of population growth, recommended by independent consulting firm Colliers in a housing supply marketplace analysis. Should the province support the firm’s recommendation, it would take precedent.

The proposal to expand London’s urban boundary comes as the city picks apart its eight-year-old official planning document, the London Plan. City hall already has been updating its components ahead of the provincially mandated 10-year review because the city’s population blew past projections years early.

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Though several representatives of the development community made their support for the expansion known at a public meeting on Tuesday, community members, Samuels included, voiced their displeasure at what some called a “wish list for the development community.”

Samuels questions if the expansion is necessary based on land availability within the existing boundary, and what the future cost will be from losing farmland and green space on the city’s periphery.

Martin Horak, a political scientist with Western University’s local government program, agrees there is both a real and political pressure to revisit the issue but questions the motivations, particularly of the 2,000-hectare request.

“We’re at a time, right now, where building more housing has been seen as the solution to the housing crisis. That certainly gives the development community leverage to advance its interests,” he said. “Council’s job is to balance all of the interests, and not just bow to what developers want, but to think about what are the long-term cost implications.”

Horak said he has concerns about basing urban boundary expansions on population forecasts further out than two decades, and fears the city expanding beyond what is needed will result in more low-density urban sprawl, particularly after London has pushed for more infill and density.

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“If the city expands the growth boundary too much right now, then it may, down the line, be on the hook for expensive suburban infrastructure,” he said. “It seems to be that (the urban boundary) does need to grow because of the higher rates of population growth, but the question is how much?”

Ward 6 Coun. Sam Trosow, who attended the meeting as a non-committee member, said he has doubts that more land availability would lead to more affordable homes, and worries of over-inflated property values and housing prices.

The Colliers report states land inside the urban growth boundary is worth 5.5 to eight times the value of land outside the boundary.

Trosow believes developers have too much influence over council, and warns his colleagues they need to think carefully about an irreversible decision that would impact London for decades to come.

“(Council is) talking about long-term decisions . . . that are going to fundamentally change development patterns in this city, much to the advantage of developers,” he said. “I think that there are enough opportunities within the (boundary) that we have not fully looked at yet or pursued. If I’m wrong about that, we can change it.

“I’m erring on the side of moderation here, because we can always add to it, but we can’t subtract from it.”

jmoulton@postmedia.com

@JackAtLFPress

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