Publications

This is the fourth in a series of Briefs on the land supply for future urban development designated by municipalities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe to accommodate growth to 2031 and beyond. This Brief examines the land supply represented by Undelineated Built-up Areas (UBUAs) – rural settlements identified by the Province as being without full municipal water and wastewater servicing. Although the Growth Plan states that these small towns, villages, and hamlets should not be a focus of growth, a contradiction between the Growth Plan and a supplementary provincial document allows municipalities to count subdivisions on the edges of UBUAs as “intensification.”

This is the second in a series of Briefs on the land supply for future urban development designated by municipalities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe to accommodate growth to 2031. This Brief examines the question of serviced land in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). The first looked at how much land has been built on in the past decade in the GTHA and concluded that only 20% of the total greenfield land supply until 2031 has been built on. Future Briefs will look at the rate of consumption of greenfield lands in Outer Ring municipalities beyond the Greenbelt and other lands that are part of future settlement areas, even though they are not part of the Designated Greenfield Area.

In August 2014, newspaper headlines trumpeted the “Manhattanization” of Toronto. City Council, in the span of two days, approved 18 new high-rise apartment and office buildings in downtown Toronto, on top of 70,000 residential units already approved for construction. But what happens in downtown Toronto is only a small part of a much larger story of growth across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

Neptis analysis show that of the 56,200 hectares designated for urbanization between 2006 and 2031 in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, only 9% was actually built on between 2006 and 2011. This finding suggests that the remainder of the land supply is likely to last well beyond 2031.

Without cumulative information on the progress of 21 single- and upper-tier municipalities and 89 lower-tier municipalities as they adopt and implement the Plan’s requirements, there's no big picture, no sense of how municipalities compare with one other, and how the various municipal plans all add up.

Growing Cities compares three Canadian metropolitan areas: Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver; through spatial analysis and planning policies. Highlighting that each of the cities developed distinctly given the climate of planning and provincial interests.

Effects of retail on transportation patterns

2006 Growth Plan is contextualized‎ within the history of regional planning in Southern Ontario, answering the question which plans were influential in shaping the Places to Grow act.

The commentary recommends stronger regulations to control the outward expansion of urban areas, better protection for greenlands and agricultural lands, and a monitoring program to track progress towards the government's goals for growth and urbanization.

Most people who live and work in the Toronto region assume that housing and travel costs vary according to where one lives. But if so, how exactly does the pattern play out in the region? Does one save, overall, by living in the suburbs?

This is sixth of a series of nine issue papers commissioned by the Neptis Foundation for consideration by the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel established by the Government of Ontario.