GuelphToday received the following Letter to the Editor from reader Susan Watson, who expresses concerns with the GCRA's Conservation Area Strategy:
Dear Editor:
Until Oct. 4th, the Grand River Conservation Area is collecting public input on their draft Conservation Area Strategy. You can weigh in by filling out a 10-minute survey on their website here or by emailing land management strategist Megan Kitchen at [email protected]
Why is it important to make your views known?
The GRCA's Conservation Area Strategy will be a "high level framework that helps guide and inform decision making on GRCA lands." As with all 36 conservation areas in the province, the GRCA is under tremendous pressure to sell off its conservation lands for development. Conservation areas have been starved of funds by successive provincial governments in recent decades. Then in 2022, the Ford government passed legislation which further gutted conservation area funding and mandates and required them to create an inventory of "land which is suitable for the purposes of housing and housing infrastructure" by Dec. 31.
In Guelph, this now means that 20 acres of the former Kortright Waterfowl Park may imminently be put up for sale.
As with Ford's failed Greenbelt carve outs, the argument that more land is needed for housing is a red herring. Guelph city council has now zoned land for housing which exceeds our projected water supply to 2051. When council changed zoning in the Innovation District from employment lands to housing, former CAO Scott Stewart told them they would have to subtract housing elsewhere in the city.
What we are facing is a looming shortage of parkland: more than 174 hectares relative to projected population by 2051 – the equivalent of five Riverside Parks. This will impact everyone in the city as a growing population crowds into finite recreational spaces.
Guelph tax dollars covered 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the GRCA purchase of the former Kortright Waterfowl Park in 1977. The Ministry of Natural Resources covered 50 per cent to 60 per cent. Today that City of Guelph investment in the parcel the GRCA is considering selling is worth $6 million to $8 million. Former civic leaders Norm Jary and Ken and Eileen Hammill lobbied the GRCA to acquire the land precisely so it would be protected from development. Cashing out conservation lands to fund infrastructure budgets is a completely unsustainable scheme and a betrayal of the GRCA's mandate.
Guelph
