Pickering concerned with Durham official plan

May 24, 2006 By Danielle Milley

PICKERING -- Pickering has some concerns about what the Region of Durham’s Official Plan amendments mean for its future growth.

The Region is currently wrapping up its Official Plan review and Pickering staff discussed concerns with how the plan relates to Pickering at the May 23 management forum meeting, in advance of an official report coming to council June 12.

Pickering had previously requested the area in northeast Pickering not in the provincial greenbelt be designated as a future urban study area. Catherine Rose, Pickering planning manager, said the Region has gone one step further and given the area land use designations in the draft, with the area on either side of the future Hwy. 407 expansion designated for employment and the area to the north of that and around Kinsale as living areas.

Ms. Rose said Pickering staff would like to see the area around Greenwood designated the same as Kinsale, but regional staff won’t do that because it falls in the noise contour area for the proposed airport. She said despite the possibility of an airport, staff wants to see the area around Greenwood designated as a special study area.

“There’s just too many unknowns right now to designate (Kinsale) as residential and to leave (Greenwood) as out of the urban area,” Ms. Rose said.

Pickering also wants to see the Cherrywood area (part of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve) designated as a future urban policy area, which matches both the City’s and the Region’s positions. Ms. Rose said regional planning staff wouldn’t designate it as such because “it would be against provincial policy to recommend that,” as the Province has included it in the greenbelt and passed the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act to protect it from development.

Mayor Dave Ryan was surprised regional staff wouldn’t designate Cherrywood as a future urban policy area since Durham council’s position on developing it is the same as Pickering’s.
There were also concerns with the population allocation. The plan covers until 2031, and with Ajax running out of urban land in 2021, an allocation of 50,000 people that was to go to Ajax is going to be designated for Oshawa and Clarington.

“Isn’t that going against the Provincial objective of not leapfrogging?” asked Ward 3 City Councillor David Pickles.

Pickering thinks it would make more sense that it get the allocation, which would require more land being designated as urban, or that it be split between Pickering and Whitby. This way there would be less traffic driving across the whole region, Coun. Pickles said, and it would put people closer to the business centre of Toronto.