The Greenbelt Scandal Was Never Over — It Just Went Local

When Ontario’s Greenbelt scandal erupted in 2022, it exposed the deep influence of developer-driven planning. Quiet land swaps, rushed policy changes, and backroom deals led to the attempted removal of thousands of acres from the Greenbelt, all without public consultation. Widespread outrage—and an ongoing RCMP investigation—forced a rare reversal, and the provincial government promised to protect the Greenbelt moving forward. Yet the policy tools designed to expedite those same developments, such as Bill 23, were left untouched. That decision left dangerous ambiguity in place and cracked open the planning instruments that were originally intended to safeguard Ontario’s protected countryside.

Now, while public attention is rightfully focused on stopping Bill 5, a second phase of the Greenbelt scandal is beginning to unfold—this time at the local level.

Emboldened by a similar motion passed in the Township of Adjala-Tosorontio, the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville has emerged as a new testing ground for what could become the next wave of Greenbelt carveouts. Led by Mayor Iain Lovatt, who is using his Strong Mayor powers to bypass regular council deliberation, the Town is advancing a staff report—DS-021-25 "Additional Residential Units and Other Matters in the

Greenbelt and Oak Ridges Moraine Area" —that recommends opening protected Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt lands to residential intensification and fast-tracked approvals. Framed with the language of “housing flexibility” and “gentle density,” this report is, in reality, a Trojan horse designed to dismantle environmental protections across some of southern Ontario’s most ecologically sensitive landscapes.

Unlike the province-wide land swaps of 2022, these efforts are not being pursued through sweeping legislation, but through orchestrated local policy changes that mirror the same underlying intent.

The report proposes allowing Additional Residential Units (ARUs)—such as coach houses or secondary suites—across all designations in the Greenbelt Plan and Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan (ORMCP), including Natural Core Areas and Natural Linkage Areas. These are the most environmentally sensitive parts of the Moraine, where development is tightly restricted to protect groundwater recharge, biodiversity, and ecosystem connectivity. DS-021-25 also recommends asking the Province to use the yet-to-be-approved Bill 17 (Protecting Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025) to fast-track these changes—bypassing both environmental review and public consultation. It’s a shortcut chillingly reminiscent of the tactics at the centre of the original Greenbelt scandal.

The report’s justification rests on claims that ARUs will improve housing affordability and align with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024. But these changes directly conflict with long-established ORMCP policies, such as Section 6.2.1, which prohibits secondary units in Natural Core and Linkage Areas. They also violate protections in the Greenbelt Plan, notably Section 4.5.3, which limits ARUs to outside the Natural Heritage System. This isn’t gentle intensification—it’s the thin edge of a wedge that aims to reset baseline environmental protections by normalizing incremental encroachment.

But DS-021-25 does more than propose housing changes. It calls on the Province to delegate amendment powers to municipalities, allowing them to make so-called “minor” changes to the ORMCP and Greenbelt Plan. Even more troubling, it suggests reinterpreting environmentally protected lands as agricultural areas—a semantic sleight-of-hand that would render large swaths of land, meant to preserve habitat for endangered species and safeguard the hydrological systems of the Greater Toronto Area, newly vulnerable to residential development pressures.

In doing so, Whitchurch-Stouffville is advancing what STORM has identified as “strategic denaturalization”: the practice of tolerating, or even encouraging, the ecological degradation of protected lands so they may later be deemed of lesser environmental value. Once that bar is lowered, these lands are quietly moved into the category of rural settlement areas, where development is far less restricted.

These concerns are magnified by the fact that the staff report relies on environmental “safeguards” that no longer function. Under Bill 23 and Bill 5, Ontario’s Conservation Authorities have been stripped of their ability to review development applications for natural heritage or hydrological impacts. In their absence, municipalities like Stouffville are now responsible for environmental assessments—often without the resources, capacity, or political will to conduct them properly. In this context, DS-021-25’s proposal to rely on vague, discretionary “development criteria” becomes deeply problematic.

This situation reflects a broader issue in Ontario’s planning landscape: the erosion of the distinction between major and minor development. Increasingly, projects with significant environmental and land use implications—such as expanding building rights in the Greenbelt—are being reclassified as “minor” in order to bypass council debate and public review. Instead, they are handled by municipal staff or rubber-stamped by the Committee of Adjustment, all under the radar.

Ultimately, DS-021-25 doesn’t just seek to change planning in Whitchurch-Stouffville—it aims to reshape how provincial environmental policy works altogether. By asking the Province to amend the ORMCP and Greenbelt Plan through Bill 17, this motion would shift environmental protection from a public policy priority to a matter of municipal convenience and political discretion.

We’ve seen what happens when Greenbelt protections are quietly revoked. The public backlash in 2023 was swift and clear: Ontarians overwhelmingly support preserving farmland, water resources, and natural ecosystems. But that scandal was not the end. It was only the beginning of a new fight. The tools may now be more technical, and the changes more localized, but the outcome remains the same: protected land, made vulnerable.

Speak Out to Stop the Sprawl

STORM Coalition urges all residents of Whitchurch-Stouffville and beyond to take action immediately. Attend the upcoming Town Council meeting or submit written comments demanding the withdrawal of Report DS-021-25:

📍 Council Chambers: 111 Sandiford Drive

📅 Meeting Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2025

🕘 Registration Deadline: 9:00 a.m. same day

📧 Submit comments and/or register: councilmeetings@townofws.ca

Demand that Council:

• Reject Report DS-021-25

• Uphold the integrity of the ORMCP and Greenbelt Plan

• Restore transparency and environmental accountability in local planning