<html><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><div><div><div class="container position-relative" style="font-size: 16px; box-sizing: border-box; width: 960px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; max-width: 960px; caret-color: rgb(33, 37, 41); color: rgb(33, 37, 41); font-family: museo-sans, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative !important;"><div class="row justify-content-center" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; margin-right: -15px; margin-left: -15px; justify-content: center !important;"><div class="col-md-10 col-lg-8" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; width: 639.984375px; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; flex: 0 0 66.666664%; max-width: 66.666664%;"><div class="single__body" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 0px;"><figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 60px calc(-33.333333% - 5px) 20px; gap: var( --wp--style--gallery-gap-default, var( --gallery-block--gutter-size, var( --wp--style--block-gap, 0.5em ) ) ); display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: normal; --wp--style--unstable-gallery-gap: var( --wp--style--gallery-gap-default, var( --gallery-block--gutter-size, var( --wp--style--block-gap, 0.5em ) ) ); width: auto; position: relative; left: unset; right: unset;"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-style-image-actual-size" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; width: calc(33.33% - var(--wp--style--unstable-gallery-gap, 16px)*0.66667); flex-direction: column; align-items: center; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; max-width: 100%; position: relative; align-self: inherit;"></figure><figcaption class="blocks-gallery-caption wp-element-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8px 0px 60px 8px; flex-basis: 100%; flex-grow: 1; padding-right: 20px; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); width: 550px; max-width: 550px;">For the past year, Hamilton residents have protested the province’s decision to expand the city’s urban boundary. Photos: Stop Sprawl Hamilton</figcaption></figure><h2 class="wp-block-heading" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 60px 0px 30px; font-family: "Quarto A", "Quarto B"; line-height: 40px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); font-size: 36px;">Ford government’s boundary expansions went against trends in urban planning</h2><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">Urban boundaries separate farmland and green space from land that is developable. In Ontario, municipalities set those lines by planning how much they’ll need to build in the coming years to keep up with population growth. That’s because land is a finite resource — especially in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, where urban planners are reconciling the urgent need to build more housing with an <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/southern-ontario-housing-farmland/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 68, 56); text-decoration: none;">ever-diminishing amount of farmland</a>. </p><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">Meanwhile, land speculators buy up land on the edges of urban boundaries, betting that as cities grow they’ll be able to lobby to have their land added to the developable area and see its value go up. </p><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">For a long time, cities have approached urban expansion by building suburbs of detached, single-family homes. But now, many cities are looking to preserve farmland and green space by enabling denser development in existing urban centres, like apartments and townhouses, which require less room and also discourage car travel that begets more pollution. This shift has other benefits too: farmland ensures a local supply of food, and unpaved green spaces sequester carbon and provide habitat for species at risk and naturally mitigate floods.</p><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">The Ford government, however, has pushed cities over the last few years to sprawl outwards to enable construction of more single-family homes, which it has said are what most people want to buy. The conflict came to a head last fall, when previous housing minister Steve Clark overrode municipal councils and <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-housing-hamilton-halton/]" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 68, 56); text-decoration: none;">imposed sprawl on two municipalities</a>, Hamilton and Halton Region, that had wanted to protect farmland instead.</p><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">Clark handed down the directives the same day in November 2022 that he introduced now-reversed changes to the Greenbelt. In the year since, he also expanded urban boundaries in a slew of other municipalities, including <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-waterloo-sprawl-farmland/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 68, 56); text-decoration: none;">Waterloo Region</a>, west of Toronto, and Ottawa.</p><p class="selectionShareable" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-family: cordale, Georgia, Garamond, serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(62, 60, 57); line-height: 27px; clear: both;">Over the summer, public backlash over the Greenbelt changes escalated into a <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-greenbelt-report-reaction/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(255, 68, 56); text-decoration: none;">political crisis</a> that led to Clark resigning on Labour Day.</p><figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped is-style-image-fullscreen wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 60px calc(-33.333333% - 5px) 20px; gap: var( --wp--style--gallery-gap-default, var( --gallery-block--gutter-size, var( --wp--style--block-gap, 0.5em ) ) ); display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: normal; --wp--style--unstable-gallery-gap: var( --wp--style--gallery-gap-default, var( --gallery-block--gutter-size, var( --wp--style--block-gap, 0.5em ) ) ); width: auto; position: relative; left: unset; right: unset;"><figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-style-default" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; max-width: 100%; position: relative; width: calc(50% - var(--wp--style--unstable-gallery-gap, 16px)/2); align-self: inherit;"></figure></figure></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>