Brief description of the organization
Town of The Blue Mountains is a small town located on the shore of Georgian Bay and with significant land area within the Niagara Escarpment. The Town includes urban areas such as Thornbury, Clarksburg, Craigleith, Blue Mountain Village and many other small communities. The Blue Mountains is home to over 9,400 permanent residents and an additional 6,000+ seasonal and part-time residents. As an internationally recognized tourism destination, the community welcomes over 2.5 million visitors annually. The economy centres largely around tourism and agriculture, with ski hills, beaches, parks and trails, and is one of Ontario’s largest apple growing regions. The Blue Mountains Future Story (www.tbmfuturestory.ca) serves as the Town’s community sustainability plan, guiding transformative change to reduce the Town’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, adapt to climate change, support biodiversity, embrace a circular economy, embrace diversity, equity and inclusion, and much more.
Problem area
The Town of The Blue Mountains is a lower-tier municipality within Grey County. The County provides planning oversight, along with other partners (e.g. NEC, Conservation Authorities), particularly when significant forests or wetlands will be impacted by development. The Town has a tree cover of approximately 30%, whereas the County’s overall tree cover is close to 41%. The County is in the process of developing an Ecological Offsetting framework, which would help ensure there is ‘no net loss’ when environmental impacts are incurred due to development that infringes on significant ecological features. There are several challenges faced by the County in preparing a compensation and replacement framework, such as (in brief):
- Selecting a defensible methodology to value trees, forests and wetlands in $$;
- Given the range of development types and levels of impact, geographic realities, etc. it may be necessary to offer a table of replacement and compensation options with associated costs/values;
- While there is a priority on replacing lost natural areas in areas next to or within the development area, this is not always possible and means that the County and/or Town may need to consider purchasing land or compensating private landowners to have them add new natural assets (forests, wetlands) to their properties. What is the valuation of the lost/recoverable natural assets, and how can this inform a replacement or compensation program that makes financial sense for the Town/County?
Main objectives
- Research methods of valuing trees, significant forests, and wetlands, including environmental value/ecosystem services, social/cultural value, economic value for tourism, etc. and as a case study apply a valuation methodology to a selection of significant forests and wetlands identified by the County and Town within the Town of The Blue Mountains boundaries.
- Forecast the anticipated impacts of a hypothetical development project on significant forests and/or wetlands, and identify valuations for the trees/areas lost that could 1) maintain and 2) grow the Town’s current tree/forest cover or wetland area. A table of valuations and replacement ratios should be created, with underlying methodologies for the valuations explained in a guidebook format for the Town’s and County’s benefit. The end goal is for the County to identify reasonable, defensible valuations to support the continued enhancement of natural areas (significant forests and wetlands in particular) despite continued development that may at times encroach on existing significant features.
- Commentary on the complexities and considerations of keeping track of the value of replacement trees, forests and wetlands will also be helpful; for example, how should the Town or County keep track of the value of lands in cases where the Town does not have control over the maintenance/upkeep of natural assets?
Scope of work
- Literature Review and Environmental Scan - how are other municipalities approaching tree/forest/wetland replacement and/or compensation programs?
Note - the end product of the students' research should not just be a summary of what other municipalities are doing. - Identify Relevant Methodologies - what options for valuing trees/significant forests/wetlands should the Town/County consider applying, and why?
- Work with the Town and County to identify one or more development scenarios, involving a realistic level of tree/significant forest/wetland removal based on Town mapping, to which the students will apply the identified valuation methodologies.
- Identify the anticipated value of various replacement and/or compensation strategies and the benefits/challenges of implementing them
Ongoing: touchpoints with Town and County staff to flesh out reasonable project expectations, stay on track, and receive feedback on research and analysis
Deliverables
A final report outlining the literature review and environmental scan, a table of valuation options and the results of the scenario analysis will be the primary deliverable.
Team Meeting Frequency
Bi-weekly
Skills and training required
Planning knowledge/education, environment and resource studies knowledge/education, GIS, accounting and/or Sustainability and Financial Management and/or natural resource economics
Required resources
- May need to access school computers with GIS software, as applying natural asset valuation methodologies to the scenario(s) will involve looking at areas with potentially-impacted natural assets within the Town of The Blue Mountains.
- GIS datasets of the Town's natural assets (confidential), the Town's Natural Assets Inventory report (not yet public), Grey County may also have information resources including prior research done on this topic to share.
NDA or a commercialization agreement for this project?
Yes