On April 14 the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) released the latest draft of the proposed new provincial policy statement under the Planning Act. Called the Provincial Planning Statement 2024, the proposal is posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) and open for public comment until May 12. [1]
This is the province’s second go at a draft new Provincial Planning Statement (PPS). The draft unveiled for comment in April of last year elicited a strong response from heritage groups and municipalities concerned that long-standing policies to protect cultural heritage were being substantially weakened. [2]
Take the keystone policy for built heritage and cultural heritage landscapes. Currently policy 2.6.1 in the PPS 2020 reads:
Significant built heritage resources and significant cultural heritage landscapes shall be conserved.
Last year’s draft replaced this with:
Protected heritage property, which may contain built heritage resources or cultural heritage landscapes, shall be conserved.
As described in this OHA+M blog last April [3]:
What is happening here is that the whole sphere of “significant” heritage properties is being shrunk to a small remnant of “protected” heritage properties. Instead of “significant” property, which essentially encompasses all the properties in Ontario that meet the criteria in Ontario Regulation 9/06, whether they have been previously evaluated or not, the new policy would direct provincial and municipal planning authorities to conserve only formally designated property and a few add-ons.
Letters and submissions to the province argued that the proposed policy changes would seriously undermine the consideration and conservation of cultural heritage resources within Ontario’s land use planning framework. There were meetings with MMAH and Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism staff, and even a rare consultation/roundtable session hosted by MMAH with representatives of cultural heritage organizations including Architectural Conservancy Ontario and the Ontario Association of Heritage Professionals.
After all that, we get this year’s draft and … guess what?
Nothing has changed! Nada. While there are important revisions to policies elsewhere, including the protection of agricultural lands, the cultural heritage policies are exactly the same. And, again, with not a word of explanation or rationale beyond vague statements about the need to “balance housing with resources” — and, behind this, an apparent zero-sum fixation that strengthening Ontario’s housing policies necessitates weakening Ontario’s heritage policies.
It’s disappointing, disheartening and frustrating. But clearly MMAH is not listening to heritage concerns.
What to do?
Well, we could cry in our beer. And/or we could dust off ERO submissions not even a year old and send them in again. Maybe with more bolding, highlighting and using larger and more aggressive fonts?
Seriously, the points have to be made again. Concerns valid in 2023 are valid in 2024 and need to be part of the public record this year like last.
But we should also be thinking about how to mitigate at least some of the worst effects of what is going on here: a deplorable regression from honed cultural heritage protection policies that have served this province well.
If the provincial policy toolbox is shrivelling and no longer up to the task, what about municipal policies picking up the slack?
Near the beginning of the current PPS 2020 is a part called “How to Read the Provincial Policy Statement.” This is often cited for the section called “Read the Entire Provincial Policy Statement,” which tells us not to cherrypick but to read all the policies together and apply the relevant ones to each situation. But there is another section, often overlooked, called “Policies Represent Minimum Standards.”[4] The section says:
The policies of the Provincial Policy Statement represent minimum standards.
Within the framework of the provincial policy-led planning system, planning authorities and decision-makers may go beyond these minimum standards to address matters of importance to a specific community, unless doing so would conflict with any policy of the Provincial Policy Statement.
There is a near-identical provision in the proposed PPS 2024.
A lock on the Rideau Canal, Ottawa Photo: Dan Schneider
Let’s take a not-so-hypothetical situation and try something out.
In Eastern Ontario, as we all know, we have a UNESCO World Heritage Site — the Rideau Canal. Within the City of Ottawa, the northern portion of the Rideau Canal is bordered by parkways and greenspace providing a scenic recreational corridor that is a key part of the identity of our national capital.
As the Rideau Canal runs through Ottawa, Kingston and 11 other municipalities, its continued integrity relies heavily on supportive municipal land use policies and decisions affecting adjacent lands, particularly those relating to cultural heritage protection. The cultural heritage policies in the PPS include a specific policy with respect to development on lands adjacent to protected heritage properties, which include World Heritage Sites like the Canal, [5] and municipalities’ land use planning decisions must be consistent with the policy.
What are “adjacent lands”? For almost 20 years the PPS has defined them as:
… those lands contiguous to a protected heritage property or as otherwise defined in the municipal official plan.
For the City of Ottawa, in terms of protecting the Rideau Canal, “contiguous”, which generally means sharing a boundary or meeting at a point, doesn’t work. Lands contiguous to the Canal are mostly public greenspace. Nearby properties that may be subject to development are often across a road and not strictly contiguous. So, picking up on the wording “or as otherwise defined in the municipal official plan,” Ottawa has adopted its own Official Plan (OP) policy defining “adjacent lands” in broader terms. [6]
This OP policy, piggybacked on the PPS policy, underpins the use of key instruments like heritage impact assessments to assess and mitigate impacts from proposed development on lands in close proximity to, or which have high visibility from, the Rideau Canal.
This approach has worked well in Ottawa (and Kingston and other places). But now a shadow looms.
The proposed PPS 2024 (like last year’s) drops the words “or as otherwise defined …” in the adjacent lands definition. Not surprisingly, Ottawa is not happy:
“Essentially the limitation on the definition of adjacent means that we won’t be able to request an HIA [heritage impact assessment] for properties that are across the street from designated properties. This is particularly an issue for the Canal and the Central Experimental Farm where they are separated from private property by a road.” [7]
But what if this interpretation — that dropping the “otherwise defined” clause takes away the City’s ability to request HIAs — is not correct?
What if, instead, the adjacency policy’s application to “contiguous” lands is seen as a “minimum standard”? A “minimum standard” that the City “may go beyond … to address matters of importance to [the] community.” According to this view, the loss of the “otherwise defined” clause does not take away anything. It is merely shedding wording that, while perhaps helpful, is effectively superfluous. [8]
How about we take the PPS at its word. The PPS sets a provincial minimum policy threshold that municipalities must be “consistent with” — and which they may “go beyond.”
Since Ottawa has already “gone beyond” in its OP adjacency policy, it is good to go!
In setting different, higher standards than the minimum set out in the PPS, municipalities will have to be mindful of the proviso that these don’t conflict with other policies of the PPS. They can’t go crazy and adopt adjacency policies that purport to apply kilometres around a designated property, for example. Policies will need to be clear, reasonable and always furthering the intent or objective of the underlying PPS policy.
Next time: We’ll look at other possible “higher” policies to help with those we’re losing.
Notes
Note 1: See https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-8462.
Note 2: See, for example, the comments of Architectural Conservancy Ontario: https://ero.ontario.ca/comment/91726#comment-91726. The 2023 posting is here: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6813.
Note 3: See “The new PPS and “protected heritage property.”
Note 4: Provincial Policy Statement 2020, page 3.
As to the meaning of “minimum standards”, here is how one dictionary defines the individual terms:
standard: Noun
A standard is a level of quality or achievement, especially a level that is thought to be acceptable.
minimum: Adjective
You use minimum to describe an amount which is the smallest that is possible, allowed, or required.
Note 5: Provincial Policy Statement 2020:
2.6.3 Planning authorities shall not permit development and site alteration on adjacent lands to protected heritage property except where the proposed development and site alteration has been evaluated and it has been demonstrated that the heritage attributes of the protected heritage property will be conserved.
In the proposed Provincial Planning Statement 2024 the policy has been edited but is substantially the same:
4.6.3 Planning authorities shall not permit development and site alteration on adjacent lands to protected heritage property unless the heritage attributes of the protected heritage property will be conserved.
For the history of the adjacent lands policy, see the February 2016 article in OHA+M here.
Note 6: Section 4.5.2 of Ottawa’s Official Plan includes the following policy:
Where development or an application under the Ontario Heritage Act is proposed on, adjacent to, across the street from or within 30 metres of a protected heritage property, the City will require a Heritage Impact Assessment, if there is potential to adversely impact the heritage resource. The HIA will be completed according to the Council approved guidelines for HIAs, as amended from time to time.
Note 7: Email of May 1, 2024 from Lesley Collins, Program Manager, Heritage Planning Branch, City of Ottawa to Dan Schneider.
Note 8: One theory about the dropping of this clause is that MMAH was simply “cleaning up” the language of the adjacency policy and associated definitions. (Of course there is another theory too.)