The Escarpment Link

What's Happening Now

The long overdue Escarpment Link NEP amendment has run into a series of roadblocks thrown up by a small group of developers who own lands inside the Link area in North Burlington.

The first roadblock failed when, on December 11, 2002, a three-judge panel of the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the developers' application to derail the process.

View CONE's December 13, 2002 media release "Hearing into Escarpment Land Additions to Proceed"

The developers requested leave to appeal the Divisional Court's decision but their application was denied at the end of March 2003.

Unfortunately, a second attempt by this same group of developers to derail the process was more successful. In June 2003, the Joint Board supported the developers' application to declare their lands a "Special Study Area" and to seprate them from the rest of the Escarpment Link lands. This means there will now be two hearings for the Escarpment Link -- one for the developers' lands and one for the rest of the subject lands.

Dates have not yet been set for either of the hearings.

Background

Since the Niagara Escarpment Plan was adopted in 1985, there has been a noticeable gap in the lands protected by the Plan as it crosses through parts of Hamilton and Halton. At Waterdown, the Plan Area shrinks to a perilously thin strip of land which does not even cover the Escarpment slope itself in some areas.

On May 18, 2000, the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) initiated Niagara Escarpment Plan Amendment #71 which will complete provincial planning initiatives that began in December 1990 for the transfer of about 2200 hectares (5439 acres) of land in this area to the Niagara Escarpment Plan (NEP) from the Parkway Belt West Plan. (Both are provincial land-use plans).

Although the land under consideration only covers a fraction of the actual Escarpment lands in the area which should be part of the NEP, CONE applauds the NEC for finally moving this long overdue amendment forward.

View a Site Map for the Escarpment Link (gif image - 95 KB)

The Niagara Escarpment Commission circulated the proposed amendment for public and agency comment between September and February 2001. Letters of support for the Amendment were received from several organizations including CONE, the Hamilton Naturalists' Club, Friends of Red Hill Valley, Bay Area Restoration Council, and the Aldershot Community Council.

View CONE's submission to the NEC (February 12, 2001).

The public hearing into the proposed amendment began with Preliminary Hearings on June 13 and October 9, 2001 and January 7, 2002 in Burlington.

Party status for the hearing was requested by the NEC (who are the proponent of the amendment) as well as the Regional Municipality of Halton, the City of Burlington, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and several developers who own land in the area under consideration and are opposed to the amendment.

CONE has been granted participant status for the hearing. Joining us as participants are the Giant's Rib Discovery Centre, the Bruce Trail Association, the Aldershot Community Council and the Bay Area Restoration Council (BARC).

The lands subject to the Amendment are mostly the Escarpment brow and steep slopes within the City of Burlington, City of Hamilton, former Town of Flamborough and former Town of Dundas.

They include many significant natural areas such as Cootes Paradise (a Provincial Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI) and a Provincially Significant Wetland Complex), Rock Chapel, Sassafras Woods and Grindstone Creek Valley. The Amendment will also bring 20 km of the Bruce Trail into the NEP.

Almost half of the land in the Amendment area (over 47%) is publicly owned. Most of this is intended to become part of the Niagara Escarpment Parks and Open Space System. More than three quarters of the area being transferred is already designated as "Public Open Space and Buffer" under the Parkway Belt West Plan.

The lands were originally included in the Niagara Escarpment Planning Area when it was defined in 1974 but were transferred to the Parkway Belt West Plan in 1975 because the latter was nearing completion and would provide immediate protection whereas passage of the Niagara Escarpment Plan was still several years away. The Parkway Belt West Plan has now achieved its specific objectives for transportation and other urban services such as roads, hydro lines and pipelines, and the time has clearly come for the lands to be placed in the Niagara Escarpment Plan Area, where they rightly belong.

Under Amendment #71, 63% of the land will be designated as Escarpment Natural Area, 31% as Escarpment Protection Area, 5% as Escarpment Urban Area, and 1% as Escarpment Rural Area.

The proposed transfer of land from the Parkway Belt West Plan to the Niagara Escarpment Plan under this Amendment is only about 20 percent of the area envisioned in 1974. This is disappointing, and it means there will still be significant Escarpment lands left outside of the Plan area, but it is an important step forward.

Most people living in the area should not notice any difference in the way they can use their land. This is because the largest concentration of people, in the urban areas of Flamborough and Dundas, will continue to be subject to municipal zoning bylaws just as they are today. The most sensitive features and landscapes related to the Escarpment will be protected by the land use policies and development criteria of the NEP.