East Farm is a small part of the 654-acre urban expansion imposed by Steve Clark on Nov. 4 when he sidelined a hotly debated 2020 city ordinance — one of several recent controversial steps taken by the Progressive Conservative government to boost housing supply . Unlike other land the province has earmarked for future suburbs, and beyond the 1,281 hectares council itself had approved, the Watters Road farm wasn’t even slated for development during lengthy discussions in 2021 because political Ontario’s planning laws require the protection of good agricultural land. The rural scene on this cul-de-sac dirt road is peaceful, with snow-covered stalks of corn standing stiffly in a field near an old barn. Pines lining Cardinal Creek mask the rows of suburban homes just half a mile up the hill in Orleans. The property’s predictable lack of development potential seemed pretty clear when the council took official position not to allow houses on agricultural land and marked the urban extension line in February 2021leaving out the particular parcel. However, records show that in August 2021, the newly formed 1177 Watters Developments Ltd. bought it for $12.7 million — equivalent to $139,382 an acre — from the family that had owned it for a long time. According to company filings, all five directors belong to the Verdi Alliance group of concrete companies. The five men donated a total of $12,315 to the Progressive Conservatives in 2021 and 2022. CBC News tried to contact the managers but did not receive a response. Questions to Clark’s office about the farm, any perceived conflict of interest and lobbying from developers connected to other parcels he added to the city boundary also went unanswered.
129 hectares of agricultural land disappear every day
Meanwhile, in the Greater Toronto Area, the province is under fire for proposing to open up the Green Belt for housing, including repealing a law that protects about 2,000 hectares of farmland near Pickering, Ont. The government is “stepping back” and choosing new housing over future food security, when it should be able to have both, according to Emily Sousa, agriculture policy analyst at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). Current policy that guides land use mandates that cities and towns build efficiently near transit and infrastructure and avoid urbanizing farmland. But the province doesn’t seem to be following its own rules or listening to OFA or municipalities, Sousa said. (Neil Joyes/CBC) Sousa points out that Ontario is losing 129 hectares of arable land every dayaccording to Statistics Canada latest census of agriculture. Not only is it disappearing at an increasing rate, but farming itself is becoming more difficult as urban sprawl rotates outward and farm equipment mixes with traffic on country roads, he said. “It’s troubling on so many different levels,” Sousa said. “What’s scary about the rate of farmland loss and these seemingly small decisions that need to be made [in] a little land here and a little land there, it’s the cumulative effect it has over time.” Ottawa Morning10:17 These lands are being detached amid ‘terrifying’ urban boundary expansion The parcels of rural land allowed by Ontario’s housing minister inside Ottawa’s urban limits include a farm that was supposed to be protected from development but was bought for $12.7 million in 2021 by PC party donors.
$40 million in Findlay Creek land purchases
Land speculation is nothing new. Buyers have always snapped up agricultural land on the outskirts of cities years or decades in advance, expecting that neighborhoods and once-farmlands would one day spread out will soar in value. Nor is it unexpected that landowners will scramble to get their properties within city limits. At public committee meetings in 2020 and 2021, the owners made their proposals to Ottawa city councilors and — a provincial register shows — hired lobbying firms to talk to the minister himself. To find some of the biggest winners of Clark’s decision, he must follow Bank Street south until he reaches the countryside and the thriving suburban neighborhood of Findlay Creek. Prominent local developers such as Claridge Homes, Urbandale, Richcraft and Multivesco, along with local golf club owner Patterson Group, asked a joint commission in January 2021 to let them “finish” the Findlay Creek area as far west as Hawthorne Road . Most of the 257 hectares added by the province for future development in the Findlay Creek area were purchased by established local developers in 2019. City staff deemed the southernmost area too close to an active quarry to consider urban expansion. (Neil Joyes/CBC) Property records show that while Claridge bought some parcels as early as 2006, these four developers bought more than half the land in 2019 alone. Together they have paid more than $40 million. But this land initially failed to come within the boundaries. City staff scored those parcels poorly, saying transit and water infrastructure would be costly. Additionally, Claridge’s southernmost parcel was very close to an active quarry. Still, Ontario’s housing minister this month allowed an additional 257 hectares within the urban boundary. Some of these same developers also spent tens of millions buying 175 hectares north of Kanata in the South March area, which was also left within the boundaries. Claridge, Multivesco, eQ Homes, Uniform Developments and Minto issued a statement when the city commission swapped their land for Tewin in 2021, despite their lands scoring well with staff. Now, everyone is back. They declined to comment for this story.
Suburban growth is exploding
The divide between city and country can be stark. Where Bank Street meets the countryside at Findlay Creek, for example, townhouses still clad in white houses are in the midst of construction as a barn crumbles behind them. The townhouses are under construction in November 2022 in the Findlay Creek neighborhood on the edge of Ottawa’s urban limits, where agricultural land has just been added for future development. (Kate Porter/CBC) The area has exploded, said Mariam Zeitoun, who has lived there for twelve years — and she’s right. The City of Ottawa’s annual growth report shows the population in the Findlay Creek area increased by 6,754 over five years to 16,038 people in 2021. It added more people than live in Perth, Ont., and is a few hundred people less than the population of Pembroke, Ont. Residents say the community is family-friendly, but also note that the elementary school yard is filled with portable classrooms and that traffic on both Bank Street and Albion Road is congested. The area does not have its own community centre, library or leisure centre. Zeitoun says the Findlay Creek area has grown dramatically since she moved in twelve years ago. Before more development can come, he says the area needs schools, better roads, a community center and public transit. (Kate Porter/CBC) The newly added Findlay Creek lands are almost five kilometers from the future Leitrim LRT station. Zeitoun says the area needs more transit — she needs to drive her older children to jobs and to university. “How many more people are we going to add? It’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense how it’s going to … help the community that’s already here,” Zeitoun said. “It seems to be more about profit than anything else.”
