Ontario issues special orders to approve developers’ plans and quash opposition

, such as those from citizens or environmental groups before Ontario’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

“It looks as though the provincial government under Doug Ford has found them to be somewhat of a magic wand that they can wave when their friends come calling for a special favour,” said Taras Natyshak, the Opposition NDP’s ethics and accountability critic. In one of four MZOs issued on April 24, Mr. Clark approved plans from a group of developers, including Condor Properties and Robert De Gasperis’s DG Group, who have promised a $500-million, 2,000-job warehouse and distribution centre for a major retailer in Vaughan, north of Toronto, near Highway 400. The project, subject to a public hearing last June to which a council report says no one showed up, would require the destruction of three small but protected wetlands.

In a report submitted to the town’s council, Whitchurch-Stouffville planners say Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing officials came to them in February, looking for council approval before issuing a zoning order to okay the plans. Shakir Rehmatullah, Flato’s founder and president, gave Mr. Ford’s PC leadership bid $1,200 in 2018. Whitchurch-Stouffville council approved the plans in February.

Some critics say they fear the government’s use of MZOs could poke holes in the protected farmland and countryside of the Greenbelt – which stretches across Southern Ontario and encircles the Greater Toronto Area – even though the Ford government has pledged not to touch it. Tim Gray, the executive director of Environmental Defence, now expects local councils and developers to angle for ministerial zoning orders to free up long-requested carveouts for Greenbelt lands.

Dirty.

Hey dougford you will pay for this decision when ousted. You could be in court as those in Walkerton.

Former PC cabinet ministers as development lobbyists, paving over wetlands, 'trust us, no favours being done', no opposition allowed? This isn't cool.

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