Brockton council is currently dealing with a 40-year-old problem known as the erosion of the bluffs in the Valleyside Drive area of Walkerton.
As we reported last week, council is looking to deal with the problem that was, for a lack of a better term, punted by council 40 years ago.
As Pauline Kerr wrote, “The problem isn’t the fact that the Saugeen River is trying to forge a new path north of its present course where it winds through Walkerton, and is slowly but surely eating away at the 100-foot bluffs along the north riverbank. The problem is a municipal council from 40 years ago that allowed a developer to build houses on top of the bluffs without first stabilizing the slope. Erosion has progressed to the point where houses are, or will be, in jeopardy.”
Over the past 40 years, planning processes have gotten much better, to the point where municipalities are no longer allowed to approve building in such areas.
Hold on… let me check what Bill 23 has to say on the subject.
Bill 23, the universally-panned bill passed by the provincial government in November, will likely allow building in such sites moving forward.
Without sounding like a broken record, Bill 23 is designed to build more homes faster, hence it’s clever name, the More Homes Built Faster Act. In order to do so, it cuts red tape (the Conservative government’s favourite phrase) and opens the doors to developers to hopefully build more homes, higher density units, and build basically wherever they want to. It also removes a lot of those pesky development charges and other things that “drive the price of housing up,” says the province.
Asides from the Conservatives and some developers in the province – many of whom have been linked to the Conservatives as donors – who is in favour of this bill?
Literally no one.
Municipalities don’t like it because it takes away the ability to pay for infrastructure associated with growth.
Conservation authorities don’t like it because it revokes their ability to make regulations applicable to its jurisdiction area to regulate development, interference with wetlands and alterations to shorelines and watercourses.
And for members of the public, your ability to comment on things such as subdivisions basically disappears, as municipalities will no longer be mandated to hold public meetings for such applications.
The More Homes Built Faster Act was given royal assent by the province before the deadline for the public commenting period on the bill.
I don’t want to beat a broken drum about Bill 23 and how it will no work as intended. However, I do fear that what we are seeing with the bluffs here in Walkerton will be repeated again in the future. Not necessarily here, but somewhere.
Someone will want to build a house near a wetland or on a bluff because of its great view, and very little will be able to be done to prevent it thanks to Bill 23.
And some 40 or 50 years later, that house will sink into the wetland or slide into the river or lake.
Who will be left to deal with that? The taxpayer.
Brockton council is looking at a multi-million-dollar problem caused by the poor judgment of its predecessors some 40 years ago – and kudos to them for doing so. It is a problem they never should have had, and they aren’t going to run from it.
It’s just too bad that the taxpayers of today have to foot the bill.
Hopefully the lessons we as a society have learned over the past few decades when it comes to building in areas such as wetlands and near bodies of water will be remembered.
Just because we can build somewhere doesn’t mean we should.
Just look at the houses on the bluffs in Walkerton; they look great now, but how great will they look if they end up in the Saugeen River?
Just because homes are built faster, doesn’t mean they are built better.
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Mike Wilson is the editor of the Walkerton Herald-Times. Comments and feedback are welcome at mwilson@midwesternnewspapers.com.
