Smart Growth

The RPCO sent letters to the Ontario Minister for Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Honorable David Young, and to Hazel McCallion, chair of the Smart Growth Panel, in June 2003, outlining the RPCO 's comments on the Ministry report 2003 and Beyond: A Smart Growth Approach to Ontario's Urban Centres, and the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel's final report, Shape the Future. 

Download: Letter to David Young, Minister of Municipal Affairs.pdf

Download: Letter to Hazel MCCallion Smart Growth Panel chair.pdf

Following a request from Leslie Woo, the Executive Lead for Partnership and Consultation in the Smart Growth Secretariat, the RPCO submitted a paper in October 2002 to the Smart Growth Secretariat and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, identifying smart growth initiatives that can be implemented by the Province of Ontario in both the short-term and the longer term.

Six major areas addressing the primary challenges facing urban and rural environments across Ontario are addressed in the submission and in the accompanying matrix:

• settlement patterns
• economic development and re-development
• landscape planning and rural issues
• utilities
• health
• housing

In June 2001 the RPCO issued the Beyond Smart Growth policy paper, outlining a common approach to achieving sustainable, healthy communities within Ontario city regions. The policy paper identifies twenty action items that will move Ontario's city regions toward a shared planning vision: communities that are healthy and sustainable, and able to accommodate the significant growth forecast over the next few decades. The action items reflect five key themes:

• maintain firm urban boundaries,
• develop key nodes,
• invest in public transit infrastructure,
• protect greenlands and the countryside, and
• re-align fiscal policies.