Ontario's new housing minister Paul Calandra says development will continue on 14 sites removed from the Greenbelt last year as he carries out a wider review of the protected lands, while suggesting more properties could be opened to housing construction.
At a news conference Wednesday, Calandra said he has asked his ministry staff to lay out parameters for a review of the Greenbelt and hundreds of existing development applications that is "public, open and accountable."
The pending review, first announced by Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday, comes after two provincial watchdogs found last year's process for earmarking roughly 3,000 hectares of Greenbelt land for development favoured a small group of developers with direct access to a political staffer within the housing ministry.
Calandra said a nonpartisan provincial adjudicator will continue working with the owners of that land — which include some of the largest developers in Ontario — on their plans for building new homes on the sites. Calandra said he has asked the adjudicator to complete her work by the end of the year, at which point the agreements will be made public and subjected to the wider review process. He said he expects "shovels in the ground" on those sites by 2025.
"We want to ensure the highest level of accountability on those sites and future sites," Calandra said. He acknowledged that public trust in the government was damaged by the findings of Ontario's auditor general and integrity commissioner, who both issued scathing reports on the Greenbelt land swap.
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