From Ramara to Stratford and King Township, ordinary Ontarians and a growing number of municipal leaders are pushing back against the abuse of MZOs.

A previously obscure tool meant for emergency circumstances, Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) are now being misused – at a terrifying rate. While they have valid purposes, such as fast-tracking COVID-safe outdoor dining and emergency public housing for people in homeless shelters, they are more often being abused to enrich select developers by permitting car-dependent residential, commercial, and even institutional sprawl in wetlands and other protected lands.

Scarier still, a law passed last December, and another set for third reading April 1st, are transforming MZOs into weapons of destruction – sweeping aside flood and wetland protection and virtually every other safeguard against dangerous sprawl.

While opposition to individual Minister’s Zoning Orders is beginning to bear fruit, the secretive and arbitrary MZO “process” means that battles against specific MZOs are always frantic and uphill. It’s now clear that the government’s approach to MZOs is wrong in principle. The time has come for Ontarians and their municipal representatives to take the initiative, and to declare in advance that the use of Minister’s Zoning Orders to authorize residential, commercial, and institutional sprawl will not be tolerated.

To that end, Environmental Defence has devised a draft resolution that mayors and municipal councillors can pass into law (text included below) to defend farmland and natural heritage against MZOs, and signal that they are committed to local democracy.

Municipal and Regional councils that adopt our template motion will be fighting sprawl MZOs, and helping insulate your town, city, or region from them, in three ways:

• First, through the resolution, your municipal council will be deciding not to request any sprawl MZOs, or to endorse any request for sprawl MZOs.  The resolution would establish that your municipality will not request MZOs that skirt planning rules or environmental protection, and that it will only request them to tackle the genuine emergencies they were intended for.
• Second, your municipal council will be expressly telling the government not to issue any sprawl MZOs within its boundaries.
• Third, your municipal council would be asking the legislature to legally limit the MZO power to prohibit all future sprawl MZOs in Ontario.

How to Use Our Template Motion to Stop the Inappropriate Use of MZOs

We need your help to make this happen. Contact your Town, City, Village or Regional Councillor, and the Mayor or Chair of your municipality and ask them to introduce and vote for a version of our template resolution to stop the inappropriate use of MZOs.

Please copy and paste the following email – including the three-part template motion – and replace the text in the square brackets with the name of your City/Town/Region. Then send it by email to your local Councillor, or your Mayor or Region Chair, asking them to put it on your City/Town/Region agenda, and vote to pass it.

Dear [  ],

I am writing to ask that you help put a stop to sprawl MZOs in our community by introducing and voting for a motion (draft language attached) at the next Council meeting.

Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) are being misused and overused by Ontario’s provincial government in a way that damages the environment, threatens our safety, and saddles municipalities with ill-considered sprawl that will drag us down for decades to come.  While there are very rare emergencies that warrant speeding up the approval process, the government has changed the law to let the Minister issue MZOs that would otherwise be unlawful – because they violate fundamental planning rules or even create floods and landslide risk.

We cannot wait and fight sprawl MZOs case-by-case, because there is no transparent MZO process: an MZO could be requested and issued arbitrarily by the Minister before our municipality and Council even hear about it.  Council must be proactive in protecting our community from these dangerous Minister’s Zoning Orders, by passing a motion which (1) tells developers in advance that you will not request or endorse any request for a MZO that does not meet strict and transparent criteria, (2) preemptively asks the province not to issue any MZO that fails to meet those criteria, and (3) asks the Ontario legislature to legally prohibit MZOs that do not meet those criteria.

The text of that motion would be as follows:

1. That [City/Town/Region] will not make a request for or indicate its approval of any Minister’s Zoning Order applicable to land within the [City/Town/Region], excepting Orders:

a. which are limited to addressing an extraordinary and emergent circumstance that is a matter of provincial interest,
b. which are limited to measures which the [City/Town/Region] could not otherwise bring into force in time to adequately address the relevant extraordinary and emergent circumstance,
c. which are consistent with the Official Plan, Provincial Policy Statement, 2020, and Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and s. s. 24, s. 2, s. 3 of the Planning Act,
d. which do not authorize urbanization outside of settlement area boundaries,
e. which do not authorize development that would destroy or displace a Provincially Significant Wetland, Provincially Significant Woodland, Provincially Significant Valley Lands, Provincially Significant Wildlife Habitat, Coastal Wetlands, Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest or farmland,
f. which are framed geographically or in their wording so as to not to limit any power that a Conservation Authority would otherwise have, and
g. which are supported by the Minister’s comprehensive, written, and publicly-disclosed reasons for determining that the above criteria have been met.

2. That [City/Town/Region] request the Government of Ontario, including the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing place an immediate and permanent moratorium on the issuance of Minister’s Zoning Orders applicable to land within the [City/Town/Region], excepting Orders:

a. which are limited to addressing an extraordinary and emergent circumstance that is a matter of provincial interest,
b. which are limited to measures which [City/Town/Region] could not otherwise bring into force in time to adequately address the relevant extraordinary and emergent circumstance,
c. which are consistent with the Official Plan, Provincial Policy Statement, 2020, and Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and s. s. 24, s. 2, s. 3 of the Planning Act,
d. which do not authorize urbanization outside of settlement area boundaries,
e. which do not authorize development that would destroy or displace a Provincially Significant Wetland, Provincially Significant Woodland, Provincially Significant Valley Lands, Provincially Significant Wildlife Habitat, Coastal Wetlands, Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest or farmland,
f. which are supported by the Minister’s comprehensive, written, and publicly-disclosed reasons for determining that the above criteria have been met, and
g. whose issuance is expressly requested through a lawfully adopted motion of [City/Town/Region].

3. That [City/Town/Region] request the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Legislative Assembly amend the Planning Act to prohibit the issuance of Minister’s Zoning Orders applicable to land within the boundaries of any municipality, excepting Orders:

a. which are limited to addressing an extraordinary and emergent circumstance that is a matter of provincial interest,
b. which are limited to measures which the muncipality could not otherwise bring into force in time to adequately address the relevant extraordinary and emergent circumstance,
c. which are consistent with the Official Plan, Provincial Policy Statement, 2020, and Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and s. s. 24, s. 2, s. 3 of the Planning Act,
d. which do not authorize urbanization outside of settlement area boundaries,
e. which do not authorize development that would destroy or displace a Provincially Significant Wetland, Provincially Significant Woodland, Provincially Significant Valley Lands, Provincially Significant Wildlife Habitat, Coastal Wetlands, Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest or farmland,
f. which are framed geographically or in their wording so as to not to limit any power that a Conservation Authority would otherwise have
g. which are supported by the Minister’s comprehensive, written, and publicly-disclosed reasons for determining that the above criteria have been met, and
h. whose issuance is expressly requested through a lawfully adopted motion of the municipal government(s) to whose territory the Order pertains.

If you have any questions or want more information email us at info@yourstoprotect.ca

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