React is nice
In 2006, The Province of Ontario released a Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) Places to Grow. The Growth Plan guides decisions on issues relating to transportation, infrastructure, planning, land-use planning, urban form, housing, natural heritage, and resource protection with the intent to help secure the future prosperity of the Greater Golden Horseshoe area.
The Growth Plan states that all municipalities will develop and implement, through their official plans and other supporting documents, a strategy and policies to phase in and achieve intensification and the intensification target. The York Region 2031 Intensification Strategy represents a component of the larger municipal comprehensive review required for the Regional Official Plan Review. In accordance with provincial requirements, the objectives of the Regional Intensification Strategy are to:
Use the Region’s Growth Forecasts for population and employment
Quantify and accommodate a significant portion of both future employment and residential development through intensification throughout the built-up area in accordance with the policies in 2.2.3 of the Growth Plan
Identify a minimum intensification target for residential development that maximizes and ensures the implementation of the intensification strategy.
Identify the appropriate type and scale of development and set targets for employment and residential growth in intensification areas, urban growth centers, major transit station areas, and intensification corridors.
In addition to provincial regulation, intensifying the Region’s built-up area will result in a number of environmental, economic, and community benefits:
Communities can be designed so that cost-effective and efficient transit, infrastructure, and human services systems can be operated and easily accessed. Well-designed streets and building locations give people the choice of walking and bicycling as opposed to reliance on automobiles.
Higher density, mixed-use, and transit-supportive development reduces greenhouse gas emissions and increases long-term resiliency to the impacts of climate change by utilizing land and infrastructure resources efficiently and reducing automobile dependency.
Higher densities result in a greater proportion of row and apartment-style housing. These types of housing structures provide a broader range of housing choices and affordability.
The Regional Intensification Strategy, accompanied by the Local Municipal Intensification Strategies, will reinforce the linkage between high density, mixed-use development and centers and corridors served by rapid transit. These strategies, therefore, will further enhance the planned urban structure and advance the Region’s “city-building” initiative.