‘We fought for this area’: Local residents worry housing development will impact Canada’s largest urban park, farmland

Awash with tall trees and rolling hills, the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in Ontario. A sprawling 4,700-acre piece of land east of Toronto, it’s home to more than 1,700 species, including 42 that are considered at risk.

Until December of last year, the area was also part of Ontario’s Greenbelt, a swath of protected land surrounding the Greater Toronto Area that includes farmland, forests, wetlands, rivers and lakes. But last year, the province’s Progressive Conservative government, led by Premier Doug Ford, opened the area to development.

The news was a blow to local residents like Marion Thomas.

“We fought for this area for many years to be added to Greenbelt, and the entire effort was to protect (the preserve) and Rouge National Urban Park from development. But now we are betrayed by the Ford government,” said Thomas, who lives in nearby Pickering’s Whitevale community. “I am really pissed off because I spent so much time trying to save it.”

To address the ongoing housing crisis, the Ontario government plans to build 1.5 million new homes across the province in 10 years. Part of that plan involves removing 7,400 acres of protected land from the Greenbelt and opening it up to development. That includes the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP) area, which shares its eastern border with Rouge National Urban Park. At nearly 80 square kilometres in size, Rouge is the largest urban park in Canada.

Environmental activists and residents of Pickering, where Duffins Rouge is located, warn the decision could cause “irreversible harm” to wildlife, natural ecosystems, agricultural land and threatened species.

“There are many other areas of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to build houses without touching the Greenbelt,” said Stephen Marshall, co-ordinator of the Common Ground community garden.

Marshall said he and other community members are not against bringing more people into Pickering, but they want new neighbours in the right place.

“You can have growth with benefits, or you can have growth with destruction and cost, and this growth is with destruction and cost. We don’t want to see development that damages the environment and puts wildlife at risk," he added.

Another problem is that Duffins Rouge is farmland, he said. “When you take a big hunk out of the middle, it makes it difficult for the farmers. You have to have a big enough cluster of farms to support the agriculture services.”

Then there’s the waterway. Duffins Creek runs south to the shores of Lake Ontario, connecting communities throughout Durham and York regions. It's one of the few waterways in the GTA that remains largely untouched — 71 per cent of its watershed runs through rural landscapes.

These lands are all in harmony, and they work together to keep the creek running clear and cool and protect animals in the area, said Lloyd Thomas, Marion’s husband. “To destroy this harmony, you really are destroying the wildlife, the fish, birds and other species.”

Environmental advocates are asking the provincial government to reverse its decision to build houses in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve area.

They may get some help from the federal government, which launched an environmental study of Rouge National Urban Park last month to understand the impacts of housing developments in the area.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has warned the Ontario government that housing development near Rouge National Urban Park will be shut down if the study finds potential negative effects on biodiversity and at-risk species from such projects.

The province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing told Canada’s National Observer any future developments in this area must comply with provincial law.

“As previously noted by the federal government, the readily developable lands in question are not connected to the Rouge National Urban Park. Any development on these lands must avoid impacts to species at risk and comply with the Endangered Species Act,” a ministry spokesperson wrote in an email.

A statement on the federal Environment Ministry’s website says the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada will conduct the study in collaboration with Parks Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“The objectives of the study are to understand the potential effects, including cumulative effects, of past, ongoing, and potential future development on the integrity of the park and on the park’s management objectives,” the statement reads. “This includes protecting biodiversity, natural resources, and natural processes; ecological connectivity throughout the park.”

According to the statement, the study will involve working with Indigenous groups and interested parties to collect data.

Advocates of Duffins Rouge also take issue with the lack of opportunity to speak out in support of protecting the land.

“There was no public consultation in advance,” said Alexis Edghill Whalen, co-lead of Stop Sprawl Durham, a community group advocating for farmland, natural heritage and the environment. “So, it speaks to a government that didn’t have a good intention from the beginning to engage, inform and conduct a democratic review of what they were planning.”

The day before Whalen spoke to Canada’s National Observer, a storm had passed through Pickering.

“This area is providing an ecosystem service absorbing the water and protecting downstream communities and Lake Ontario from flooding and polluted runoff,” she said. “I don’t think there is enough attention being paid at all to what would happen downstream, where there are established larger communities, if urbanization happens in DRAP.”

Whalen said there is extensive reporting that Pickering has sufficient land to accommodate beyond what the projections are for new neighbours.

“It is completely unnecessary, and it is disrupting the orderly queue that was going to deliver somewhat affordable housing to communities that urgently needed it.”

This story was produced in partnership with Journalists for Human Rights for the Afghan Journalists-in-Residence program funded by the Meta Journalism Project.