Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, 2006 (the Plan) is a regional growth management policy for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) area of southern Ontario, Canada. Introduced under the Places to Grow Act in 2005, the Plan was approved by the Lieutenant Governor in Council and enacted on June 16, 2006. Administered by the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure (MOI), the plan identifies density and intensification targets, urban growth centres, strategic employment areas, and settlement area restrictions designed to mitigate negative environmental, economic and human health impacts associated with sprawling, uncoordinated growth in the region.

The Government of Ontario first asserted its role in municipal land use planning through enactment of the City and Suburban Plan Act in 1912. In the Post-World War II period, considerable urban and suburban growth pressures demanded increased provincial intervention in municipal planning through official plan and zoning by-law requirements, and specialized administrative bodies. The Ontario Municipal Board, an independent administrative board, acts as an adjudicative tribunal on all applications and appeals regarding municipal and planning disputes in the province. A legislative structure consisting of provincial statutes and policies, municipal official plans, and land use control instruments (e.g., subdivision control, zoning by-laws) exists in the province today.

While Dalton McGuinty’s majority Liberal Government introduced the Growth Plan in 2006, the origin of related smart growth policy goals in Ontario can be traced to the Common Sense Revolution of the Mike Harris Government in the late 1990s. This period was initially characterized by governance reforms aimed at reducing provincial involvement in land use planning and funding of urban infrastructure such as public transit in Ontario. A combination of business and municipal concerns over the negative economic impacts of traffic congestion, rising costs of suburban infrastructure maintenance, and increased citizen opposition to development on the Oak Ridges Moraine pushed the Harris government to re-engage in land use planning. In particular, the unexpected activism of exurban homeowners and urban environmentalists protesting applications for development on the Oak Ridges Moraine “challenged urban sprawl…and introduced the notion of integrated regional planning that would simultaneously preserve nature and control development.”

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