Dear citizens of Niagara, would you like our community to look like Mississauga? If not, it is very important that you know there currently is an opportunity to join with people from around the Region to work together to ensure that Niagara Regional Council makes the best decision for us and for future generations.
In the coming months, Niagara's Regional Council will have a once in a lifetime chance to vote to preserve Niagara's natural heritage for the future or to continue to allow it to be destroyed and paved over.
As part of the Official Plan review, the Region must develop a Natural Heritage System (NHS) and a Water Resource System (WRS). The plans need be in place by July 1st, 2021.
To be effective in preserving what little is left of Niagara's natural ecosystems, the NHS and WRS will need to map and protect environmentally significant areas and water resources, sufficient buffers to protect them and linkages to connect them into resilient and sustainable systems that can foster and enhance local biodiversity into the future.
Unfortunately, Regional staff are recommending options that will not meet this objective, largely because it leaves all settlement areas (municipalities and their designated development lands) out of the equation. Natural systems do not recognize lines drawn on a map. They are either considered in their entirety or you don't have a "system". If this was in place now, Waverly Woods would have been protected from development.
Not only should the Regional Council select the Natural Heritage System and Water Resource System that best protects the environment, they should also select the ones that provide the most benefits for the Region's citizens. For the Natural Heritage System that is Option 3C and for the Water Resource System that is Option 2B.
COVID has shown us the importance of having nature close to home. Beyond that our urban areas also need the green infrastructure benefits that natural spaces provide such as flood and erosion protection, pollution mitigation, pollination services, biodiversity protection and water quality improvements.
To learn more about this issue, please watch this clip of the presentation Town of Lincoln resident Liz Benneian recently made to the Planning and Economic Development Committee: https://www.youtube.com/embed/RY_1gIdVSN0?start=4974&end=6400&fbclid=IwAR2wliLkG2c_ZjPqUIRnREOKI0ZRFYk3wKs1kTDrL-uRgJaeVxAloXJKsQg
To connect with others who will be encouraging Council to choose the best NHS and WRS options for our future contact Liz at the Biodiversity and Climate Action Committee at bcacniagara@gmail.com.
Have a look at the Biodiversity and Climate Action Committee Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=294341598685232&id=114688909983836&__tn__=K-R
Please connect with your Regional Councillors and Mayors listed here to let them know you want 3C and 2B. https://www.niagararegion.ca/government/council/profiles/default.aspx
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