Cheaper housing on the horizon?

[Wingboy]

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The slivers of land that developers want are usually limestone rich. The ingredient our urban world craves. If we're allow indiscriminate mining of it, we give up valuable groundwater. The fights to protect these slivers of land has been going on since the 50's.

 

[Mad Mike]

Silly hippies in the past in misguided, uneducated tree hugging fests have given the educated people a bad wrap. They all get painted with the same brush.

This is certainly an issue, sadly some of the educated people are silly tree hugging hippies too.

I'm all for protecting biodiversity. I experienced wanton destruction in 2005 when a neighbour clear cut her half of a protected woodlot that we share, it borders our properties. When informed of the $100k fine, she shrugged her shoulders, said improving the view from her office was worth it. She dozed 1000 trees, we lost a colony of owls and bats. The bats returned after 10 years, the owls never will.

 

[Mad Mike]

The slivers of land that developers want are usually limestone rich. The ingredient our urban world craves. If we're allow indiscriminate mining of it, we give up valuable groundwater. The fights to protect these slivers of land has been going on since the 50's.

I doubt your going to see open pit quarries as part of the deal. My son's university roommate bought a couple of spent quarries would gladly expedite rehabilitation efforts if the land could be used for housing. There are lots of 200 acre scortched earth pits in the Greenbelt, they will naturally rehab over the next 200 years. Start with them.

 

[Wingboy]

I doubt your going to see open pit quarries as part of the deal. My son's university roommate bought a couple of spent quarries would gladly expedite rehabilitation efforts if the land could be used for housing. There are lots of 200 acre scortched earth pits in the Greenbelt, they will naturally rehab over the next 200 years. Start with them.

Watch the video i posted. The limestone quarries don't recover without a lot of help. If the Ford government stays on it's present track, the environment is in danger.

 

[FullMotoJacket]

GTA needs more affordable housing, converting a sliver of land that is adjacent to existing infrastructure around Milton

The sliver of land you're referring to is the old clay pit at Tremain/Steeles/Peru. You're naive if you think sticking 3-400 townhomes literally in the shadow of the Escarpment isn't going to affect it detrimentally. Lather, rinse, repeat up and down the Escarpment, and you end up with a ridge a couple of hundred meters wide running through endless housing tracts. It won't survive. At least not as we know it.

 

[sburns]

A lot of the escarpment has been designated a bioreserve to protect it from limestone mining. A precedent like Ford's is dangerous.
We need to protect our greenbelt.

How can we influence the gov, when they don't listen to it's people. A vote doesn't go far enough to help with situations like this where it wasn't even on the radar at the time of the election...

 

[Wingboy]

The sliver of land you're referring to is the old clay pit at Tremain/Steeles/Peru. You're naive if you think sticking 3-400 townhomes literally in the shadow of the Escarpment isn't going to affect it detrimentally. Lather, rinse, repeat up and down the Escarpment, and you end up with a ridge a couple of hundred meters wide running through endless housing tracts. It won't survive. At least not as we know it.

Lots of fun in those clay pits back in the 70's. Is it all locked up now? There was a few awesome hill climbs.

 

[Wingboy]

How can we influence the gov, when they don't listen to it's people. A vote doesn't go far enough to help with situations like this where it wasn't even on the radar at the time of the election...

Radical change. Vote green.

 

[Mad Mike]

Watch the video i posted. The limestone quarries don't recover without a lot of help. If the Ford government stays on it's present track, the environment is in danger.

I think the standard recovery is to leave a pit to mother nature. She'll do the work, it takes her 200 years.

If quarries could be repurposed, owners can rehab in a few years (lots of this done in Markham and Uxbridge). They take clean fill to refill the pits, then sculpt and replant from the perimeter inward. Scortched earth to urban landscape in no time.

 

[Wingboy]

I think the standard recovery is to leave a pit to mother nature. She'll do the work, it takes her 200 years.

If quarries could be repurposed, owners can rehab in a few years (lots of this done in Markham and Uxbridge). They take clean fill to refill the pits, then sculpt and replant from the perimeter inward. Scortched earth to urban landscape in no time.

No harm done then?
Show us your data.

 

[Mad Mike]

Lots of fun in those clay pits back in the 70's. Is it all locked up now? There was a few awesome hill climbs.

I remember the Swan Lake pit in Markham. Back in the day you could ride the pits on weekends, no fences no hassles, no lawsuits if you crashed.

Sadly the local pit diggers hit a pressurized aquifer, the pit filled to the brim inside 24 hours and has been a 55 acre pond since.

 

[Mad Mike]

No harm done then?
Show us your data.

Not sure what kinda data you're after.

 

[Mad Mike]

The sliver of land you're referring to is the old clay pit at Tremain/Steeles/Peru. You're naive if you think sticking 3-400 townhomes literally in the shadow of the Escarpment isn't going to affect it detrimentally. Lather, rinse, repeat up and down the Escarpment, and you end up with a ridge a couple of hundred meters wide running through endless housing tracts. It won't survive. At least not as we know it.

I didn't refer to any specific lands.

If it were my choice, I'd relieve lands that were already under environmentally dirty intensified use. Things like golf courses, feedlots, open pits, sod farms.

 

[DownUnder]

How can we influence the gov, when they don't listen to it's people. A vote doesn't go far enough to help with situations like this where it wasn't even on the radar at the time of the election...

The only influence is money, and this change has probably been in the works behind the scenes for many years.

What's the point of having an untouchable greenbelt if the next political party down the line gets bribed to cut into it with zero say from the people and zero consequences.

 

[timtune]

Nestle would love this and have tried arguing that water should not be a basic right. Horrible company.

You're spot on MP. These guys are evil incarnate. In SA they were trying to ban the collection of rain water so they could make more on bottled.

 

[Lightcycle]

You're spot on MP. These guys are evil incarnate. In SA they were trying to ban the collection of rain water so they could make more on bottled.

Many places around the world (including the US) have restrictions on the collection of rainwater (how much you collect and what you use it for), especially in drought-stricken areas.

If enough rainwater is harvested, it prevents the water from running off into the ground and replenishing the water table, which is no bueno for the local ecosystem.

 

[Mad Mike]

The only influence is money, and this change has probably been in the works behind the scenes for many years.

What's the point of having an untouchable greenbelt if the next political party down the line gets bribed to cut into it with zero say from the people and zero consequences.

Sometimes historical acts need revisiting. In the early 2000, environmentalists were handed the opportunity to carte blanche lockup lands without review or public consultation. They basically locked everything that did not have approvals.

The Greenbelt, and sensitive land protection is a great idea, arbitrarily locking up industrial, commercial and spent farmlands, no so much.

Lack of planning created the mess, reviewing and replanning is a practical solution.

 

[timtune]

Many places around the world (including the US) have restrictions on the collection of rainwater (how much you collect and what you use it for), especially in drought-stricken areas.

If enough rainwater is harvested, it prevents the water from running off into the ground and replenishing the water table, which is no bueno for the local ecosystem.

I'm talking about the collection of water for personal consumption. And I'm still firm that nestle is evil.

Speaking of replenishing the water table. I see farmers systematically tiling 100s of acres. Heavy rain is scooted off into drainage ditches and not allowed to seep down and fill the aquafers. Can that be a good thing??

 

[Lightcycle]

I'm talking about the collection of water for personal consumption. And I'm still firm that nestle is evil.

I'm not taking sides on the personal consumption issue, and I think a lot of corporations, including Nestle are indeed evil. But the rationale behind the usage standpoint is because there's no governmental oversight into how the rainwater is purified, it becomes a public health problem. I know I'm smart enough to boil water, but I can't speak for others...

Speaking of replenishing the water table. I see farmers systematically tiling 100s of acres. Heavy rain is scooted off into drainage ditches and not allowed to seep down and fill the aquafers. Can that be a good thing??

The keyword here is drought-stricken areas. If there is sufficient precipitation in the area, then restrictions on rainwater harvesting become less of an issue.

 

[Mad Mike]

...

The keyword here is drought-stricken areas. If there is sufficient precipitation in the area, then restrictions on rainwater harvesting become less of an issue.

No always. The GTA Greenbelt has a large moraine that filters the Simcoe and Lake Ontario water supply. It also filters the aquifers in York, Northern Peel and Durham regions.

Water taking for residential, farming, golf courses and light industry polluted drained shallow aquifers. Rural residential and farm development diverted runoff that should pass thru the moraine soils for filtering. As a result, the aquifers were starved, streams and lakes enriched/polluted with organic runoffs that should have passed thru the moraine filters. Local lakes and wetlands suffered algae blooms and rapid eutrification, fish kills in Lakes Simcoe and Scugog were epic.

The area gets plenty of rainfall, near zero risk of drought. Stopping development and restricting water use/diversion on the moraine has been a huge success.

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