SUSTAINABILITY - WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?



Sustainability Committee Meeting - March 1 2012


On Monday night Halton Hills Council will approve engaging consultants to move the Town’s Sustainability Project forward to a conclusion by the end of this summer.


Many communities in Canada and around the world are tackling the issue of sustainability by producing plans to help them achieve their goals.

In Halton Hills, Mayor Bonnette initiated our Town Sustainability Advisory Committee last year. Residents representing a vast array of interests and expertise were recruited and given the task of figuring out what sustainability meant and how we should proceed towards creating a plan.

In the past year, this committee made several important recommendations, one of which was to take this process as far as possible themselves without the assistance of an outside consultant. They formed 4 committees and proceeded to define goals that would address the following 4 major areas of interest: environmental, social, economic and cultural. These have now been dubbed the 4 Pillars of Sustainability.

Last Wednesday evening the committee and members of the sub-committees assembled to present their vision and goals. It was impressive to see amount of thought that each group had devoted to each area of inquiry.

Now the job is to take these goals and test them with the wider community to see if they are meaningful to our residents and businesses and then come up with an implementation plan. The task is beyond the ability of our volunteers and so now expert assistance is necessary.

Considering that we are spending $50,000 on the consultants it is important that we all understand what sustainability is and why we are bothering. In the end, what will be different?

Locally, Sustainability grew out of the Mayor’s Green Plan which looked at how the Town could reduce its use of non-renewable resources and was focused entirely on environmental goals.

I think of Sustainability as looking at the overall well-being and vitality of our community by identifying the social, cultural and economic aspirations of our residents. Using a sustainability framework these goals are constantly tested against the underlying and ever-present environmental goals. It also works in reverse with the environmental aspirations being tested against the social, cultural and economic goals.

Normally the 4 pillars are portrayed as being equal and demanding of equal attention. In a perfect world these 4 pillars would be in balance. But in the real world we could expect them to be out of balance. The important thing is to have a decision making process in place that forces one to consider all four pillars and to think about the long term implications for achieving and retaining the desired balance.

The goal in the end is to make decisions, on an ongoing basis, that ensures Halton Hills continues to be a great place to live and work while at the same time reducing our environmental impact and if anything, improving our local environment.

Financial Challenges Facing Halton Hills

It has been a week and a half since the Town of Halton Hills Council decided by a vote of 10 to 1 to proceed with its aggressive arena building program. As the sole councillor to vote against this spending program I have received a great deal of public support. People are concerned about the level of debt, the increase in taxes and the focus on arena users as the major beneficiary of municipal support.



I find it fascinating that Coucil received a report from our Chief Administrative Officer in late January that outlined the tenuous financial position of the Town. To give you an idea of the financial challenges that may impact our situation I am going to list for you those things that were flagged by the CAO.

• Council intends to purchase parkland in Georgetown South to accommodate the tennis court and soccer field that are being displaced by the arena twinning at MoldMasters. This land will cost us $5.25 million. Our Parkland Reserve account only has $300,000 left in it because we just spent $1.3 million to by the MSB parkland in Acton.


• As the result of a tax appeal for all golf courses we can expect a .25% tax increase


• The hospital is asking for $4.5 million


• The Georgetown Library and Cultural centre is budgetted for $13 million but has not been tendered yet.


• All of our budgets are dependent on the release of more water to allow for development and the collection of development charges. Our experience in terms of timing has been that no projections given by the Region have been realized.


• If the development charges do not arrive in the Town's treasurer then projects in the budegt will be delayed and costs will increase beyond what is currently budgeted.


• Appeals to the Regional Official Plan are being defended by the Town and those costs could range from $500,000 to $ 1 million. These costs have not been budgetted for and result in yet another tax levy that will range from 1.75% to 3.33%. This would be a special one time levy but in that particular budget year it will be on top of other levies already in place.


• The fight against the GTA West Corridor will be costly if we choose to fight it. (The worst possible scenario has just been announced as the provinces preferred plan )


• Town reserve funds are too low and we need to start building them up after the building spree that we have been on. (2 new fire halls, 2 new libraries)


• The current Pavement management program is not meeting the objective of replacing our roads every 25 years. We need to devote more financial resources to this program.


• The source of funding for the Activan Program will be exhausted by 2012 and will necessitate a levy increase of perhaps .75% in 2012 to support the existing service.

With this laundry list of pressures on future budgets it struck me that even approving 1 arena in the same year we are on the verge of tendering the library cultural/centre was ambitious enough. However, I decided to stretch far enough to add another arena because of the need to replace Memorial. In light of all the financial unknowns maybe even I went too far.