Analysis of Tiny Township's Growth and Settlement Study Ainley study flawed, York University Professor states

The following are highlights of a deputation to Tiny Council on September 30, 1996, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Federation, by Jack B. Ellis, Emeritus Professor in Environment Studies, York University.

Back on July 15, 1996, a piece of paper called the "Township of Tiny Growth and Settlement Study" was adopted by Tiny's Council (who seem to place blind trust in their high-priced consultants). Shortly thereafter, they sent it off to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This is a very important study, but it was adopted and forwarded to the Ministry without any input from the public, without any public meeting on it, and without the public knowing anything about it.

Normally, such studies are an important input to the Official Plan. This study, done by Ainley & Associates for the Township, is totally inadequate for such purposes. It is simply a bad study. It is badly done, it uses inadequate methodology, and reaches conclusions that are totally absurd. I have been teaching population projection and housing needs to graduate and undergraduate students at York University for over 25 years, so I know a good study or a bad study when I see one. As for the Ainley study, I have never seen such a poorly done study. Had one of my students handed it in for a grade, I would have given it an "F".

Ainley's Population Projections are Totally Unrealistic Ainley did no research of their own whatsoever to project population for the next 20 years in Tiny Township. They merely relied upon three studies done by other consultants. One of these based its projection mostly on growth between the 1981 and 1991 censuses. During this period, there was a high level of building activity in Tiny, due to the real estate boom of the late 1980s. Since then, things have dropped off to about one quarter of what they were.

Two other studies Ainley "borrowed" were done for Simcoe County. Ainley assumes that Tiny will continue to have the same share of Simcoe County population for the next 20 years that it has had in the recent past. There is no proper justification given anywhere in the study for this assumption. In other parts of the County: the Honda plants in Alliston are expanding, Barrie and Innisfil are growing rapidly, Orillia has got the OPP headquarters and a huge new casino as employment generators. Meanwhile, in this area, the big shutdown of Mitsubishi in Midland has cost many hundreds of people their jobs. Some of those people live in Tiny. Just because other areas in Simcoe County are growing, doesn't mean that Tiny will automatically grow along with them. There are no factors in sight that would keep Tiny growing as fast as the rest of the County.

On page 17 of the study, Ainley summarizes the results of the population projections that other people have so conveniently done for them. The projected population of Tiny for the year 2011 ranges between 10,700 and 14,400. What does Ainley then do? They decide arbitrarily that a growth rate of 3% should apply in Tiny, for each and every year for the next 20 years, compounded exponentially! This gives a population of 16,750 which they then adopt for planning purposes, in the year 2016!

Consider for a moment how unreasonable a 3% growth rate per year really is for Tiny, compounded for each and every one of the next 20 years. First of all, Ontario overall is now growing at under 1% per year - about 0.7% - 0.8%. Even this rate is projected to drop over the next 20 years. Very few municipalities in Ontario are growing at anywhere near 3%. For example, the Cities of Mississauga and London (Ontario) are, as we all know, "boomtowns" compared to Tiny Township. Mississauga's projected growth rate amounts to just 1.1% per year, compounded over the next 20 years and London's 1.3%!

Ainley Estimates Housing Needs Far Too High Ainley figures out how many new houses all these new permanent residents would need by taking their inflated population projection and applying the other consultant's estimates of average household size in future. They come to the conclusion that 3,141 new housing units will be needed in Tiny by 2016, and that half of these should to go Perkinsfield!

If a growth rate of even 1.5% had been adopted for Tiny, this would lead to a housing need of just 1,352 units by 2016, not the 3,141 that Ainley fantasizes about, and no new units would be needed in Perkinsfield!

Ainley went about deciding where new permanent residential units might be build by listing all of the currently planned residential lots that have been approved in inland areas, and added their estimate of the potential for more residential lots in the following lands: those designated residential but are undeveloped, undeveloped land in rural areas, and lots that could be created by consent activity under Tiny's new policies for marginal agricultural lands. They come up with 1,402 possible lots for residential units, or 1,739 short of their supposed total need.

Ainley Propose Only One Location for the Bulk of the New Housing Ainley then decides that 80 of the new units could go on large lots in the inland areas, 118 more in Wyevale, but all of the remaining 1,541 new houses should be build in Perkinsfield!

They say that no new lots should be developed around Lafontaine because it is prime agricultural land. But then they say that 1,541 should go around Perkinsfield, which is also prime agricultural land! Great logic!

As for the 1,541 lots they propose for Perkinsfield, Ainley says they should all be on lots with full municipal water and sewer services. But, also, they should be only 465 sq. m. in size, or 5000 sq. ft., or about 40x125 feet. The Ainley study never says how 1,500 such small but expensive lots would be marketable in Tiny, or why anyone would buy such a lot in Perkinsfield rather than in Town where residents can walk to shopping and schools!

Ainley Ignored Costs and Their Impact on Municipal Finances This study of Ainley's, if adopted as Official Plan policy, would commit the Township to a hugely expensive sewer and water scheme that would be dependent on local taxpayers to fund the huge start-up costs, because higher levels of government are cutting their financial assistance for such schemes. Current residents of Tiny would get left holding the bag for the huge costs needed to start up such a scheme?

Interestingly enough, Ainley just happens to be doing a $600,000+ EA study of water and sewers for ... guess where? Perkinsfield! The engineering fees alone on such a project could amount to several million dollars. Is this just a coincidence? Is this a conflict of interest? I don't know. Who can say?

Ainley Ignored that Fact That Many Permanent Residents Live in the Shoreline Areas The most hair-raising fact I found in the whole study, even worse than their ridiculously high population projections, is that Ainley left shoreline residential areas completely out of their study! Ainley's study contains not one word about permanent residents living in the shoreline areas of Tiny! They also ignored the potential of vacant shoreline lots to meet some of the future need! The Assessment office in Barrie estimates there were 3844 vacant lots in the shoreline areas as of 1990. That could be many years supply given the fact that only a proportion will be occupied by permanent residents.

Ainley Failed to Address the Most Important Guidelines for Such Studies The Ministry of Housing sets out many important guidelines and requirements for such studies. The Ainley report totally ignored key ones and deal with most of the rest inadequately. In the interests of space, I will give only a few glaring examples.

One key principle is that planning must serve broad public interests. But, Ainley's growth study was conducted and adopted without any public input or discussion even though it could profoundly affect the social, economic and environmental future of the township. So much for "broad public interests". One wonders what interests they are serving!

Another principle requires that planning must contribute to the economic health of individual communities. The sort of planning proposed in the Ainley study would destroy the economic health of Tiny Township and its taxpayers! But it could make a few developers very rich and generate huge fees for Ainley!

The Ainley study did no projection of employment in the future, even though such a projection is a prime requirement for these studies. Their report also contains no estimate of the number of future retirees in Tiny Township, thus overlooking a social group which, as we all know, is significant now and will grow in the future. How many present seasonal cottagers plan to become permanent residents after retirement? Ainley doesn't know!

The planning approval process is required to be timely, fair, open and accessible, but this process wasn't open at all! Council never even bothered to consult their long-serving and knowledgeable Township staff on the matter!

Another key guideline Ainley ignored totally was to ensure that negative impacts on municipal finance are minimized. But Ainley doesn't say ONE WORD about the cost of their schemes, let alone show how Tiny Township and its taxpayers could ever afford them!

Conclusion: the Ainley Study is Unacceptable and Should NOT be Implemented In summary, this study is totally unacceptable. It is completely unusable as a guide for Tiny's future growth and settlement policies. I have written to the Minister to that effect. I asked Council not to implement any of its recommendations. My reasons were: * Ainley's projections are based on shoddy, second-hand methodology, with a growth rate for Tiny that is far too high * Ainley made and used totally unrealistic and unjustified assumptions in arriving at the number of units and where they should be located * Ainley totally ignored the reality that the shoreline areas contain a significant proportion of the permanent residential population of the township * Ainley did not fulfill key guidelines respecting employment projection and financial impact on the municipality * Ainley's study process was a completely closed one, with absolutely no public input.

A Simple and Costless Solution On September 30th, I made two specific suggestions that could remedy such situations in future, and asked if they would support them. These were:

1) to hire good consultants, making sure they get quality work at a fair price. Council should be putting studies and other planning and engineering jobs out to tender, rather than having Ainley automatically do the terms of reference, conduct the study, chair the meetings, and manage the public "input"!

2) to have a 30-day period for public review of studies, terms of reference, etc. before Council adopts them. This is a costless measure, and would save Tiny from the acute embarrassment of approving a report with such obvious shortcomings as the Tiny Growth and Settlement Study.

Editor's note: The two Councillors and Deputy-Mayor had no constructive comments in response to Professor Ellis' deputation.

Just before Jack Ellis sat down, Mayor Lancia said, on a personal note, "I sure would like to have been a student in your class, Jack."

Mayor Anthony Lancia said later to Professor Ellis: "I have similar concerns to those you have stated in your deputation. Hopefully the Council will have the wisdom to act on your suggestions and comments, as the Growth and Settlement Study forms a very important part of our overall Township Official Plan."

Mayor Lancia commented further, "the Township for some years has been receiving advice only from its consulting planners, Ainley & Associates, on major planning issues. Your deputation points out the weakness with this procedure. I will be recommending to Council that all future planning issues should have Township staff input and public involvement."