A plague of planners

[wyliepoon]

With the phenomenon of development "leapfrogging" over greenbelts, I've been wondering if instead of telling developers where not to build (greenbelts), they should be told only where to build (ie. protect all lands in the state/province from development except areas that should be developed).

 

[rdaner]

The lack of coherent planning vision in areas outside of the Greenbelt (is it now correct to capitalize Toronto's greenbelt?) is not a reason to not have an urban growth boundary.

I apologize for this grammatical disaster.

 

[Mike in TO]

With the phenomenon of development "leapfrogging" over greenbelts, I've been wondering if instead of telling developers where not to build (greenbelts), they should be told only where to build (ie. protect all lands in the state/province from development except areas that should be developed).

Kind of hard to do with a democratic government. Property rights are not enshrine like the U.S., but the public would not stand for that level of intrusion, nor would any government likely propose such a measure.

Places to Grow sort of does what you are proposing. The Greenbelt outlines what areas are not available for development, while Places to Grow targets specific urban growth centres for development and mandates specific densities for all new greenfield development.