The CAO of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority wants the provincial government to re-consider some of the changes they are proposing to wetlands protection in an effort to build more housing.
Chandra Sharma is worried that changes to the evaluation process that decides whether land is “provincially significant” will result in wetlands being paved over.
Sharma says changes within the Ford governments “More Homes Built Faster Act” will impact threatened or endangered species and their habitat. "There are 95 provincially significant wetlands in our watershed, 67 of those have some sort of reproductive habitat or migration or hibernation for endangered or threatened species."
Sharma says under the new evaluation process 70 percent of those wetlands would no longer meet the provincial standards and could eventually be used for housing.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SHARMA SPEAK TO TIM DENIS
Another concern is the removal of "wetlands complexing" from the evaluation process.
Sharma says that means that 135 of the 170 wetlands covered by the NPCA as complexes could be removed.
Wetland complexes are interconnected pockets of wetland in the same area and under the provincial plan would no longer be viewed as a group and instead individually evaluated.
This would open them up to no longer being considered “provincially significant” and thus being paved over for housing.