Grandfathered subdivisions and proposals for four golf courses in the development pipeline

Phinjo Gombu
Staff Reporter, The Toronto Star

The rolling hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine on which Deanna Ramsay's family farm sits include a soaring cell phone tower and a small, four-hectare woodlot of original Carolinian forest filled with sugar maple, white ash, pine and beech trees.

The farm has seen only three owners since it was first granted to settlers by the Crown in 1815. Today it is home to tenant farmers who grow hay and soya beans while the meadow forms an idyllic range for Ramsay's seven horses.

But more than six years after the province ended an environmental war by passing legislation to protect the moraine, the snow-swept vista has become the latest hotspot for continuing skirmishes between developers, residents and town councils.

At issue is one of several moraine projects that were in the pipeline when the province's Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan came into effect in 2001 and are only now seeking approval. Other projects, which were "grandfathered" when the plan was passed, are now seeking final approvals.

Lebovic Homes wants to build an 18-hole golf course and 75-unit condominium complex on either side of Leslie St. north of Bloomington Rd. – just south of where Ramsay lives.

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