Urban provincial park will come in phases

Conrad Boyce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

One of the principal things Uxbridgians may be wondering about Uxbridge’s new urban provincial park, announced last spring and discussed in an open house at Uxbridge Secondary School in October, is what land will be included. As may be suspected with a project that involves multiple levels of government, as well as various other agencies and conservation groups, the answer is not straightforward. The Cosmos asked Colleen Baskin, recently seconded part-time from the Township to the park project as project manager, to give us an introduction to the process. This is what she provided:

At this point, things have not progressed enough where the various public land-owners can talk about future land-transfers to the park, but I can describe what we are working on.

There is a working group of public land-owners which includes TRCA, the Region of Durham, LSRCA and the Township, who are collaborating with the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) to identify viable scenarios for possible future land transfers. One goal of the project is to link existing recreational and conservation spaces to each other so that the whole is better than the sum of the parts, but how that might materialize hasn’t been determined yet.

The working group (the members of which are listed below) is identifying which lands are appropriate candidates, and what the terms and conditions of a potential transfer might be. Each member of that group is also working within their own organization to examine properties to determine pros and cons of transfer and will need to identify, by property parcel, specific issues to address.

Once some viable scenarios have been created, then each agency will be willing to discuss specific lands further. The public land-owners will wait to discuss specifics publicly until the bigger picture questions can be answered. There then needs to be public engagement on behalf of each agency to further understand impacts of transferring property. Any offers of land must be approved by each agency’s council (or board) and then negotiated with MECP until acceptable terms are agreed upon.

So in summary, each agency in the working group is evaluating the pros and cons of including some amount of their existing public-access properties currently used for recreation and/or conservation. From a Township perspective, the McCutcheon property on Conc. 7 was donated with that goal in mind. The addition of any of these public lands would be considered an expansion to Phase 1 of the park boundaries (i.e., added to the park in the future). Phase 1 will likely consist only of lands already owned by the province, such as Gan Eden just southwest of town, and the Nesbitt Farm on Conc. 6 (where “Road to Avonlea” was filmed).

Given the amount of work required to prepare the property files and conduct public engagement, draft the proposals and get approval from council/boards, negotiate, and then subsequent administration work with land registry and regulatory processes, it is not likely that any additional lands could be officially made part of the park prior to 2026. This would be considered a Phase 2 initiative.

We have learned that TRCA spent over 10 years working on property transfers to the Rouge National Urban Park, and that some are still in process.

Some other things to keep in mind:

• The park is still a proposal.

• There are no plans to expropriate any property for the park.

• The park (if approved) will consist of non-contiguous parcels of land (parcels won’t be all together, but might be connected by trails or road access).

• Landowners who are interested in having some or all of their private property placed in conservation protection or included as part of the park can speak to a member of the land acquisition team about options and viability.

• There may be multiple expansions to the Park boundary over time and these will likely be completed in batches. This could continue for many years.

Members of the Working Group: MECP, Township of Uxbridge, Region of Durham, Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, Green Durham (NGO), Nature Conservancy of Canada (NGO), Schad Foundation (NGO).