Environmental protections were recently lifted on a portion of this land in Port Hope, Ont. A new subdivision with 43 detached homes and an apartment building is proposed for the space.
Among the forest, wetlands and fields beside Richard Yoshida's house, a developer hatched a plan to build a new subdivision.
Yoshida, who worked in home renovations in Toronto before moving to the hamlet of Garden Hill in Port Hope, Ont., in 2014, said he first learned about the plan three years ago when the developer gave a presentation at a community centre. The company proposed transforming the patch of land just south of the Oak Ridges Moraine, a biodiverse feature of the Greenbelt, into 43 single-detached homes and an apartment building.
Until this month, the developer had run into a wall. The land at 3852 Ganaraska Rd., on which the subdivision would be built, was supposed to be off-limits to development because it was part of a provincially protected area.
That is, until it wasn't.
Before the sudden decision to remove its protected area status, prospects for the new development were not looking good. In April, a land-use planning process, through the Ontario Land Tribunal, had denied the developer the ability to move forward due to its designation as an area of natural and scientific interest, or an ANSI.
That all changed in May, just a month later, when the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources -- allegedly without first consulting with two nearby First Nations, or the local municipality -- shifted the protected area's boundaries to exclude the subdivision.
For some locals, that raised red flags.
Jane Zednik, who lives just outside the Garden Hill hamlet, said "everyone was blindsided" when the ministry made the move.
"It is all so devious. No one had a clue this was going on," she said.
When it comes to the Doug Ford government meddling in protected areas, it's not just Port Hope. Another such area is Wasaga Beach, where Ontario is removing 60 hectares of land from the protection of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park.
Then there are the Ford government's changes to provincially protected wetlands, and its proposal to remove provincial parkland to make way for a highway expansion -- not to mention its scandal-plagued, and now-reversed, plan to carve up the Greenbelt. The ministry did not respond to The Narwhal's requests for comment.
In Port Hope, the truth of what happened involves a lobbyist and closed-door decisions -- raising questions about the role of developers in the province's approach to environmental conservation.
"They moved the boundaries so that it was right along the edge that would allow them to build these houses," Yoshida told The Narwhal.
"Why would the Ministry of Natural Resources give up on protecting something that they are mandated to protect?"
Locals have wondered just how close the subdivision's developer, Snowy Owl Woods Holdings, has been to the ministry's decision.
The ministry's letter explaining the change to the protected area -- which was posted publicly online by the municipality -- carbon-copied a lobbyist, Richard Ositashvili, who had registered to represent Snowy Owl Woods Holdings.
According to filings on the Integrity Commissioner's website, Ositashvili's lobbying registration, still active as of Sept. 15, was specifically for "engaging with government officials to garner support for the development of 3852 Ganaraska Road, Port Hope, Ont., to meet the province's housing targets."
Ositashvili isn't just any lobbyist. He was a senior policy advisor in the office of former minister of municipal affairs and housing Steve Clark during the period when Clark resigned from cabinet over the Greenbelt scandal.
In July, two environmental groups wrote the ministry, arguing that the ministry's letter copying Ositashvili "raises serious concerns."
"Developers should not be able to apply to [the Ministry of Natural Resources] through opaque processes to adjust boundaries for significant natural and cultural features," Ontario Nature and Environmental Defence wrote.
Tony Morris, conservation policy and campaigns director at Ontario Nature, told The Narwhal the boundary change could set a "frightening precedent," if developers believe they can simply ask the ministry for changes to protected lands.
"This is the first one I've heard of, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will be the last," he said.
Ositashvili, now a senior consultant at Toronto-based Strategy Corp., did not return The Narwhal's requests for comment. Requests sent to three lawyers who have provided counsel for Snowy Owl Woods Holdings were also not returned by publication time. The Narwhal also asked the ministry a series of questions about its boundary change and its current policy over protected areas, among other questions, but the ministry did not respond by publication time.
The exact details of how the ministry's decision was made remain unclear -- though the ministry's own correspondence contains some clues.
In August, a ministry official sent an email to environmental groups, seen by The Narwhal, explaining the government "received the request" to review the protected area boundary in July 2024, without specifying who had asked.
The email also said the ministry reviewed published material and took "additional steps" by engaging an Ontario Geological Survey official in a process that took "several months." And it claims the ministry's decision to amend the boundary was "separate and distinct" from the Ontario Land Tribunal's process.
But Daryl Cowell, a geoscientist who has worked on the geology of more than 100 areas of natural and scientific interest across Southern Ontario and who spoke at the Garden Hill tribunal, told The Narwhal boundary changes are often longer, scientific undertakings.
"It's unusual for the ministry to step in and change a boundary arbitrarily," he said.
Chris Ballard, a former Ontario Liberal MPP and minister of environment and climate change under former premier Kathleen Wynne, said he couldn't recall the protected areas being discussed in government.
"I was in caucus from 2014 to 2018, I was a minister for three of those years, and I do not ever recall touching those, altering them, changing the regulations or the legislation ever coming up in any caucus meeting where we would be told of anything major, so we could weigh in -- and certainly no cabinet meeting," he said in an interview.
"It was just a sacred trust that they weren't to be touched. They were there for scientific research, and we believe in science, so we didn't touch them."
The government's boundary change to the Garden Hill scientific area caught many local groups off guard.
The Municipality of Port Hope, for one, published a public message on its website saying it wasn't consulted and was not involved in the decision.
"Adjusting an ANSI boundary is not within the authority of the Municipality of Port Hope and the decision was made at the sole discretion of the ministry," it wrote.
The developer appealed its case to the Ontario Land Tribunal arguing Port Hope's council was delaying approving its plans.
In response to questions from The Narwhal, Kate Ingram, the municipality's communications manager, said the file was still before the tribunal as part of the appeal process and, as such, Port Hope Mayor Olena Hankivsky would not be providing comment.
Alderville First Nation Chief Taynar Simpson told The Narwhal the nation was made aware of the development by Ontario Nature, not by the government, and had no knowledge of any participation from the nation prior to the ministry's decision.
"We reached out to [the ministry] once we learned about this. Which is the opposite of how this is supposed to work," Chief Simpson said.
"Unfortunately many proponents and government bodies still view duty to consult as optional or, worse yet, don't even realize it exists."
Hiawatha First Nation has no record of anyone from the ministry reaching out about the boundary change before it happened, Chief Laurie Carr said.
"Hiawatha was not made aware of any boundary changes until late June of this year. We were made aware by some of our associates," she said.
Areas of natural and scientific interest, like the one in Port Hope, are provincial designations for lands distinct from provincial parks or conservation reserves, but that "best represent the full spectrum of biological communities, natural landforms and environments across Ontario," according to a 2010 version of the province's natural heritage reference manual. Another of these protected areas exists within the portion of land the province is removing from Wasaga Beach Provincial Park.
The designations are divided into two categories: "earth science" and "life science." The areas in Port Hope and Wasaga Beach are both in the "earth science" category, which are examples of geological processes.
Wasaga Beach has sensitive sand dunes, while the Garden Hill protected area in Port Hope contains deposits from glacial streams, called a pitted outwash, that hold valuable clues to the formation of the Oak Ridges Moraine.
Cowell said the protected areas originated as a provincial initiative in the early 1970s to identify unusual natural features. Originally called "nature reserves," they now number more than 1,000 and stretch across 460,000 hectares.
Areas like the one in Port Hope are valuable not just for their historical data, he said, but for offering a physical example of that feature today -- so scientists and students can carry out research and use it for educational purposes.
The ministry explained in its May 23 letter to Port Hope that the protected area's boundary had been rerouted around the subdivision because its geological features had become "degraded" after years of agricultural use. It said the ministry had concluded the area "no longer contains the representative geological features that the [area] was originally identified for."
During the land tribunal hearings, Snowy Owl Woods Holdings' witnesses, identified as experts in land-use planning and geomorphology, also said the property didn't actually represent the kind of geological feature the area was supposed to have, and that the buildings would be mostly within existing agricultural fields. They also concluded the developer could implement mitigation measures.
Cowell, however, said degradation from agricultural use is actually one of the less-impactful disturbances. He said localized erosion wouldn't necessarily discount the value of the sediments underneath that can still be dug out.
"We can't go back 10,000 years to when they formed, but we look for minimized impacts. And the minimal impact on any official feature would be agriculture versus, say, a gravel pit. So agricultural sites were often included in [natural and scientific area] boundaries," he said.
Meanwhile, the government is supposed to follow a procedure manual for when it wants to modify an area of natural and scientific interest.
The manual, known by its technical name PAM 2.08, calls for a burst of activity -- striking teams of experts, conducting fieldwork and engaging in "timely and appropriate contact" with landowners, municipalities, "Aboriginal communities" and others.
Use of this manual is "standard operational procedure that isn't optional," according to a 2024 email from a ministry official to Yoshida, seen by The Narwhal.
But the manual also makes a distinction between "minor" and "major" boundary changes. It says minor changes mean that approval at the district level "may suffice," although it adds the implications of the change should still be "assessed."
The ministry's letter to Port Hope did refer to it as a "minor boundary amendment" in its subject line. But its 165-word explanation of the change doesn't address why it considered the change to be minor.
Another email from a ministry official to environmental groups sent in July, seen by The Narwhal, said the government had reviewed a geology report, aerial photography and laser imaging, and determined the boundary amendment would be minor. They said that meant it "does not require the ministry to conduct and analyze field work, draft an ANSI report or conduct stakeholder engagement." They said once the boundary review was completed the ministry notified the municipality and developer.
Areas of natural and scientific interest have long been considered off-limits to development.
A report from Ontario's environmental commissioner from 1999, for example, mentions a Natural Resources manual saying the areas should be protected. This prohibition was repeated in 2005 and again in 2010.
The Ford government's current provincial planning statement, published in 2024 under the Planning Act, maintains that "development and site alteration shall not be permitted" in "significant areas of natural and scientific interest" unless it can be demonstrated there will be "no negative impacts on the natural features or their ecological function."
Premier Ford has talked about the importance of building new homes to address the "housing supply crisis." The government has earmarked billions of dollars for programs designed to encourage municipalities to speed up approvals and get homes built quicker, and has a target of at least 1.5 million homes built by 2031.
Morris, at Ontario Nature, wrote to the commissioner of the environment under the auditor general's office in August, asking for an investigation into whether the ministry adhered to its own procedures.
Meanwhile, Garden Hill residents are not giving up just yet, Yoshida told The Narwhal.
While they acknowledge the battle involving the protected area may be lost, they're now turning to address the issue from other standpoints, like water sustainability.
Zednik said the group of locals have also filed freedom of information requests to the government to try to get information about how the process unfolded.
"This ... lobbying of the government will set a horrible precedent -- and it needs to be exposed," she said.