Conserving Forests and Preserving Affordable Housing

Over the past 25 years, forest stewardship policies in Ontario have shifted away from a reliance on public initiatives to tax incentives for private property owners. In this presentation, Julia Smachylo, a Meyer doctoral fellow who is a Doctor of Design candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, will discuss research on these policies she is conducting in southern Ontario. Using a multimedia approach that combines critical scholarship on tax subsidies, spatial analysis, and interviews, she will examine the programs’ potential impacts not only on forested land but also on other important concerns such as landscape change, housing affordability, and income inequality. She will conclude by exploring possibilities for policy overlap between environmental conservation and other planning goals that support more just and accessible futures in forested areas.