In reading through all of…

In reading through all of the proposals here we do not see ONE thing that PROTECTS existing, established neighborhoods from developers who swoop in and have only ONE thing in mind....make as much money as possible.
We do not agree with all of these changes being made in order to allow for so called 'affordable housing' to be built because by removing all of the zoning safe guards, it is now literally 'open season' on every home owner in this province, and this is unfair and unjust. Any developer who wants to buy property in an established neighborhood SHOULD ALWAYS be required to apply for anything they want to build that does not comply with the current established forms of housing in that community. This idea of intensification that takes a residential building lot with a bungalow of 3 bedrooms and pushes to squeeze as many as 40 bedrooms somehow on that lot shouldn't even get passed unless other multiresidential properties are in the immediate vacinity, but this is what is happening in small established communities and it shouldn't be! Developers are taking homeowners to the OLT to get what they want because governments are pushing away all protections for us! So homeowners have to raise money to hire lawyers to fight a government entity (OLT) that exists because of tax dollars they have paid to it???!!! This is wrong and not the way government serves its people. Levels of government in this country have roles to play in making this country a wonderful place to live and in this case there have been some errors in wise planning, thoughtful forsight and unfair judgments in regards to immigration and tax policies which have created some huge problems for this country, and one large one is 'affordable housing'.
For the Ontario government to pursue the proposals that eliminate all protections for homeowners from horrendous distruptions, stress and having a sense that their homes and very lives seem threatened for this cause will only contribute more to the problems of affordability we already have and will make more and more homeowners unhappy to live in Ontario. Please reconsider these proposals. Keep good planning and zoning policies in place. They were developed by good thoughtful people for good reasons and there is NO NEED to throw out 'the baby with the bathwater'. There must be some people who can think 'outside the box', rather than just doing the quickest and most short sighted way to do things around here. Certainly 'the end justifies the means' is NOT true in this situation. We need to maintain the good neighborhoods and communities we have. People build communities, not developers. People have rights, but developers have money. This is a challenge of the integrity of our governments to do the right thing and ensure they are LISTENING to their constituents, not just going off on their own ideologies and giving in to developers every wish. Affordable housing hasn't existed in this country for decades, the problem isn't 'new', and the resolution for it will be painful, but necessary. It will take considerable thought and major research to resolve, not just this 'quick fix' by eliminating all of the safeguards that keep our neighborhoods safe and enjoyable.
One suggestion for protections would be to apply the new proposals to any undeveloped lands of a certain size, say 1 acre or more. This would protect neighborhoods from developers proposing outrageous applications that do not comply. Another idea would be to force all undeveloped lands to be used up before anything is changed in established neighborhoods within cities. We see undeveloped lands all over the place which need to be used for this purpose.
Within established neighborhoods we agree with smaller increases of ADU's being limited to perhaps 2 apartments within a residential home, or 2 units added to the inside with possible granny flats where there is available room. These changes within single family homes allow for more housing with little impact on existing neighborhoods as it should be. So many variables are related to the proposals the Ontario government has already suggested, yet it doesn't seem as though any thought of the impact that these will have on actual people living in existing neighborhoods and communities has been considered. What about safety, roads, parking, garbage, crime, noise, second hand smoke, traffic, tree canopy, environmental changes, pollution, mental health, all of these can add up to some very unhealthy neighborhoods and forcing people out of the place they have spent their lives paying for and sacrificing so much for so many years. That is a lot to sacrifice for a developer to come in and make a mess of so that renters can now move in and all of the neighborhood can just 'put up with it all'. From what we understand, affordable housing has a lot of definitions and a variety of people who need it. Homeless folks are one group, young people who just can't save enough are another group, seniors on low limited incomes another group and a very large population of immigrant people who need a place. All of these need different solutions, one size doesn't fit all! Existing homeowners should not need to be worried that the house next to them might be ripped down by some developer so they can redevelop that land with 10 times the amount of bedrooms, people, cars and all the things attached to that, and then it also become a rental unit that the developer owns and operates for a massive profit at the expense of the neighborhood community they have just destroyed. This is REAL. Please hear our concerns and take them seriously. Thank you