I wish to register my…

I wish to register my opposition to any expansion of Hamilton‘s urban boundary. I also object to any planned development on Greenbelt lands.
The provincial government (i.e. premier Doug Ford) said clearly that he was against expanding into the Greenbelt after he was caught telling developers that he would ‘open up a chunk of the Greenbelt’.
After a huge backlash, Premier Ford backed off and said he would not ever build and the green belt lands.
Sadly, but predictably, this turned out to be a huge, whopping lie and the Premier should be ashamed of himself for reneging on yet another promise.
His absolute lack of concern for watersheds and sensitive areas is appalling and shows very little lack of insight regarding expansion of the urban boundary.
His arrogant, tone-deaf plans to build outside the urban boundary is an an affront to democratic principles after 90% of Hamiltonians surveyed, were against expansion. So much for the ‘little guy’.

In fact, it has been proven time and time again that there is ample space within the existing urban boundary to accommodate many different types of housing to alleviate the housing needs that are happening now and will be required in the future.
This includes multi-story condo towers as well as the ‘missing middle’ - 4 to 6 story condominiums and apartment buildings as well as gentle density townhomes.

In fact there is still room for single-family dwellings but because of rising house prices, single-family homes will be more and more unaffordable except for the super-wealthy, so priority should be given to gentle density and not to large, sprawling, multi-million dollar homes on fertile farmland.
For the vast majority of Ontarians, these type of houses are unaffordable.
And employing ‘weasel words’ like ‘accessible housing’ does not make them any more affordable.
What does accessible actually mean?
A luxury monster home valued at 5 million is accessible (and even affordable) if you happen to be a multimillionaire but for 99.9% of the population they are still unaffordable so let’s put our cards in the table and build affordable homes.

I am not anti-development I am just anti-sprawl and anti-bad development that destroys valuable farmland and sensitive wetlands that can never be replaced once paved over.

If need be I will engage in peaceful, civil disobedience and chain myself to a bulldozer to stop this very bad development, and after talking to others, I won’t be alone.

As Doug Ford would say ‘Don’t force my hand on this decision’ - because I am dead serious.
Our natural areas are a gift - to be preserved in perpetuity for future generations by stewards, not pillaged by short-sighted greed-heads - where enough never seems to be enough.