Dear MPP Stéphane Sarrazin,…

Dear MPP Stéphane Sarrazin,

We call upon you to bring to the attention of your party important issues within Bill 23 More Homes Built Faster. There are elements within Bill 23 that compromise democracy, affordability, and Ontario’s fragile environment. We at Eco East share these concerns along with several other community organisations.

The intent of Bill 23 is commendable, but amendments are required to help it achieve its purpose. In its current form, Bill 23 includes some harmful changes: diminishing land protection, limiting inclusionary zoning, and limiting the ability of conservation authorities to serve as a check and balance on development.

Indeed, we need housing, but as they say in real estate, it's about “location location location.” Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is rich with natural heritage of forests and wetlands, and it also has some of the most productive farmland in Ontario. These are crucial assets that generate wealth (e.g., farmland) and help mitigate costly damages from extreme climate change induced weather events (e.g., forests from windstorms and wetlands from floods). There is ample approved land for development within existing urban boundaries, that negates the need to expand sprawl into wetlands, forests, and farm fields. In addition, Bill 23 severely undermines the ability for municipalities to make local decisions on land use planning.

The Bill’s significant changes to the evaluation, designation, and protection of various greenspaces - from wetlands to farm fields, from urban parkland to forests - threatens our wellbeing and safety. For years, we have protected these spaces for many cultural, social, and scientific reasons. Now is not the time for less protected land, but more.

Our local conservation authority, South Nation Conservation (SNC) performs a crucial function in this region. We are in a landslide area and we have the type of soil that needs to be monitored by professional engineers at South Nation Conservation. They study and protect water, rivers, ground and surface water, and they regulate building in flood plains, unstable slopes, etc. Bill 23 would constrain SNC’s ability to continue providing municipalities advice and expertise on how to protect habitats that minimize potential damage from flooding. Currently, municipalities do not have the time and expertise to do this on their own.

We would also like to voice our concerns regarding the financial impacts of the proposed legislative changes to development charges. The changes proposed in Bill 23 would have a devastating impact on the budgets of small municipalities like those within Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. The changes will shift costs away from developers and onto tax payers, increasing the tax burdens of homeowners who are already suffering due to inflation. As we are certain you have heard from fellow residents in our riding, the cost of living has sky-rocketed. The crunch is especially felt by residents in need of affordable housing, such as those living on fixed incomes. The Bill raises many social concerns and, rather than helping those most in need of housing, it will have a significant negative impact on these vulnerable residents.This includes, cutting regulations which seek to protect tenants from “renovictions”, preventing municipalities from requiring that more than 5% of new developments be affordable housing, and allowing affordable housing to return to the market after just 25 years. This will deepen our housing and homelessness crisis, not alleviate it.

We at Eco East would be happy to share with you some ideas on how to address the Ontario housing crisis through affordable, connected, and sustainable ways; ways that have already been articulated through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s (AMO) 55 recommendations to address the housing crisis released in February 2022. We urge you to stand united with local communities and oppose this destructive bill.

Regards,
Eco East Board of Directors