Please do not remove housing…

Please do not remove housing from the development charge process! Municipalities rely on those fees to support affordable housing, and this guts their ability to provide those vital services as their communities grow.

Development Charges are necessary to build the kinds of communities that people want to continue to live in. Adding new developments without also including the necessary funding supports to pay for things like parks, trails, recreational programs, daycares etc to service those new residents doesn't recognize the fact that development - especially low-density development on the edge of communities - does NOT pay for itself, even now. It costs municipalities in the long run and these changes put even more of a financial burden onto future generations who will have even fewer revenue tools and reserves available to pay the costs of revitalizing all of this new infrastructure when it inevitably needs to be resolved. Please, familiarize yourself with the work of Strong Towns, gain an understanding of how our existing development patterns are completely unsustainable financially and make policy recommendations based on an understanding that if we keep trying to balance our books with new growth, we're going to hit a wall and suffer even worse than if we made more sustainable change right now.

I'm begging you - do not thrust Ontario Municipalities into certain bankruptcy. I know it sounds alarmist, but if you familiarize yourself with how development over the past 50 years has 'worked' and the fundamentally extractive model that we are using (see the links below) I think you'll find that there's really no argument to make these changes other than to increase developer profits and further damage already struggling municipal budgets.