This policy is based on a…

This policy is based on a broken promise. Mr. Ford promised many times not to touch the greenbelt. There is no nothing his government can do to gain credibility on this issue. This proposal along with other policy decisions reveal that the government is committed to sprawl without limit. The government overturned the Hamilton City Council's decision not to expand its urban boundary. The government went beyond what the previous Ottawa City Council decided with respect to the expansion of its urban boundary. These decisions were made in defiance of the wishes to the elected municipal officials and represent a total disregard for the democratic process. The government has decided to eliminate oversight of other concerned bodies, such as municipal governments, conservation authorities and others, running roughshod over other groups to benefit one group- developers. The government's policies will lead to sprawl, more commuting, traffic congestion, and greater green house gas emissions. It undermines public transit and condemns poorer families to buy a car despite onerous costs and the financial burden on the household budget. It is firmly fixed in the 1950s and represent static, retrograde thinking/
The housing task force that reported in the spring said that land was not an issue; the attack on the green belt is being made to produce low-density single-family units which represent a paltry portion of the total provincial housing requirement as set out in the province's target. It is hardly worth it.
The federal government has announced that it will be receiving upwards of 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025, with many of these settling in the Golden Horseshoe. If current housing requirements necessitate an assault on the green belt, one can expect this government to continue to eat away at it until it no longer exists and sprawl will have taken over the landscape. That is this government's vision.
The government is relying on the private sector to address the province's housing needs. We should reflect on what the industry produces. For one, it has fought against increased greenhouse gas emission standards for decades, resulting in 100,000s if not millions of Ontario houses which are ill-equipped to deal with climate change and which will have to be retrofitted at great expense by individual homeowners and the provincial government. The private sector builds high rise buildings with inadequate sound barriers. Developers build two types of developments, high rise towers consisting of studios and one-bedroom apartments of little use to families, and greenfield suburban sprawl. Their suburban development plans are fixed in the 1950s. Developers build housing; they are incapable of building communities or villages; their subdivision plans don't even allow for children to travel safely to neighbourhood schools. One wonders why the government has decided to provide a windfall profit to a private sector which fails at basic urban planning.
The real issue, which the government has decided not to tackle, is how to increase densities in existing urban areas. At the density of Paris, France, the previous urban boundary of Ottawa could accommodate 10 million people, instead of the 1 million living there. No one is suggesting that Ottawa should seek to have the same density of Paris, but this exercise demonstrates that there is ample room of higher densities in the existing urban boundaries. A similar exercise could be done with respect to any other urban area in Ontario. When one considers the buildings above the subway line along Bloor, what does one see in vast expanses of the street- the original two-storey buildings from the late 1800s and the early 1900s. It would be beneficial, surely, for the government to consider the factors which had stopped development above a mass transit system, which would benefit from higher densities above. The real issues are NIMBY and the vast tracts of urban areas dedicated to single-family housing sprawl. The housing task force recommended 4 units as a right. Instead of taking the easy way out, perhaps the government could focus on tackling the real issues which prevent more intensification in existing urban areas.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposal.