Hello, I am an immigrant to…

Hello,

I am an immigrant to Ontario, a renter, and a graduate student. As a young person wishing to establish a career and community in the GTA, I understand very tangibly the housing challenges facing the province. I am one of countless people my age that might never have the opportunity to own their own home or apartment but instead will pay rent for decades to an increasingly wealthy class of GTA landlords.

That being said, I reject the claim that loosening environmental regulations as enforced by Ontario's Conservation Authorities, is the best solution to this problem. It is incredibly short-sighted to seek housing solutions in the Greenbelt or other peri-urban areas. When land is converted from green space or agricultural uses, many of the ecosystem services it provides to our growing population (i.e. flood protection, water filtering, biodiversity conservation) are lost forever. Many studies have shown that our housing needs can instead be addressed through urban intensification – building up, not out. For example, a recent proposal found that the 50,000 housing units promised by Bill 23 could instead be provided by building apartment units above existing big box stores in the GTA.

I understand that urban intensification projects are not as profitable to developers as paving over Greenbelt fields, but I would ask you to consider the impact on my generation and those that come after me, rather than exacerbating income inequality by favouring already wealthy developers. I don't buy that these "savings" trickle down to renters like myself and the provincial government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from predatory practices of developers.

Striping our Conservation Authorities of their ability to consider the full social and ecological values of potential development sites is a step backwards. The GTA is a better place to live today than it was 20 years ago due to the environmental protections, cultural opportunities, and economic development promoted by the Greenbelt land protections and the hard work of our Conservation Authorities. Please do not set us on a course to undo this progress to the detriment of myself and millions of other young people struggling to protect our beautiful province from harms of climate change.

Thank you.