I have great concern about…

I have great concern about the proposal.

I live in a rural community surrounded by prime agriculture land interspersed with manage forest, wetlands, and residential areas.

Our community recently had to fight a proposed development to the level of the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) to the cost of over $60,00. It would have put a highway-commercial use on our inadequately-maintained rural road on a lot that included wetland and prime agricultural use. Our municipal government had done their due diligence over more than 2 years and declined the development, but the landowner appealed to the OLT. Due to the rules that don't allow citizens to represent themselves thru that process, the cost was over $60,000 due to the lawers and experts. Thankfully the OLT upheld the decision of our local government, but there was always the risk that they would overrule. And what a large amount of money to have to spend on such a thing.

Our local governments already have much freedom in where they can develop for housing, and it is quite disturbing that the plans made at a local level, by people who know the land and community, can be overruled by the provincial government which is unaware of those local details.

My biggest concerns involve the loss of local communities (due to both safety and the nature of how a community changes when housing and business development grows at an accelerated pace that doesn't fit the location) as well at the complete lack of regard for local food self-sufficiency.

When it comes to local food self-sufficiency, if our prime agriculture and protected lands can continue to be dictatorially used for housing developments, where are we to grow our food? We have a beautiful province that has the ability - if supported through policy and education of the public - to grow and raise the vast, vast majority of our own food year-round. If these policies go through, we will be relying even more on shipping food in (often from the US and other countries) which impacts not only our immediate health and pricing, but obviously is not a reliable method of feeding our communities when there are supply chain issues (or even just a week of snow storms!). We should be focusing on building housing in the already-developed areas and allowing small and medium sized farms to flourish around them.

There are so many empty buildings in both cities near my house that could easily be made into affordable housing. Stop the condos and paving over paradise! Think of our current needs, and the needs of our children.