I am of the belief that we…

I am of the belief that we as citizens have a responsibility to provide feedback and guidance to our elected representatives particularly when it comes to such critical issues as our present Housing and Climate emergencies.
Time and again with our present Provincial government you seem to only step away from disastrous policies when faced with overwhelming public pressure and this is an instance in which you can make a difference.
While there are a few good ideas in these two documents, it appears to me you are once again tinkering around the edges with platitudes while allowing developers and corporate interests to set the agenda. Frankly, instead of calling a housing emergency and taking bold steps to devise real solutions for the thousands of homeless people living in tents in cities and towns and the impossibility of young families to afford even the most basic starter home to suggest these two documents will provide much more than the status quo is ludicrous. We need massive intervention of the sort after WWII or in the 1960’s & 70’s when governments worked with developers to supply affordable first-time homes to returning veterans and the baby boomers. Thus far Premier Ford has submitted and/or enacted more than ten acts to address housing issues since taking office and in 2018 there were 78,742 new home starts compared to 72,656 in 2023, rents have skyrocketed due to gutting of rent controls and tenant protections and the Landlord & Tenant Tribunal is dysfunctional for both tenants and landlords.
I think it is time for our provincial and federal governments to step up with innovations like the land lease developments in the 1970’s, funding for co-operatives, direct investment in building and maintaining public housing, prefab housing and the myriad other ways to get people into safe affordable housing. We don’t need more McMansions.
With respect to specific provisions in Proposed changes to the Planning Act, City of Toronto Act, 2006, and Municipal Act, 2001 through Bill185, the proposed Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024, I find fault with limiting third party appeals; particularly with respect to Official Plans, official plan amendments, zoning by-laws, and zoning by-law amendments. In fact I believe what is needed is more citizen and community group involvement in helping to solve the housing problem, not less. When developers begin paying more attention to the real needs of their communities instead of profit maximization, perhaps there will be less appeals to be considered. I have no issues with relaxing parking requirements and enhancing Minister’s regulation-making authority to remove other zoning barriers to building small multi-unit residential to help create additional residential units, such as basement suites, by eliminating barriers including maximum lot coverage and limits on bedrooms allowed per lot​.
I applaud the suggestion of the "use it or lose it" tools and look forward to the full implementation of these tools. As well, I am supportive of the Facilitating Standardized Housing Designs provisions and would suggest taking it a step further to include pre-fab housing provisions.
I am totally opposed to making pre-application consultation voluntary at the discretion of the applicant.
and allowing an applicant to challenge complete application requirements to the OLT at any time. Presumably that would mean an applicant could submit a plan to the municipality unannounced on a Monday and immediately appeal non-decision to the OLT on Tuesday?! And allowing applicants to appeal a municipality’s refusal or failure to make a decision on a privately requested official plan or zoning by-law amendment that would change the boundary of an "area of settlement“, outside of the Greenbelt Area essentially puts the development industry in charge of the entire planning process.