I say NO. This proposed…

I say NO. This proposed Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs) for Midtown Oakville, fail to meet Ontario’s own criteria for issuing MZOs and is clearly upsetting the entire Oakville community. This misuse of provincial power resembles the Ford government failures exposed in the Greenbelt scandal, where planning regulations were overridden to benefit private interests. There is no municipal support, the Town Council has not endorsed the project, and the plan has everyone wondering exactly what kind of democracy we live in.

I do not see a justification for overriding established provincial, regional, and municipal planning policies, except perhaps for greed... and please do not think for a moment, that Oakville citizens cannot see the underlying self-serving commercial issues; the bonanza for developers while shifting all the risk to the public and in particular those that call Oakville home. I’d like to know how these same developers and supporting politicians - who built the glut of studio and tiny one-bedroom condominiums in Toronto - have all this power to mess-up our communities.

Finally, this project will not proceed for at least five years, so there is no urgency and ZERO justification for imposing these MZOs now, while Oakville needs family-oriented, complete-community housing, not investor-driven micro-units. Shut down this TOC, withdraw the MZOs, and proceed with OPA 70; that is a responsible, deliverable, community-supported plan that is aligned with the market. I vote NO for these MZOs.