My biggest concern is over…

My biggest concern is over the increased reliance on "the market" to determine the type of housing which gets built, e.g. the addition of the term "market demand" as a determinant for the creation of new settlement areas (1.1.3.8.(a) and the type of housing options to be developed (1.4.3 and 1.7).

In Waterloo we have ample evidence of the problems of letting "the market" determine what gets built -- badly designed and poorly built student housing lining Columbia and King Streets which city officials now decry as "mistakes" e.g. https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8640978-developer-vows-to-fix-10-s…

University of Waterloo Planning School professor Dr. Dawn Parker's ten years of research on housing markets has conclusively shown that developers' understanding of market demands is flawed, yet dozens of housing development applications have been approved based on their arguments of "market demand." As a result, the K-W student housing market became oversupplied and crashed while the "missing middle" affordable housing which Parker's and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) surveys found consumers really wanted, was not built.

Time and again, I watched developers claim their proposal was based on "market needs", never once bringing forward substantive market research findings to support their claim, just promises from a couple of acquaintances that they would be immediately moving to Waterloo if this "much needed" project was approved. Even without the Provincial Policy Statement giving special force to "market demand" Waterloo City Council too often approved these proposals. Ten years later, subsequent Councils, and the citizens they represent, profoundly regret these decisions.

Please don't make us repeat history. We have learned the folly of relying on what investors and developers tell us are "market needs".

Take out terms like "market demand" and "market need" and replace them with "evidence based" and/or qualify market need to reference CMHC or academic researchers' studies which focus on housing end users' needs and exclude the financial needs of housing market investors.