As a young taxpayer who does…

As a young taxpayer who does not own a home due to skyrocketing housing costs, I wholeheartedly disagree with the Greenbelt housing proposal. This proposal tries to justify reallocating protected areas for development by offering new lands to put under protection in its place, but no where does it prove that there is a lack of available land in the first place. In fact, the Ontario government's Housing Affordability Task Force released a report THIS YEAR stating lack of land outside the greenbelt was not a barrier to housing development.

Your proposal is a thinly-veiled, bias attempt to allow land-owners and developers, many who are your biggest donors, to profit off of the land severed from the Greenbelt instead of actually building housing where it makes sense for Ontario citizens: in land already within urban boundaries and therefor closer to existing water, transportation and other infrastructure, or in old farmlands already zoned for development. Furthermore, the proposal does not actually state the amount of NEW land that will be added to the Greenbelt in lieu of what is taken. It focuses on urban river valleys, but this would not add any value as these valleys are already protected; therefor you are claiming to add over 9,000 acres but are actually misleading the public because a portion of those acres are already included under current protective measures. This plan has no sound financial, social, or environmental backing at all. You have space to put houses, but you are willing to overspend in order to clear crucial habitat whose removal will lead to flooding, erosion, and service delivery challenges for the poor people you convince to live there.