I do not support the re…

I do not support the re-designation or removal of areas from the Greenbelt; the Greenbelt should be left intact.

There are important reasons we have protected the Greenbelt lands from development. These lands help keep our drinking water clean, protect against erosion and flooding, support local farming, and provide critical habitats and corridors for wildlife, including some species at risk.

The Greenbelt was established to provide *permanent* protection to these lands. Protections are meaningless if we disregard them when they become inconvenient. If these 15 areas can be removed from the Greenbelt, there is nothing to stop future governments from removing other areas. It is therefore critical that no lands be removed except under exceptional circumstances, and then only with very careful consideration and clear justification.

It is not clear what the environmental impact of development on these 15 sites would be. The government has not provided any assessments or analyses that could be scrutinized by ecologists or other experts. It would seem that the Ontario government has chosen the 15 sites based on the developers’ capacity to build quickly, rather than any ecological criteria.

The government has also set an expectation that the developers would move quickly, getting permits in 2023 and beginning construction by 2025. This makes no sense. If anything, we should move more slowly to develop on ecologically sensitive lands so we can be sure we understand what the impact of development would be. There is no point building homes for 50,000 people if those homes - and others nearby - become uninhabitable due to flooding and erosion.

Dismantling the Greenbelt (as will inevitably happen if we start removing sections of it) will be costly for all of us in Ontario, especially as we face increasingly severe weather events. We will all bear the cost of floods, landslides, and/or contamination of drinking water.

We clearly have a housing crisis on our hands, and I support the construction of more housing. However, if building is to be fast tracked, it should be in areas that are not deemed environmentally sensitive. As the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force concluded in its 2022 report, "a shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem. Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts" (page 10). They went on to emphasize that " Greenbelts and other environmentally sensitive areas must be protected, and farms provide food and food security" (page 10). Let’s expedite building on those other lands outside the Greenbelt. Current government plans to increase density, especially near transit hubs, are a step in the right direction.

Thank you for your consideration.