I am writing today to submit…

I am writing today to submit a comment to ERO 019-6216, 019-6217, and 019-6218, pertaining to redesignation of Greenbelt lands.

You have ignored prior public input comments, per, ERO 019-3136, ERO 019-4485, and ERO 019-4485. You only have a constituency of 17.3% who actually voted for you, and your bill benefits a small proportion of land speculators while excoriating the largest constituency who did not vote for you. Your bill actually makes the majority pay for your pandering to the miniscule number who will benefit.

I am supportive of efforts to increase the supply of homes as a means of countering the housing crisis. This proposal fails to address that concern as it aims at upper middle class suburban unsustainable housing typology as your sole priority. The issue of affordability is at the lower incomes constituency who have the greatest need for affordable housing.

The insult of this Bill 23 proposal is that infrastructure needed to service these proposed tracts of suburban rim expansion is not even being paid by impost fees on the land-bank speculator developers to build You are pushing those costs back to existing municipalities to shoulder that burden, externalizing the costs from those who need the infrastructure built. This will take funding out of municipal budgets to finance low income housing where the real need compounds. You will force existing home owners in the city to paying raised tax base to pay for the rim development infrastructure your propose.

All those sewers will run through century old stable communities that were built to 22 units per acre, along the the Lake Ontario shoreline. A density that also is the benchmark density for economic effective , public transit, emergency services, police, social services and healthcare infrastructure.

Further, you are taking away community rights resolved over decades to maintain the Greenbelt, I am deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the Greenbelt. It needs to be expanded as public consultation has confirmed.

We have seen over the past few years how the climate crisis is worsening, increasing severe weather and causing grave damage (for example, in Lytton BC). In Southern Ontario, one of the largest risks in a changing climates comes from flooding in population centres, and loss of viable farmland and wetlands.

The changes suggested in this regulation appear set to make both outcomes worse. The wetlands in protected Greenbelt areas are essential for capturing rainwater runoff before it can flood more populous areas. In addition, by seeking to build new homes in protected areas, Ontario commits itself to expanding urban sprawl - worsening the climate crisis through increased emissions.

I urge the government to keep its promise not to touch the Greenbelt and instead look to build much more densely in urban areas, particular areas with strong transit and social services infrastructure. Densification of inner cities is the useful approach by rezoning inner-rim former industrial lots and repurposing old high-rise commercial buildings into mixed -use development.

Ripping up the Greenbelt is short-sighted and dangerous, and will only make homes more expensive in the long run by imposing greater environmental risks and expanding unsustainable and inefficient sprawl. This government must take real, meaningful action to build sustainably for the future instead.

Sincerely,