Dear Minister of…

Dear Minister of Infrastructure,

As an Oakville resident leaving nearby Oakville GO station, I am strongly opposing your four Zoning Orders to force the Transit-Oriented Community onto Town of Oakville.  

Your plan is talking about bringing a home to about 14000 people on such a small area. That's all it offers. Your plan lacks other issues that come with more people living in this area, and generally across the town. For example, how are you going to address increased need for health care and schools. There is already lack of health care practitioners, and the schools have portables to accommodate all students living in the catchment areas. I am not talking about 1-2 portables, but about 15-20 of them! How many more portables can be added to the schools? Is that a plan? Have you been to Oakville? Have you seen this, already disastrous situation? Just start from that. I do not even have to talk about traffic congestion which is already showing...

My family moved to Oakville from Vancouver just two years ago. We wanted to live in a suburb, and not in a city anymore. With this proposal you are bringing Toronto lifestyle to Oakville. If residents of Oakville wanted to live that style they wouldn't live here. I do understand the need for more housing being built. But I do not understand the need to pack that many people on a small area here in Ontario with so vast mostly flat land. Ontario does not have to copy the Vancouver model that could not spread horizontally but only up due to mountains, ocean, and US border limitations. If you are thinking like "there is already infrastructure in that area around Oakville GO" - yes, there is infrastructure, but it can support people already living here. To support your plan, much more would have to be developed, the electricity, water, sewage, roads... so, what do you gain by building 11 high-rise buildings of about 50 floors each in terms of the current infrastructure in place? It just does not make any sense.

I am sorry to say but I see these Zoning Orders as a destruction that is either done deliberately or because of incompetence.

Since your decision will affect people living in Oakville, will there be voting on the issue? If we talk about democratic processes in Canada, I think that the affected people should have a right to vote. I know that giving us an opportunity for raising our opinion this way is your mean to give voice to us and thank you for that. But I also know that this is just a part of the procedure, you just need to check a box, and at the end you will make your decision however you like. And that is not democratic.

I hope that you will do the right thing and let people of Oakville expand their town in more manageable way and not force your will just because you can.

Sincerely,
S. G.
Oakville