As a long time resident of…

As a long time resident of Hamilton I strongly object to this planned expansion to Hamilton city boundaries. Hamilton has twice now voted against this boundary expansion, first with the council decision in 2021 and again in the recent municipal election where an overwhelming majority voted for the two mayoral candidates who opposed boundary expansion.

The current housing crisis will not be solved by building further and further suburbs of single family commuter housing. The province needs to support cities in building more MEDIUM density rental housing and creating more walkable, livable neighborhoods.

Sprawling single family developments further increase dependence on cars and suck resources from cities that are already struggling to support adequate infrastructure and transit for their existing neighbourhoods.

Currently Hamilton's best and most liveable neighbourhoods are it's oldest most central ones with a mixture of single and multi unit homes, and low rise, and mid rise apartment and condo buildings. Further out from the core, the sprawling neighbourhoods of single family housing are less and less walkable with worse access to services and weaker community bonds.

Cramming more high rise towers in the urban core won't solve our housing shortage but neither will further adding to urban sprawl.

Increasing the density and variety of housing options in the existing neighbourhoods outside of the core can start to undo the mistakes of decades of poor urban planning that have plagued the GTHA. We need to fix what is already broken, not continue to make these same mistakes.

Incentivize the construction of medium density housing within existing areas of single family zoning and remove barriers currently faced by potential developers. THIS is the true place where red tape and delays need to be slashed. The current difficulty of developing in existing neighbourhoods is forcing developers to consolidate their efforts into bigger, more expensive projects. We don't need more luxury condos, we need more mid-rise and low-rise apartments!

Require new residential developments to have a mixture of housing styles and densities and ban new developments that contain only single family units. Any urban expansion needs to be making actual livable, walkable communities, not more and more soulless car-centric suburbs.