I strongly oppose the…

I strongly oppose the decision to make amendments to the Greenbelt Plan as it currently stands. While the Province is saying this land swap is needed in order to encourage and build enough homes for Ontario's growing population, further efforts could be made to densify existing municipalities. Municipalities such as Toronto, Markham, Mississauga have ample room to further develop single family homes to medium size (4-10 storey) condo/apartment units. Opening up the greenbelt only encourages further sprawl with the construction of single-family/low-rise residential homes.

If anything, if the province is genuine, IF and thats an IF, the greenbelt is developed, ensure the cost of servicing those communities are the responsibilities of the developer. These protected lands were not even considered by municipalities . Likewise, the government should ensure NONE of these lands are to be developed as single family, detached or semi-deteached homes low-rise residential development. Rather, stacked townhomes, medium sized condo/apartments within a context of semi-walkable community with some commercial. If you are building low-rise housing, that does nothing but further encourage sprawl. If that cannot be done due to whatever issue, then it should not be developed.

The speed at which the province is conducting the changes, does not appear meaningful investigation into the impact of the swapped land. Are the lands being removed equal or greater than the lands included, in terms of their ecological impact? What good is more land added to the greenbelt, if it doesn't prevent as much flooding?

This short-sighted move, only benefits the developers who have purchased these lands. If the lands are to be developed, I would encourage a fully independent investigation to each individual parcel of land to see if they were politically informed of the changes ahead of time leading to the purchase and their links to lobbyist/members of provincial parliament.

To conclude, I am extremely disappointed in this government for going against their promise to not touch the greenbelt. If the government already attempted forcing municipalities to densify AND had full independent environmental investigation AND required developers to build the hard and soft infrastructures needed AND required denser housing (not low-density residential) to be built on this lands, AND showed an independent investigation into landowners/developers and they were not informed prior, or justified how they acquired the land, I would be more inclined to support this proposal.