I would like to express…

I would like to express concern about opening up lands to development that impacts the environment, animal habitat, food production, recreational enjoyment and natural beauty.
I believe that if there is an alternative to urban sprawl then those alternatives should be exploited to the fullest extent. The alternatives that should be explored include density changes within existing urban residential areas and better use options for existing under utilized “older” lands.
Allowing the use of new lands typically means lands that are not close to necessary travel/service/community infrastructure and are ill suited to higher density developments. Opening these lands incentivizes farmers to sell, land banking investors to buy up new farms and developers to rather spend on new builds on new land rather than repurposing, improving and revitalizing more depressed lands within the existing boundaries.
We have a tradespeople shortage. We have a materials shortage. And we have an inflation problem. We have to decide where labour, materials and money is going to be spent - if we increase the demand for these economic inputs we simply fuel inflation. When development and construction costs become too high construction stalls. Not only that, but part of the goal here is to create affordable housing - this will not be accomplished by creating more demand for already scarce labour, materials and capital. It is a flawed idea that opening more land in rural areas will solve the housing supply problem. It will simply move development from urban areas to rural areas which are better suited to larger more expensive homes leaving areas that need revitalization to further deteriorate, taking farmland, shrinking animal habitats and destroying nature.
We should incentivize and educate existing home owners on how to install tiny homes in their backyards and on how to create accessory apartments in their basements.
We should increase density where suitable in existing neighbourhoods. We should help those with land in town to move forward with development of that land and/or help those willing to assemble parcels of land in order to redevelop with high density.