The following proposals will…

The following proposals will facilitate unnecessary urban sprawl, further fragment agricultural areas making it more difficult for farmers to operate, and put further pressure on natural areas at a time when we need to be protecting them for carbon sequestration and water resource management purposes.
These policies should NOT be approved:
-Provide flexibility for municipalities to allow for more residential development in rural settlements and multi-lot residential development on rural lands, including more servicing flexibility (e.g., leveraging capacity in the private sector servicing
-Require municipalities to permit more housing on farms, including residential lot creation subject to criteria, additional residential units and housing for farm workers
-Provide a simplified and flexible approach for municipalities to undertake settlement area boundary expansions. Municipalities would be allowed to create new Settlement Areas and would not be required to demonstrate the need for expansion
-Require municipalities to designate specialty crop areas and prime agricultural areas, eliminating the requirement to use the provincially-mapped Agricultural System
And, there is broad use of the term "encourage" throughout the document rather than "require". In short, the province suggests municipalities do the right thing in land use planning, but doesn't require them to. The word "encourage" SHOULD BE CHANGED to "require" or "shall" statements.