Please do not enact Bill 185…

Please do not enact Bill 185 without significant modifications to address our special needs in Waterloo Region for land use planning and environmental protection.

We are one of the few communities which relies on groundwater for our drinking water. The quality is excellent and I want to keep it that way.

I also rely almost exclusively on locally produced food for my year-round diet (okay, I make exceptions for coffee and tea). I have fabulous health and have saved hundreds of dollars in grocery bills by practising a 100-mile diet for 16 years. I want to keep it that way.

Unlike most other Ontario cities and communities, Waterloo Region has no Greenbelt protections and no freshwater pipelines to the Great Lakes. We are totally dependent on living within the carrying capacity of our watersheds.

To do this, we have had to introduce our own policies to protect aquifer recharge zones, farmland, and sensitive ecological areas. The Region of Waterloo developed robust regional planning processes, which have ensured collaboration and efficient use of resources and infrastructure across our complex region.

The proposed Bill 185 and PPS changes threaten these protections and planning processes on multiple fronts. It makes me sick and worried when I think of my, and my granddaughter's future without these protections and this collaborative approach.

It fills me with despair, actually.

In order to balance significant growth and development with our vulnerable and limited groundwater that we are totally dependent on, the Region of Waterloo had to develop our own Greenbelt-like protective measures. These include our visionary Countryside Line boundary policy, our Protected Countryside designation atop the Waterloo Moraine, our Environmentally Sensitive Landscapes (ESLs) protecting watershed ecosystems, and wellhead Source Water Protection Areas.

All of these essential Regional protections now stand to be threatened, fractured, compromised, or even eliminated entirely with the removal of Regional Planning Authority.

Who will do the in-depth research, the investigation of multiple options, the careful mapping and monitoring Regional planning, environmental and hydrological staff have done? Lower tier municipalities don't have staff with that expertise, and don't have money to hire them. (I note your proposal to remove upper-tier planning responsibilities comes with not a single mention of any replacement strategy, no mention of transition funding, nothing.)

Sadly, the changes the government proposes will not only cause irreparable harm to our communities: they will hinder, not facilitate, the construction of new homes to address the housing crisis. Without the coordinating oversight of our excellent upper tier planners, and without the benefit of a shared tax base committed to common, regionally agreed upon infrastructure and development goals, I foresee fights over whose job it is to purify the water, construct or repair the storm sewers, etc: should Wellesley pay a premium because their new developments are eating into the sewage carrying capacity of the Nith River that downstream New Hamburg was counting on? Such discussions, I'm sure, aren't new. But in the future, there will be no one-step-removed Regional planners to advise, and no Regional Council Planning and Works Committee to mediate and arbitrate such discussions.

I implore you to ensure the Region of Waterloo can retain its planning role. Our policies, systems, and environmental protections in Waterloo Region are not just “Red Tape”. They are what protects me and my granddaughter from Code Red. Please remember Walkerton. Don't let environmental and health protection measures fall between the cracks in a rush to build houses quickly at all costs.

If for any reason we do lose planning authority and our Regional environmental protections, the provincial Greenbelt must be extended to adequately protect the Waterloo Moraine and our essential groundwater recharge areas. (Greenbelt protections aren't as good as those we have in Waterloo Region, but they are better than nothing!)

And rather than pouring everything down the drain with an abrupt cancellation of regional planning, please work with us to explore new hybrid systems, e.g. Regional staff to provide overall planning coordination and creation of a collaborative Regional Official Plan, with planning approvals delegated to lower-tier municipalities.

Please remedy Bill 185 to ensure that it does not remove or damage our regional system and the essential policies for our environmental protections and rapid growth that we rely on here in our cities, townships, and Region of Waterloo.