"More Homes, More Choice"…

"More Homes, More Choice" should be relative to non-Conservation and/or Park lands, i.e. new laws /amendments / changes should not enable further encroachment on public and private lands set aside as preserves and environmentally important areas. Conservation Authorities should maintain their watershed areas of expertise rather than the municipalities (and in the total abdication by the Province to do the work currently done by the Conservation Authorities). Competent organizations like the Conservation Authorities are needed, that understand broad watershed systems (water quality, flood / natural disaster mitigation, natural regeneration and preservation, public recreational land use, additional public land acquisitions or private lands protection from development).

Municipalities (seeking an increased tax base) and Developers (seeking profitable low cost projects) do not have the incentives in place to be environmentally concerned about long term costs to the public and decisions affecting neighbouring areas (as in a complete watershed containing multiple municipalities and competing objectives).

Once a Green Belt or Public Lands and Private Lands conservation is opened for development that land is lost (possibly forever) in a time where the Greening of our Municipalities is ever more important. Lessons learned from our past ... Hurricane Hazel (building on the flood plains) and watershed controls (damming rivers and lakes / landfill of wetlands / burying of creeks and watercourses / increasing impermeable surfaces / constructing rapid runoff infrastructure) ... have all been shown to be long term costs (and increasing), not delivering the benefits hoped for when originally built. Many of our infrastructure initiatives from the 1950's are known by today's standards to be economically costly, in the damage they do to the environment and the costs to remove or replace them with current approved standards.

We should not be building in the Green Belt.