The Ontario government’s…

The Ontario government’s decision to remove land from the Ontario Greenbelt is ill-informed and will do nothing to reduce the cost of housing.

The Ontario Greenbelt is PROTECTED land, which means it cannot be touched. It wasn’t just set aside for when the government of the day decides that it needs more land for whatever it deems the issue of the day. Is housing unaffordable? Yes. Do we need more housing for a growing world population? Yes. But not at the expense of protected land.

Doug Ford’s government needs to seriously rethink this before plowing ahead with such a short-sighted plan. Once built-up, there’s no reversing this decision; it’s land lost forever.

A real plan to increase housing in Ontario without destroying protected spaces and furthering urban sprawl should look at the following:

- focusing intensification in existing built-up areas, where services already exist.
- encouraging dense, car-free mid-rise and high-rise developments in current development lands
- prohibiting construction of single family homes, mansions, and low-rise buildings. The cold hard truth is that not everyone can have a white picket fence like Doug Ford said. Earth’s population just surpassed 8 BILLION people. Thinking that we can all continue to live the way we are is unrealistic, even absurd.
- stopping NIMBYism. Existing neighbourhoods WILL have to accept change if we are to avoid the worst of climate change, sprawl, high costs of infrastructure, loss of natural spaces, etc.
- capping profits on developers.
- developing new forms of housing (no more big box stores or plazas without residential being built above it, etc.)
- demanding that all new construction be net-zero, have green roofs or power generation along with grey water capture systems.
- focusing development away from the sprawling GTA (i.e. Kingston, Ottawa, North Bay, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Hawkesbury, Prescott, etc.)

If this plan goes through as-is, it’ll be a sad day in Ontario.