I'm extremely dissapointed…

I'm extremely dissapointed in the province's move to walk back on the previous decision to protect the Greenbelt and propose to overrule the city of Hamilton's decision to stay within it's current boundaries. I disagree with the provinces decision to allow the destruction of marshlands to fill them by building sprawling subdivisions but protecting a golf course instead. Mr. Ford and his Ontario government has done everything to line the pockets and grant favours to his builder supporters but thought nothing about the problems city face in maintaining their aging infrastructure as well as allowing them to make decisions that are right for them regarding housing. It feels like no research has been conducted regarding what the needs of our population is for housing and his ideas are narrow and short sighted. Below are some points to support my reflections and comments that should be counted as opposition to his current plans for the Greenbelt and Hamilton.

1. Your government's move to gut the Conservation Authorities' role in environmental protection in the name of the “urgent” need for housing is bogus, specious, and nothing more than a smoke screen to disguise your government's intent to reward political allies in property development – and at any expense to the citizens of this province.
2. In Hamilton, as in virtually any other Ontario urban centre, there is plenty of underused and unused space within the urban boundaries without constructing one more building on protected and/or agricultural land.
3. Building lavish homes on monster lots on protected and/or agricultural land risks our country's food security for generations to come. Developed land cannot be made agricultural again.
4. Minister's Zoning Orders that seek to end-run critical wetlands protection is not only stupid, it is dangerous, risking as it does ongoing flood protections managed by the Conservation Authorities.
5. Building sparsely spaced home tracts on protected and/or agricultural land will require massive infrastructure systems that must ultimately be paid for through municipal taxation. The sparsity of homes on these ruined lands will NOT COVER THE COST of this infrastructure over time. The mathematics reveal the plan to be unsustainable both financially and environmentally.
6. Building sparsely spaced home tracts on protected and/or agricultural land will do NOTHING for the most urgent needs for housing, which exist almost exclusively in the urban centres. Those who are currently poorly housed, homeless, and those who are financially challenged to break into home-ownership will remain exactly in the same disadvantaged position.

Corollary to cancelling this regulatory change, I formally register my objection to opening the Greenbelt up for any manner of development. I also object in the strongest possible terms to pushing out Hamilton's urban boundaries into precious and irreplaceable agricultural land. "