The More Hones, Built Faster…

The More Hones, Built Faster Act intends to expand land resources for housing development into the long protected “Greenbelt” surrounding the GTA. This need for more land is not borne out by reality. All municipalities within the GTA have vacant land zoned for housing, often with secondary plans in place and infrastructure available. Yet the developers have held off building on these lands in hopes that inflation, greater demand and lower interest rates will increase their profitability. In Port Hope, for instance, we have had over 100 acres of land zoned for residential development since 1998, yet it has not been built upon in over 20 years. Land freed up by expanding into the Greenbelt is not needed.

New development requires infrastructure such as roads, sewers, water, transit and other community services. Meanwhile, there are huge areas of our municipalities already serviced. Large parking lots, one-storey malls and under utilized industrial lands, all areas where community infrastructure is already in place, could be used for housing. Abandoned industrial sites and buildings can be redeveloped into residences rather than be demolished. This is also a sound green strategy since “the greenest building is the one that is already built.” Financial incentives, such as grants for.clean-up costs or re-development incentives could make these properties into valuable community assets rather than eyesores.

In short, there seems to be no justification for opening up protected Greenbelt areas when there is already an abundance of readily buildable land within our communities.