These Green Belt zoning…

These Green Belt zoning amendments should not go through. The province should be focused on densifying suburban areas with townhouses and low-rise apartments or condos instead of focusing on single family dwellings further and further away from places of work and life. Current urban sprawl has added to numerous problems already, including wildlife habitat destruction, pollution increases, climate change and cost of living increases. Because there is already developed land available for densification, I believe re-zoning areas across the province would be adequate to address the housing crisis. Taking protected agricultural and natural lands and developing on them is not necessary and may lead to food industry accessibility and flooding issues in future that hasn't been made obvious in the proposal. Also, I have read that the Paris-Galt moraine is already conserved under Bill 71, but this is not mentioned in these proposed amendments. Are these different lands and what is that difference?

Some specific examples of my concerns with these proposed areas are:

1. The areas in Redesignation maps 5 and 6 look to be in floodplains, which can be considered a direct environmental risk or financial risk but no impact assessment for flooding is in the proposed attachments.

2.Redesignation map 10 and some other areas are away from amenities such as grocery stores and basic necessities. Needing to drive a car everywhere would increase the cost of living to a resident and needing to establish new water and sewage connections would create extra costs for municipal governments to shoulder. Densifying already developed areas would mitigate both costs.

All of these environmental and financial unknowns lead me to believe that taking away from the proposed Greenbelt zones is too high of a risk to put in motion and there are better alternatives available that Ontario can pursue.