I am opposed to opening the…

I am opposed to opening the Greenbelt to housing. I don't discount that there is a need for housing. But I feel there is plenty of already plenty of land in urban areas that can be re-deployed. How many old shopping centres, underutilized industrial areas are there. Sure, people want yards, but most don't actually use them. Do a better job of building denser housing and re-developing existing urban lands and infrastructure; don't spread out.

Of course, that's a bit more difficult to plan than to just pull out pristine agricultural land. Speaking of which, we often hear about the cost of food, and buying local. How can we do that when the local farming community keeps shrinking and moving farther away? We need good agricultural land. We need green spaces that are accessible to people for mental health breaks in the outdoors. Stop stripping it away!

Adding new land the Greenbelt is a weak tradeoff and a distraction. We should be doing that regardless of the size of the existing Greenbelt.

My final thought is on the developers. We have heard that much of the land is owned by developers. Sure, so purchased the land prior to the Greenbelt being assigned. That's the cost of doing business. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. We've also heard that some developers purchased the land AFTER the Greenbelt was created. Seems like an odd investment, knowing that it was restricted land.

Please make a better effort at being creative and finding ways to re-using existing lands. Not this knee-jerk action of opening up lands. They are valuable, they are our future. DO YOUR JOB!!!!