The premier promised…

The premier promised numerous times NOT to allow development on the Greenbelt. Breaking those promises not only undermines his credibility, but is a deliberate and calculated insult to the electorate.

The government should not be engaging in egregiously corrupt political acts like this to benefit the developer friends of the premier. These lands as a public trust meant to protect the environment and our future. Removing lands from them violates that trust.

There is adequate land available in Ontario for more housing on existing developable land, especially if incentives are given to promote in-fill and increased urban density, as well as allowing municipalities to create mixed-used zoning.

What would be far more effective than destroying the environment would be legislation requiring and incentivizing more rental units. Both rental developments like apartment buildings and in-fill units (aka granny flats or garden suites) are needed. Plus the government could encourage the use of "tiny homes" to alleviate housing issues in many communities.

No matter how many more single-family homes get built, there will still be millions of people who either cannot afford to or do not wish to own a home, especially a home so far from existing urban centres. Living out there requires a car and thus more traffic, more smog, more environmental erosion.

This Act will hurt Ontario's future generations irrevocably. PLEASE do not pass it. There are smarter, better solutions to housing problems than just letting developers build more single-family homes in the suburbs.

As a postscript, reducing development charges puts an enormous burden on municipalities which only gets passed to the local property taxes, making housing more and more expensive. Believing developers will pass savings on to buyers is naive: they will simply get richer while housing remains unaffordable for many.

Municipalities will have to make cuts to services and infrastructure maintenance to keep tax hikes low. Millions of Ontarians on fixed incomes, including seniors, will be hurt. Don't reduce development fees: they go to paying for expanded infrastructure and servicing for those new developments. Without those fees, many municipalities will resort to interim control bylaws to slow or stop local development until they have the resources to pay for the servicing. That will not help create more housing: rather, it will throttle it.