I am a resident of Waterloo…

I am a resident of Waterloo Region. I'm submitting a comment to express my serious concern about the outcomes for our region after our Regional Official Plan was reopened for municipalities to request amendments. I'm urging you to roll back your decision to open up our Official Plan for changes (not even two years after it was approved) and uphold the urban boundaries outlined in that plan.

The citizens of our region spoke loudly and clearly in 2022, in a process of local democracy that underlined the need to protect our farmland, aquifer, and limited remaining wildlife habitat. As a result of that democratic process, our region committed to a Regional Official Plan that would concentrate expansion in brownfield areas, greenfields already designated for urban expansion, and infill. Your government's top-down decision to reopen the Official Plan made municipal councils across our region vulnerable to the powerful lobby of land developers, who have speculated on farmland and stand to see huge profits through the transformation of that land into new suburbs.

The proposed changes to our Official Plan remove land from food production at a time when climate change is making our global food increasingly fragile. Moreover, a recent Waterloo Region staff report (see the uploaded document) highlights that the proposed expansion of the urban footprint will put new housing development on crucial groundwater recharge zones, reducing our aquifer's recharge capacity by up to 80% in those areas and resulting in even more salt contamination of our groundwater. This is a critical issue for our region, with our ability to grow constrained by our ability to manage our water supply sustainably into the future. Ironically, if we build more homes on our groundwater recharge zones, we may actually risk undermining our growth plans--unless our provincial government is prepared to build a water pipeline from Lake Erie, at an estimated cost of over $2 billion of taxpayer dollars.

I urge you to reconsider the decision to open Regional Official Plans to piecemeal amendment by local councils. We have Regional Official Plans for a reason. People across Waterloo are waking up to the realization that our democratic planning process has been undermined. How can our vision for sustainable growth can be achieved when land speculators are privileged over the well-being of ordinary citizens?