“This (Ford) government has used the housing affordability crisis to justify changing rules to make it easier to build more expensive, single family homes on farmland and natural areas.” – David Crombie, former Mayor of Toronto and Chair of the Friends of the Golden Horseshoe.
News from the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario and Ontario Greenbelt Alliance
Posted May 22nd, 2024 on Niagara At Large
When is the Ford government’s relentless push for more urban sprawl over what is left of our life-sustaining food-growing lands and green places for other living creatures going to end?
Toronto – A broad-based coalition of 65 organizations and many prominent Ontario residents has petitioned Ontario Premier Doug Ford and MPPs calling on them to shelve the government’s Bill 185 and proposed changes to the Provincial Planning Statement that governs land use in the province.
“Your proposals are the wrong medicine to solve the housing crisis. Your government’s prescription will actually make things worse,”the petitioners say.
“These proposed changes to Ontario’s housing rules will destroy farmland, natural areas and make it harder to get affordable homes built,” said Mark Reusser from the Waterloo Federation of Agriculture.
“They will take away the last remaining provincial protections that have stopped land speculators from rezoning farmland, wetlands and wilderness. The changes will encourage building expensive houses in the wrong places.“
“This government has used the housing affordability crisis to justify changing rules to make it easier to build more expensive, single family homes on farmland and natural areas,” said David Crombie, former Mayor of Toronto and Chair of the Friends of the Golden Horseshoe.
“This is bad planning, bad for the environment and it won’t help the housing crisis. These policies would divert construction workers and material away from building the affordable homes we need in communities where people already live and services already exist.”
“Bill 185 continues the Ford government’s systematic dismantling of our democratic rights by taking away the right of the public to appeal sprawl development decisions,” said Victor Doyle, professional planner and former Manager of Planning with the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
“This means only developers will have the right of appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal – making it essentially a developers’ only tribunal. How is that fair?”
“Bottom line: Instead of making homes more affordable, these bills will make housing more expensive,” said Margaret Prophet, Executive Director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition. ”If MPPs want to solve the housing affordability crisis, their only option is to shelve these bills now.”
For more information, including a complete list of the 65 groups and individuals calling out against the Ford government’s Bill 185, click on – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GMCSYlW_6MF-laqNHpmHljQijhidKYzj/view
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