By completing the information below, you consent to having your name and, if applicable, your organization, added to a letter Liveable Ontario will be sending to Premier Ford in January. The contact information you provide in this form will only be used to contact you about this letter.
Letter to the Premier
Dear Premier Ford,
The combined effect of your recent legislative and policy assaults have -together- essentially demolished community planning in Ontario, harmed democracy, and undermined the protection of vital agricultural and natural lands. Your actions are taking us back to a time of sprawl dominant development, inadequate public infrastructure, and a disregard for environmental consequences.
You claim these changes will build more housing more quickly. But, as analysis after analysis from many sectors of Ontario society over the past few weeks has shown, the proposed changes will not solve the housing affordability and supply crises. Any new supply of truly affordable housing units will be offset by the loss of affordable units through redevelopment of existing rental housing for other uses. The new supply of diverse housing types will not begin to meet the rising demand as our population increases.
You claim these changes are necessary to free up land needed for development. Yet you ignore the fact that there is land available larger than the size of Mississauga already included for future development within the boundaries of the cities and towns of the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
We will not forget what you have done and intend to hold you to account. We will help Ontarians determine before the next election whether what you have done has been worth:
- Transferring very large amounts of taxpayer dollars from municipalities to for-profit developers while doing little to solve the housing crisis
- Restricting the ability of municipalities to build truly affordable housing
- Removing important planning laws and rules that are needed to constrain financially and environmentally unsustainable and damaging sprawl-type development being driven by land speculators
- Allowing for hyper-intensification or 'vertical sprawl' in areas where municipalities had not planned for such high density, straining existing infrastructure and other public services and amenities
- Eliminating key environmental protections that are needed to stop flooding and protect wetlands, woodlands and wildlife in a time of growing climate change impacts and unprecedented biodiversity loss
- Restricting the ability of municipalities to require construction of more energy-efficient and climate-resilient housing and neighbourhoods that are truly livable
- Undermining democracy by reducing public participation in planning matters and urban design, and eliminating the public’s right to appeal planning decisions
- Jeopardizing local efforts to achieve the goal of increasing the affordable housing stock through the design of safe, walkable neighbourhoods
- Accelerating the current, untenable loss of 319 acres of farmland per day in Ontario at the very time when supply-chain disruptions and climate change underline the need to enhance local food security
- Creating chaos through the elimination of regional planning, thereby hindering critical long-term coordination of planning and provision of services for housing, and hinder short- to medium-term housing construction at the very time it is so desperately needed
Sincerely,
