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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

vic said:
If they were sincere about "creating housing", and went through a non-sketchy non-self-serving process to open up the greenbelt, I expect it would have happened. People would be pissed about the lost greenbelt land, but the scandal would not exist.

But since this was all about greed, well, here we are.... I hope investigations continue to reveal and cut out the rot.
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I reported earlier today in the East Harbour thread, that had Ford's MZO not overridden City policy, that development would contain at least twice as much affordable housing. (20% of units instead of 10%)

A direct assault on the supply of affordable housing betraying a lack of sincerity and consistency on the file.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I expect the developers now out $8 billion in profit will be demanding to be made good, so either suing the Province or being top listed for housing construction elsewhere. My take? Gasperis et al bought farms, so get planting.
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The legal precedent from the original greenbelt, and subsequent expansions is that compensation was not required.

The province can up or down zone by fiat.

In this case, had the builders actually spent $$ after the redesignations, on planners/architects, I could see a 'good faith' case for making them whole.

Of note, the DeGasperis tract, the largest parcel by far, was already in both the Greenbelt and the Duffins-Rouge agricultural preserve; they also bought it ages ago, not recently.

They had no reasonable basis to expect this land to be developable in the near term, its not even serviced.
 
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Jeez - Doug Ford is having a week, huh. Monte McNaughton was definitely one of the bright lights in his cabinet; at least from the outside, he seemed to know what he was doing and wasn’t overly partisan. He also broadened the base, which was a huge win for them.
 
A close friend of mine is outraged that the greenbelt even exists at all and thinks the whole thing should be opened up for development...

His rants are hard for me to tolerate at times...
 
Towered said:
A close friend of mine is outraged that the greenbelt even exists at all and thinks the whole thing should be opened up for development...

His rants are hard for me to tolerate at times...
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I recall in the 1990s when I was living in Janetville (Between Lindsay and Port Perry). You could drive through Durham Region and see farmland for kilometers. I drove up there a few years ago and it was all developed.

Change is good but we still need that separation.
 
Richard White said:
I recall in the 1990s when I was living in Janetville (Between Lindsay and Port Perry). You could drive through Durham Region and see farmland for kilometers. I drove up there a few years ago and it was all developed.

Change is good but we still need that separation.
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My vintage motorcycle club often rides up that way, and since 2007 when I joined them to today the scouring of agricultural land for SFH in car dependent suburbs has exploded. When you fly to Europe, such as into London, Paris or Munich as you approach the city it's farms until suddenly you reach dense residential and commercial lands, and this in countries with nearly or more than double Canada's population but with a tiny fraction of the land size. That's what we need here.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
My vintage motorcycle club often rides up that way, and since 2007 when I joined them to today the scouring of agricultural land for SFH in car dependent suburbs has exploded. When you fly to Europe, such as into London, Paris or Munich as you approach the city it's farms until suddenly you reach dense residential and commercial lands. That's what we need here.
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What's also needed is the notion of "Satellite towns" - use rail infrastructure as a way to shape development patterns regionally. This is common in Europe - but almost totally absent in NA.

AoD
 
allengeorge said:
Does this also stop the process Paul Calandra started of 'reevaluating' the Greenbelt? I got the sense that this was narrowly focused on the land swap - not the overall health/sanctity of the Greenbelt.

At any rate:
  1. I'm really shocked Ford did this.
  2. I think he got a earful from his caucus. Plus, the polling was pretty brutal: people of all stripes were convinced that the OPC simply did this for their donors. I'm a little surprised that media didn't play up that $8.2 billion number more, because that's an eyewateringly-large windfall.
  3. In his presser he started off being apologetic, but then pivoted into a weird place of "we did it for the right reasons, it would have been home for 100s of thousands of people, and it's a good place to build". Kinda muddled the message.
  4. I don't trust the government to be good stewards of the Greenbelt and don't trust that we've seen the last of their meddling here. I was never convinced of their environmental creds anyways, but after everything related to the Conservation Authorities, Hwy 413 and the Greenbelt I really don't trust them.
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Regarding point #2, the Federal Government may have played a role in the stunning about- face. At this point, there is simply no fight left in the Ford camp.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
What's also needed is the notion of "Satellite towns" - use rail infrastructure as a way to shape development patterns regionally. This is common in Europe - but almost totally absent in NA.

AoD
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We make it too easy for sleeper towns to exist here. We’ll expand highways at will for any town within 100km of a major urban centre, and ignore that those cities wouldn’t function otherwise as they’ve lost all but retail employment locally.

Those sleeper towns then expect any kind of share of public transit to and from them to be someone else’s—generally, the urban centre’s—responsibility.

Hint: because cars.

Our system is broken.
 
Admiral Beez said:
When you fly to Europe, such as into London, Paris or Munich as you approach the city it's farms until suddenly you reach dense residential and commercial lands. That's what we need here.
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In June I was in Hungary and you this is exactly it. I stayed in a town called Tarnok just outside Budapest which is just a small village. When my cousin drove me to the Aeroport, it was farmland between his house and Budapest.

In any case, it was a welcome site.
 
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