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Repeal Bill 23
Waterloo Region’s official plan protects the countryside, boosts affordability, and creates mixed communities for all family types.
We won’t let the Ontario government throw it all away.
The cities and townships of Waterloo Region have collaborated for the last two years to update our Regional Official Plan. Staff worked closely with community groups, First Nations, and provincial staff to make a growth plan that everyone can get behind.
The province’s Bill 23 claims to be about “More Homes Built Faster”. That’s a lie. It could put the entire Regional Official Plan at risk, including the Countryside Line itself. It would remove protections for renters. It would reduce the amount of affordable housing in new buildings.
We know that opening up the countryside to more sprawl won’t solve our housing crisis, especially not if affordability standards are removed. We know this because, in Waterloo Region, developers are sitting on land for 19,000 homes that has been fully approved, but no construction has begun.
We agree that we we need to build more homes and welcome more neighbours. We can do that by allowing duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, and low-rise apartments everywhere within our existing built-up areas. In fact, Waterloo Region’s new Official Plan includes exactly these policies for “missing middle” housing! If the Province was serious about building new homes, it should approve our plan, not throw it out the window.
What can I do?
Send an email to Doug Ford, MPPs and provincial staff using our pre-filled template, urging them to repeal Bill 23and approve Waterloo Region’s Official Plan.
We encourage you to edit the default message and add your own personal story to make more of an impact!
“Don’t let Bill 23 kill the countryside line. We can build new housing while protecting renters and the environment. Send a message to our leaders now! #watreg #kwawesome #wrawesome #onpoli holdthelinewr.org”
About Bill 23
Over the past year, Ontario municipalities like Hamilton, Halton and and Waterloo have made extraordinary strides in protecting wildlife habitat and farmland and delivering the denser, walkable, lower-cost forms of housing in existing neighbourhoods, by adopting groundbreaking plans that would allocate all – or almost all – of their new homes and workplaces to existing neighborhoods, built up areas, and their existing supply of unused designated greenfield area.
One of the most glaring features of this Bill’s amendments to the Planning Act is the removal of the last procedural obstacles to the Minister unilaterally imposing sprawl on those conscientious municipal governments.
— Environmental Defence, “Ontario’s Housing Bill is Actually a Trojan Horse for Environmentally Catastrophic Rural Sprawl”
If this Bill is passed in its current form, it will have devastating impacts on low- and moderate-income tenants as not only will it create more unaffordable housing but it will also take away the powers cities have in building and protecting affordable housing and strip away tenants’ right to return in case of demolition.
It will make tenants more vulnerable to renovictions/demovictions, increase the homelessness crisis and destroy existing affordable housing. In Ontario, landlords are increasingly using renovation/demolition as a tactic to evict tenants so that once the tenant moves out, they are able to substantially jack up the rent.
— ACORN Canada, “Scrap Bill 23 Now!”
The overhaul of conservation authorities is one of the largest sections of the new legislation. It includes dozens of changes to at least 11 regulations that enable these bodies to prevent flooding and other natural hazards by protecting wetlands and other ecosystems.
“As someone who supports the government’s all-hands-on-deck approach to the housing crisis, it’s frustrating,” said Hasaan Basit, CEO of Halton Region Conservation Authority. “They have told us they value the important work [conservation authorities] do to protect people and property from natural hazards and flooding, but then they introduce sweeping changes that will keep us from doing the work needed at the watershed level.”
— The Narwhal, “All the Ontario environmental protections Doug Ford wants to overhaul to build more houses”