Burlington mayor wants new provincial government to focus on affordable housing

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Published June 1, 2022 at 11:37 am

Affordable housing research at Hamilton's McMaster University gets $1.45M for national study

With the provincial election tomorrow, Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward has a specific request for whichever party forms the government.

“We need them to see us as a partner, not something to be managed,” she told Insauga’s publisher Khaled Iwamura during an exclusive live interview on Instagram. “We need more local planning control.”

As an example, Meed Ward said some of the proposals in the Housing Affordability Strategy will neither help housing nor affordability.

“It would take democracy and local planning control right out of the equation.”

The mayor, who is running for her second term, has been a vocal critic of the Ontario Land Tribunal in the past, a body that she says heavily favours developers and has outlived its usefulness.

Several times over the last couple of years, the City has denied all or large parts of development proposals, mainly in the downtown core, they don’t believe adhere to local restrictions.

However, in nearly every case, when the developer has appealed the City’s decision to the land tribunal, the end up getting nearly everything they want.

This has frustrated the mayor and city councillors who are trying to retain the character and uniqueness of downtown Burlington and preserve as much green space around Spencer Smith Park as they can.

Going forward, most larger developments will be focused around one of the three Burlington GO transit stations.

“Housing is one of the biggest issues and no one level of government, or the private sector, or the non-profit sector, can do this alone.”

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