Good grief. Now Doug wants to undo the Greenbelt. This is dumb because
- The greenbelt, having been planned for just that, has the lowest investment to date in infrastructure, be it sewage, water, hydro, roads, or transit. Putting new development in these areas will mean a huge investment that hasn't been planned or costed. Everything from the 25-year transit plans to the specific community transit networks will have to be adjusted. Traffic flows? Impact on existing lines some of which eg RER aren't even ready?
- How many LRT and BRT lines might that generate up there? Very little of the greenbelt will be dense enough to justify higher order ie subway construction. Gonna be roads and buses up that way. Doug dislikes surface transit in the center, but he wants this in the Greenbelt?
- There is no guarantee that developing the greenbelt will lead to affordable housing. His vision seems to be traditional low-density suburbs. If the Belt is developed as estate housing or gated communities, which is quite likely, there will be monster homes on large lots constructed. That's incredibly costly to service and does nothing to drive up affordable housing supply or drive down prices. Or enable transit services. What is his plan to force developers to build affordable transit-friendly housing rather than what they might prefer to build?
- There is no guarantee that housing elsewhere, even if impacted by new supply built on the greenbelt, will experience lower prices, especially is (as we are seeing in Toronto) previously affordable housing continues to be demolished and replaced with upscaled monster homes. Do we want housing prices to fall in other areas?
- If the greenbelt is filled with low-cost housing, what will that housing look like? It will have to be dense. We tear up the greenbelt to create density there instead of in existing urban areas? And we will increase commuting distances. What's the plan to create employment zones up there so there are shorter commutes and two-way commuting?
Less related to transit, but part of the overall package, is
- Doug's disrespect for the value of agricultural land ought to come back to bite him, if the competing parties structure their debate properly
- Never mind environmental and urban planning impacts.
- Doug has been caught promising the moon and the stars to a powerful elite in a backroom discussion. This is Animal Farm territory. He rants against elites, but he is planning to treat the development community as the province's most important stakeholder. One elite replaced with another. And a greedy, unprincipled one at that.
I was on the fence about Doug until now, figuring that correction of the Liberal excesses had some merit. But this is outright stupidity.
This guy is dangerous. For transit, and more.
- Paul