York Region is considering opening up the Greenbelt to allow water and wastewater to settlement areas as well as employment areas along the 400 series highway and are asking the Province to open up the Greenbelt. YR Planning and Economic Development have proposed this in a report for the Council’s Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday, Oct. 8 at 9 AM. I am opposed to this; here is a letter I have written to the Council which addresses the issue of opening up the Greenbelt for employment areas along the 400. A press release by 12 environmental groups summarizes why this is very wrong: unnecessary as there is significant lands zoned and waiting for development; some of the targeted land is already “employment land” as it is being farmed; extending sewers for employment is sprawl and enable more sprawl. To make your opposition known you can send a letter to the York Region Council by noon Wed. Oct 7; mail to regionalclerk@york.ca. ( I do regret that I wasn’t able to do this post sooner.) The meeting is live streamed and you can watch it here.
Thanks for the update! Can you confirm that Mayor Pellegrini will be voting against this proposal?
Hi Jennifer….there is no way I could confirm one way or the other how any member of Council would vote. I did view the live stream. The majority did approve the recommendations which were amended somewhat. The opposing YR Council members were Mayors Taylor (Newmarket), Querk (Georgina), Mrakas (Aurora). There was one other I believe but I couldn’t identify.
The final vote was yesterday and they voted to ask the province to
have the ability to remove the protected lands from Greenbelt. Minister Steve Clark
Said NO in the Legislature at Queen’s Park October 8th.
I was so impressed with Mayor Quirk and Mayor John Taylor forvhaving remained true to
Protecting the Greenbelt all these years. Mayor Tom Mrakas, Councillor Jack Heath and Don Hamilton also voted no.
I like your letter but the invitation to write by noon today when your message only came in at 1 pm is problematic. Perhaps if people want to make their voices heard and did not manage to write to the clerk before the deadline, they should be encouraged to send an email to mayor Steve Pellegrini directly.
Nancy I totally agree that my post was too late. I really kicked myselt that I did not have capability to push out the email notification. Your suggestion is good but I am not going to persue it at this point.