The cities and region have rules in place that already prevent most sprawl. Some projects or project areas do get approved (Doon is one area we still allow a lot), but overall we don't permit any such projects with ease, so developers don't even propose them anymore and haven't regularly done so in years. It's mostly the townships that allow traditional, sprawling suburban developments so you'd have to take their policy making up with them.
You didn't include the actual The Record story here so that comment seems a bit disingenuous anyway (here it is for those curious). In it, it says that the council members and mayor are aware that private developers are trying to pressure them into opening up more lands for development. But the cities and region all know they have plans in place to prevent sprawl, so I can't see a couple home building developers achieving much no matter how much money they have or how much they start to lobby to the general public about this (which I can see them doing...which would be annoying: Mayor Vrbanovic doesn't want YOU owning your own home!"). It's not like they're secretly paying people under the table or anything. The council basically just said "so yeah, some greedy devs are trying to talk us into opening up land for more sprawl" and The Record ran the story.
The plan the city(cities) and region have is mostly fine anyway. Developers - as well as tech groups and local BIAs, of who we should definitely not be listening to anyway - are ignoring the fact that using census data, not even half of Canadians have families anymore...so the argument that we need more single family homes is just ridiculous. But those professionals working in planning understand that fact. There is a reason we're building condos and why so many of them only have 1 or 2 bedrooms. And since we are also attempting to densify as per our regional plans, that should hopefully open up the door for more missing middle which is one thing residents know we are missing. Missing middle homes can be a good alternative for families who want to live in the city but who don't want or can't afford a detached home in the suburbs, so hopefully we can adjust zoning to make it easier to build such stuff.
You didn't include the actual The Record story here so that comment seems a bit disingenuous anyway (here it is for those curious). In it, it says that the council members and mayor are aware that private developers are trying to pressure them into opening up more lands for development. But the cities and region all know they have plans in place to prevent sprawl, so I can't see a couple home building developers achieving much no matter how much money they have or how much they start to lobby to the general public about this (which I can see them doing...which would be annoying: Mayor Vrbanovic doesn't want YOU owning your own home!"). It's not like they're secretly paying people under the table or anything. The council basically just said "so yeah, some greedy devs are trying to talk us into opening up land for more sprawl" and The Record ran the story.
The plan the city(cities) and region have is mostly fine anyway. Developers - as well as tech groups and local BIAs, of who we should definitely not be listening to anyway - are ignoring the fact that using census data, not even half of Canadians have families anymore...so the argument that we need more single family homes is just ridiculous. But those professionals working in planning understand that fact. There is a reason we're building condos and why so many of them only have 1 or 2 bedrooms. And since we are also attempting to densify as per our regional plans, that should hopefully open up the door for more missing middle which is one thing residents know we are missing. Missing middle homes can be a good alternative for families who want to live in the city but who don't want or can't afford a detached home in the suburbs, so hopefully we can adjust zoning to make it easier to build such stuff.