Councillor Sharman moves into pontification made as he puts his spin on the mess Council has gotten itself into

By Pepper Parr

February 25th, 2026

BURLINGTON,ON

OPINION

Moving into pontificating mode Councillor Paul Sharman said earlier today that “the the housing affordability crisis demands thoughtful debate and action.

Nothing but facts for me please.

“We need a fact-based discussion about the option to lift development charges paid for by homebuyers, while protecting tax payers and prompting other levels of government to honour their commitments to keep us whole.

“We do our best work when we have accurate information, hear each other out, and look for common ground.

“To that end we need to pause, get the facts, and take time to digest the new information we received from staff that we haven’t yet had a chance to discuss, as the matter was understandably referred to the March 2 council.

Pretty good spin for Sharman.

As a Council member, he has a responsibility to serve the people of Burlington and deferring isn’t serving interests other than his own.

The developers do have a problem and it is a serious one that needs to be seriously addressed.  Setting up a situation that has the taxpayers taking the hit is not a reasonable or fair solution.

In a different article I want to take you through the timeline this mess has gone through.

Zero public notice, zero public engagement.  A lobbyist for the development community gets 45 minutes at the podium to explain just how tough things are for the organization he represents.

And they are tough – no one disagrees with the developers on that.

Mike Collins-Williams delegating to City Council. Vince Molinaro sits in.

Perhaps developers could think in terms of creating reserve funds for their organization rather than have the city raid its reserve funds to bail out the developers.

The source of the help the developers need is at the provincial level.

At the close of the WestEnd Home Builders Association delegation, Mayor Meed Ward apologized to Mike Collins-Williams  for not making a glass of water available to the speaker.

That might be as much as they are going to get from the city.