By Staff
February 4th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
The growth that municipalities have to take on to reach the provincially determined population levels has a lot of people concerned about losses of rural agricultural land to residential development.
The rural Burlington that the Stop the Sprawl group wants to keep.
Stop Sprawl Halton will be holding COVID-safe pop-up events this Saturday, February 5th, 1:30pm – 2pm
Oakville & Burlington — Stop Sprawl Halton announces two COVID-safe pop-up events, one in Oakville, the other in Burlington, to spread awareness to protect irreplaceable Halton farmland.
Locations — N.E. corner of Trafalgar and Cornwall in Oakville
North Service Rd. and Brant St. in Burlington
What — Stop Sprawl Halton will host two peaceful, COVID-safe, pop-up events this Saturday, to spread awareness about the Region’s plans to expand the urban boundary, and to hand out free “Save Our Farms” lawn signs.
Safety – Participants must wear a mask and remain 6’ apart from others at all times. They must also remain on the intersection sidewalks, and not interfere with traffic.
About Stop Sprawl Halton – Stop Sprawl Halton (SSH) is a grass-roots organization that coalesced after Hamilton’s Stop Sprawl campaign won a “no urban boundary expansion” vote at Hamilton City Council on November 19, 2021. Like other Stop Sprawl campaigns developing in municipalities across Southern Ontario, Stop Sprawl Halton is a champion for vibrant, sustainable growth within existing urban boundaries. SSH believes the provincially mandated growth targets can be achieved through modest singles and semi-detached homes, combined with other low-rise forms, in mixed-use communities.
There are very few “farms” in Halton. Most of the land areas are large acreages privately owned by rich white people to accommodate one house where you could put thousands of housing units and offset affordable housing demands. It was only about 30 years ago that the Fairview GO Station and the Burlington Mall lands were farms, and it was ok for those farms to allow for housing. Nimby freaks.
If anyone has actually taken the time to understand what the Region is doing, there is no sprawl even being considered in Burlington or Oakville. The urban boundary is firm. That is widely known and accepted. There are no developers challenging that. What are they spreading awareness of if there’s nothing even happening? Intensification of the existing urban area is the way of the future, so that precious farmland is already safe. Putting “Save our Farms” signs out now is like putting up election signage 3 years after the vote already happened. I don’t get it.