Robinson: 'We're still hoping that the first part of the development is ceased as well.' Are they Mad?

By Pepper Parr

July 23^rd, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Kirk Robinson,  director of Millcroft Against Bad Development, known as MAD, delegated at City Council last week saying:

“On behalf of MAD, I would like to thank Council for your continued support throughout our five and a half year journey to stop the development of the Millcroft Golf course lands. We have asked for the mayor’s assistance many times during this journey, and we always receive a timely response. Mayor Meed Ward recently gave a shout-out to Matt on CHCH TV,  recognizing our spirit and our efforts to take the fight directly to the Premier, asking him to step in and save our green space.

It was seen as a brilliant development that had a golf course and a housing development side by side with a stormwater drainage system that prevented flooding. It worked very well until the owners of the golf course decided to make it a smaller course and the the land for 98 new homes.

Kirk Robinson

“We also seem to have our Councillor, Angelo Betivegna on speed dial. We can always count on Angelo to answer our questions and share his knowledge. Most recently, on a trip to Ottawa, he met with our representatives of Canada’s Residents Group on our behalf to learn more about their experiences fighting the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).

Fencing in place to protect trees.

“We know that our mayor and Angelo have many other projects and issues to address, but they always find time to listen and address our concerns. Thank you for that. MAD now has over 18,000 supporters, and that number grows each day. We attribute this growth to the success of our social media outreach as well as broadcast and press coverage. We work hard to educate the public about the issues and keep them updated on our progress. This growing support reinforces the need to save our green space, respect the 40 year old ecosystem and its wildlife, and avoid increasing the risk of flooding by building on floodplains. Our social media coverage has exploded in the last 10 weeks since our rally.  We now average over a million daily views.

“We have been featured on CHCH seven times in the past 10 weeks. The Hamilton Spectator gave our story front page coverage on July 4, running it over a two day period due to high public interest.

“Burlington residents are upset that even though council unanimously voted against the development, the developer is still able to appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. Residents cannot understand how elected municipal officials can be overruled by unelected OLT appointees.  The fight to save green space in Millcroft has united Burlington residents who have rallied behind both MAD and City Council to save our green space. We commend council for unanimously passing a request for a second MZO (Municipal Zoning Order) on the balance of the property. As advocates for the protection of green space, MAD strongly encourages council to express its willingness to participate in the facilitation process proposed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

“This direction provides important clarity to all parties and reinforces the city’s clear and consistent position that preserving all remaining green space is the priority. This step demonstrates Council’s proactive leadership and commitment to environmental stewardship. MAD  hopes the Facilitation process will ultimately support the protection of these lands, and that early action by council will help set the tone for meaningful and focused dialogue. We hope the premier will listen to the people, because municipalities know best. MAD recently filmed two cameos, one with Burlington, Citizen of the Year, and Order of Canada recipient, Ron Foxcroft.

I will close with quotes from Ron Foxcroft who states “this development is a very serious, tragic development”  As chair of the 2014 flood relief campaign, Foxcroft knows all about flooding. He added: “ the city cannot afford to lose more green space” , and urged us to blow the whistle on this development.

Kirk Robinson, MAD Chair

Robinson had a question from Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan:

Thank you, Kirk. It’s always great to hear from you, and thank you for all your work you’ve done supporting Millcroft, particularly through the OLT process. I know you’re part of a larger organization, and some folks are here as well. So thank you for being here. You nearly answered my question through your remarks, which is great. What do you hope to get from the facilitator for the community? What do you hope will happen?

Robinson: Well we’re hoping, obviously, that we shut down the second part of the development that the developer has planned. I think my wife is present there; she could address those questions even better.

Sonya, Robinson’s wife was in Council Chamber while he delegated virtually.

Sonya: We’re hoping to save green space throughout all of Millcroft. We’re still  holding up that we’re going to win phase one. We have reached out separately to the Premier on our own initiative, and we were actually hearing some good things. So, you know what? Hoping to save phase one and phase two. Don’t know if that answers your question more or less, so just to, just to follow up on that.

Sonia: The goal is, as I think Kirk mentioned, is to have no more development on the Millcroft lands. We want it preserved.

Nisan: My second question is around the facilitator; have you been involved with them at all? And when did you first learn about the facilitation option?

Robinson: We’ve been working with our MPP  Effie J. Triantafilopoulosie for four and a half years. MAD reached out to her and asked her for her opinion, and so we worked back and forth. We asked her to go to Minister Rob Flack on our behalf and to the Premier as well. She was the one who first notified us of this, apparently, after many discussions

Councillor Bentivegna: I just have one question for now, Kirk, I’m not sure if you can answer it, or one of your directors who are present there. You mentioned Kanata, an Ottawa area community  you have been working with.  Can you tell us what the connection is and why it was important to touch base with them?

Sonia: I’ll speak to that, because I do communications for MAD  We reached out to the group about five years ago when this all started to basically learn from them. Through the five years, we’ve been going back and forth with them. One of their representatives reached out to us about two or three months ago, asking for a meeting with us. When Angelo attended an FCM meeting in Ottawa we asked if he would meet with them  on our behalf; find out what you can – that’s kind of how, but we’ve been going back and forth with them.

Councillor Nissan: Just one more question for either of you.  Could you tell us more about the independent initiative that you mentioned, that Millcroft Against Development is working on with the Premier.

Robinson:  I don’t know that we can go into all of that. We’ve have representatives conversing with the Premier, so we’re doing our best in that regard. But I don’t know that we can go into all the details on that yet.

Lisa Kearns: invites Robinson to copy all of council at any time.

Councillor Kerns:   In light of that last question, can you just maybe highlight for us how many dialogues are happening at once? What I’m hearing is there’s a mayor and Ward councillor to Mad, Mad to the Premier, MAD to Effie J. Triantafilopoulos,  Effie J. Triantafilopoulos to the ward councillor and Mayor, staff to provincial staff. Am I missing any?  That’s my question.

I think things are going well, and we’re still hoping that the first part of the development is ceased as well.

Robinson:  Well, I think after fighting for five and a half years to save this golf course, there’s been so many conversations with so many people, and obviously we’re residents just trying to do the right thing and communicate with the right people and get the job done, which is obviously what the residents of Burlington are hoping for, right so I don’t know that I would have, you know, the chain of command, or, you know, of all those different conversations, I’m sorry, but I think things are going well, and we’re still hoping that the first part of the development is ceased as well.

Kearns: I appreciate that and invite you to copy in all of council at any time.