Mayor identifies areas where Burlington will target for development
Published June 9, 2023 at 5:18 pm
Areas around the GO stations, old plazas and a few other designated locations in the city are the places where Burlington will grow.
That’s according to Mayor Marianne Meed Ward who explained the City’s rationale in an interview with Khaled Iwamura of inhalton.com.
“This is completely in keeping with Provincial policy,” explained the mayor pointing out Burlington has made a commitment to Queen’s Park to build 29,000 housing units by 2031 and hopes to do so without affecting the quality of life for existing residents.
And while Burlington is well on its way to meeting the goal with 23,000 projects in the system, she said the City wants to control its own destiny by deciding where the condo towers, apartments and townhouses will go.
“We’re not going to expand our urban boundary, we’re not going to build on the greenbelt, we’re not going to build on greenspace and golf courses, we’re not going to negatively impact established neighbourhoods, so where do we put it?” said the mayor before answering her own question. “The best place is along our three GO stations, ageing retail plazas and a few other identified growth nodes.”
Noting the Federal government expects to bring 500,000 immigrants into Canada each year for the next several years, the majority of whom are likely to settle in Southern Ontario, the mayor acknowledged the supply of housing has to increase to meet continuing demand.
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However, she said if more homes are built without providing the necessary infrastructure to support that growth, then politicians will have failed the community.
“We’ll get traffic gridlock and wait lines everywhere; in our community centres and our roads and our parks, everywhere,” she said. “So we have to make sure that when we do build our new communities around places like the GO stations that we have community centres, parks jobs, services, shops, everything that makes a community complete.”
Meed Ward went on to say that people need to be able to step out of their front doors and find what they need within walking distance. “Because if we don’t do that we are just building housing and not communities,” she added.
The mayor has said Burlington council has been clear on building “complete communities” and will live up to its housing pledge as long as it comes with the financial help to provide the supporting services whether that comes from senior levels of government or from the development industry that stands to profit with a building boom.
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