Hamilton city councillors have decided not to pick a fight with the province over its housing plan and voted to sign on to the Ford government’s municipal housing pledge.
The city took the oath Wednesday to endorse the Ford government’s initiative to build some 47,000 units in the Hamilton area by 2031.
It comes a week after the planning committee recommended not endorsing the pledge in response to urban boundary expansions and weakened environmental protections.
However, Mayor Andrea Horvath suggested such a response would have been political, not pragmatic and would do nothing but “thumb our nose at the government” affecting provincial dollars the city relies on to fund everything from housing to transit.
“My preference as a mayor would be to sign the pledge with a small amendment and to be able to have a working relationship with a government that holds all the purse strings,” Horwath told councillors.
She told Global News in November she did acknowledge the benefits of protecting farmland and food sources amid projections from some agriculture advocates that the highest quality farmland in the province is about to be gutted.
But the former Ontario NDP leader suggested they opt to be in a “position to … have conversations with the government that doesn’t feel like it’s just been given a black eye by the City of Hamilton.”
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In 2021, prior to Horwath’s arrival on council, Hamilton politicians voted to hold firm to the city’s urban boundary, and accommodate future population growth through a combination of infill and intensification.
In November, the Ontario PC government essentially overrode that vote with housing minister Steve Clark pushing through a “rural plan” with amendments via a provincial growth strategy targeting the development of so-called “white belt” and “Greenbelt” areas.
In an effort to address a so-called “housing crisis,” landowners will be expected to develop new allocations “quickly” with construction beginning no later than 2025, according to Clark in a release.
The aim is to build at least 50,000 homes on greenbelt lands to aid a province-wide target of 1.5 million homes in 10 years.
The development is in answer to estimates that the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area will see significant population growth to an estimated 11.2 million by 2051.
Hamilton is expected to see its population expand by 250,000 over the next 29 years. The province has set an initial target of 47,000 new units for the city by 2031 as a start.
Two dissenting councillors in Wednesday’s vote, which was 12-2 in favour of signing the pledge, included Ward 2’s Cameron Kroetsch and Ward 13’s Alex Wilson.
Wilson suggested “retribution on other files” from the province means “that we do not live in a democracy.”
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