Sustainable Halton – Need more answers …

I have several issues with this that I’ll summarize here quickly:

First, this option 2c will be presented to the Council that has some changes (that may not be minor to everyone).  The Staff is recommending endorsement of this plan.  However, there has not been any public input for this plan.  They presented options 2a and 2b, on which they only received 9 comments (for a population of 80,000, that is kind of sad … but I’ll leave that for another post).  I feel that the staff should have presented this plan to the public first.

Second, it is the first time they proposed an employment area West of Tremaine (see circle-1).  I am troubled by that.  Prior plans show that area to be part of the education village.  I’ve seen other employment areas in Milton (Steeles Ave for instance) and frankly, they are an eyesore.  Previous plans recommended employment areas South of Britannia, and I feel that the town should just stick with that.  At least the town should ask residents South of Derry and closer to Tremaine for input.

I would like more information on this zone.  What type of employment land would this be?  Is this general employment land or will this be dedicated to employers that need to be close to a university.  I would also like to know why this is being changed.  Other large campuses I’ve seen all typically increase demand for high-density housing (for students and otherwise) and retail space.  I cannot think of good reasons why this is getting changed to employment zone.  

Third, see circle-2 and circle-4.  Circle-4 will put people in “Milton” closer to Oakville and Mississauga than they are to Milton.  Remember Milton’s downtown urban core is North of Derry.  Moving those residential areas in circle-2 makes more sense to me because first: it will keep them closer to the employment land south of Britannia and second: it will keep them closer to existing urban Milton.  People who live so far from the city-core often lose the sense of belonging to the city, which causes other issues in the future (they do not participate in the city as much).  It also makes transit services harder since people suddenly get too far from the proposed education village site, downtown, central library, arts & entertainment centre, Sports clubs and other activities the “core” of the city provides.  Circle-2 will also put this people in the middle of two employment areas (one on Tremaine and one on Trafalgar).   

[Aside: I am intentionally using “city” for Milton instead of “town” because that’s likely what Milton will be by then]

Also, I am also troubled by the amount of traffic on Trafalgar (also because of circle-3), which is another reason why circle-4 should be somewhere else.  This area is surrounded by Natural Heritage System (the green around circle-4) which will likely be impacted by all the construction and traffic. Not to mention that residential area will be high-density, which will likely make things worse.