Raise the Hammer

Frwnk writes: Sprawl growth is unsustainable and unfortunately it seems Burlington is destined to find that out the hard way.

Burlington is already seeing the impacts. While the city pays to maintain all those roads and deals with the traffic impacts, it is also taking on ambitious projects like the Performing Arts centre, Waterfront pier, and McMaster satellite campus. All of these things are soaking up funding, leading to a lot of pressure on taxes. The city has also substantially outgrown the capacity of Joseph Brant Hospital to provide health care to its residents.

Still, Burlington does have a lot of good things going for it, and for the most part, its officials understand some of these challenges, unlike many officials in our neighbours in Hamilton. The urban boundary has been fixed, and it will be politically very difficult for any subseqent council to allow developers to go beyond it. That boundary is largely filled in today, and after the small parcel between Hwy 5 and the 407 is completed, all future growth will have to come from infill and higher density, transit-oriented development.

Development charges are much more reflective of the costs that development passes on to taxpayers than they are elsewhere in the GTA.

A very through cycling plan has been prepared, although it still a go-slow approach that does little to address the very real barriers to cycling in the form of the QEW/403.

The city has had some very small successes at reducing the dominance of the car, but has been subject to significant pushback from very vocal opponents who are used to the status quo.

I think that Hamiltonians are better served by encouraging their progressive bretheren in Burlington to help lead the way, instead of focussing on somewhat artificial divisions between the two cities. Given that over 20,000 Hamiltonians commute to jobs in the city of Burlington, and over 8,000 travel the other way, the two cities have a huge stake in one another's success (or failure).