Town endorses Housing Pledge

At this week's Planning and Development Committee meeting, Town of Caledon Council endorsed a Housing Pledge for Caledon.

The pledge outlines how the Town will meet its housing target of 13,000 residential units by 2031 as set by the Province, and the support it will need to achieve it.  

“We welcome responsible growth to make Caledon the most livable and sustainable rural-urban community in Canada,” said Mayor Annette Groves. “We're committed to our share of the housing targets set by the Province and ensuring the integrity of our current and future communities. We've outlined our concerns in our Housing Pledge about our greenfield development needs being different from those with established communities and the financial impacts from growth coming to areas where we do not yet have roads or infrastructure.”

The pledge asks the province to work with the Town to understand the impacts and supports needed to grow in a sustainable and affordable way.      

Currently, The Town of Caledon is working on its new Official Plan Review with a made-in-Caledon Growth Concept to 2051 and embarking on a Growth Management and Phasing Plan.      

“Delivering Caledon's housing target is a partnership between the Town, the Province, the Region, the Development industry and many other stakeholders” said Antonietta Minichillo, Director of Planning. “As we move forward, we are committed to embracing collaboration and innovation and approached our housing pledge with this in mind.

“It is important that we do our part to address the housing crisis while not compromising on the quality of communities we want to see developed in Caledon. Growth in Caledon will be in greenfield areas (rural/farm land) and it requires different considerations which we put forward in our Housing Pledge as action items for the Province to consider.”

The Town of Caledon has made four key requests of the Province to deliver its housing targets:   

Funding tools for all growth-related (greenfield areas with no services for housing) infrastructure, public amenities;

Respect for Caledon's growth phasing plans and secondary planning processes to help Caledon plan for Caledon;

A stop to Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs) so Caledon's pledge is not compromised;

Restricting appeals on planning applications that are premature and not supported by the Town.