Ready to rumble at ROMA
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ABOVE THE FOLD
RUMBLE AT ROMA — Rural mayors, councillors, wardens, reeves and other local politicians got a chance to air their grievances over the Greenbelt carve-up at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association’s annual conference.
Premier DOUG FORD and his front bench heard plenty of grumbling about their controversial housing plan — including over Bill 23, which scraps developer charges that municipalities rely on for affordable housing, infrastructure and more. (Per the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, ROMA’s umbrella group, those changes could punch a $5-billion hole in local budgets over nine years and force municipalities to hike property taxes to make up for the loss.)
The beef: ROBIN JONES, ROMA chair and Mayor of Westport, wants the PCs to go back to the drawing board on Bill 23, noting it also undermines local conservation authorities’ ability to limit development on environmentally sensitive lands.
“We need real collaboration,” Jones said, calling on “everyone to st…