Opposition to new housing in Mississauga
Four recent examples
Mississauga is a city in the GTA, just to the west of the city of Toronto. Hazel McCallion was the mayor for many years. The current mayor is Bonnie Crombie, who is now running for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals (currently in third place after the Conservatives and the NDP).
An empty lot next to an expressway
A Twitter thread by Ron Butler, about a proposal at 1800 Mississauga Road:
NIMBYISM Is Just Frigging Nuts In The GTA
Completely crazy example in my own little Mississauga neighborhood
Small empty triangle of land 2 houses on one side of the triangle and the QEW and Mississauga Golf Club entrance on the other 2 sides
ONLY 2 houses involved
They want to develop a 10 to 15 storey Condo Building
Just 2 families are impacted AT ALL
They will feel the effect of extensive construction and shadowing of their homes
Those 2 families have every right to be worried and pissed off
But thousands of people are mad
Mad as Hell! Ancient people who don't work and live blocks and blocks away and most of the membership of Mississauga Golf are in wild opposition
Even though they are UNAFFECTED
They talk crazy crap like increased Traffic
The Condo will be NEXT to the QEW Exit
No traffic
No neighborhood traffic change AT ALL
Naturally the old BS about "Changing the Neighborhood" comes out: it's condos for SENIORS for God's sake
They're OLD just like the Neighborhood
Now get the totally insane reason the anti-condo petition people give and this is nuts:
They want to save the would-be buyers from THEMSELVES!!
They don't think anyone living in it will be happy because the QEW is so close
Like any buyer COULD MISS THAT
Welcome to NIMBYISM
Just don't change ANYTHING ANYWHERE and that's all
No rational thought: just no change
A convent and seniors housing
And then there’s a couple more examples from the replies.
It's the same for every new development proposal. Carmelite sisters want to build a 6 storey condo/rental to replace the 4 storey existing. Sheridan homelands neighbours totally opposed.
City still concerned about controversial convent and senior’s residence in Mississauga, February 2020.
A strip mall redevelopment
I wonder what happens to projects being opposed going forward. There's a new development at 4099 Erin Mills, 500+ person NIMBY group & councilor seems to be in opposition. Hopefully LTO overrules the city in these cases.
‘Disaster waiting to happen’: Mississauga residents, council blast proposed 700-unit development, June 2023. From the article:
University of Toronto geography and planning professor Karen Chapple said there is often pushback on infill development, but said she was surprised to see such opposition to 11-storey heights.
“There's been a good deal of highrise development in Mississauga in recent years and if any site is appropriate, it's an underutilized parking lot on a very wide roadway,” she said. “You would not be making smart choices for the future if you didn't build a considerable density on this site.”
On Twitter, Scott Aitchison strongly criticized the opposition, Matt Mahony (the local councillor), and Bonnie Crombie.
High-rises next to a GO station and an LRT station
A story from March: City of Mississauga rejects applications for 2 residential towers because proposed buildings are too tall.
The City of Mississauga rejected applications for two residential towers in Port Credit steps from two major transit stations this month, saying the buildings proposed were too tall.
But the province of Ontario says the city can no longer make this type of decision due to municipal planning changes the province brought into play in late 2022.
In November, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing approved a Peel Region official plan, which a ministry spokesperson told CBC Toronto "removed the discretion of lower-tier municipalities to establish maximum heights within major transit station areas."
The minister also wrote a letter to the Peel Regional Council using similar language in February.
This hasn't stopped Mississauga — a lower-tier municipality — from going ahead with rejecting recent applications that don't conform to its own plan, including applications for several tall buildings on transit routes.