We Make Milton - Official Plan project

Milton needs to be denser. Milton needs to be walkable. Having six lane roads and tens of square kilometres of sprawling residential areas is simply not compatible with having a city that is bikeable, accessible, and livable. Part of making Milton better for people is having ammenities within walking distance--have stores, community centres, libraries, and doctor's offices next to high-rise buildings so that people can eat and shop and survive without a car. High-rise buildings do not cause traffic when you eliminate the need for cars. Milton is built in a way that is unsustainable and not conducive to living well. People are happier when they have everything they need within walking distance, and if we stop reserving more space for cars than we do for people, we would be able to form actual communities the way they do in cities.

I want to believe that we are not terminally stuck in the past, and that we can think of more than just roads. What if children didn't have to cross four lanes of busy traffic to get to school? What if our communities were totally quiet because there were no cars to make excessive noise? What if it were faster to walk to work than to drive?

Need to have business establishments instead of houses. People need to go Mississauga for Costco and shopping.

Increase fines for parking and traffic violations. Speed cameras for school roads.

Dear Town of Milton:
1. Please stop selling land to Mattamy. They are an atrocious builder who does not follow code correctly. I don't care how much money Mattamy "donates" to the Town of Milton - you need to stop allowing them to build here. Residents are fed up with Mattamy and their horrible building standards!
2. Build more single detached homes. I know this is counterintuitive but people come to Milton to start families and grow their families. The one bedroom plus den is not going to cut it for a family. We need family friendly residences, not shoeboxes. Also, the density is causing extreme issues in relation to traffic, schools are now reliant on portables. Enough is enough.
3. More bike lines - self explanatory
4. More community centres and libraries to keep up with the demand.

to allow growth, we should weaken zoning requirements, allowing all existing parts of the city to densify organically - allow triplexes/4plexes on any residential lot, increase maximum height restrictions, etc.

To allow better transit, we should encourage anything that isn't a personal vehicle - remove parking minimum requirements, require (high quality / separated) bike lanes whenever there are road renovations, require bicycle parking in front of all businesses, close downtown main street to car traffic (have cars park in the lots on either side off of mill/mary)

I have not read the plan in detail but am concerned that it may not address the needs of Seniors. I see there are Senior apartments planned but not all Seniors want to live in an apartment and pay high condo fees (I know I don't). There should be small bungalows or A-frames, no more than 1000 - 1200 square feet, available for Seniors to purchase. The houses should be on a plot of land big enough for gardening, have a garage and proper driveway and enough room to build a ramp should it become necessary. This could be made into a small community of this type of housing earmarked for Seniors. I have seen this successfully done in other communities like Waterloo and it makes sense to have a community like this in Milton.

The greatest threat to the Town of Milton is the continuation of urban sprawl. Burlington and Oakville have both said NO to unsustainable growth that is replacing farmland and greenspace with more subdivisions. As you can see in the other comments, these subdivisions were poorly planned, with scant walkability, little greenspace, and residents forced to drive between big box outlets rather than shop locally at convenient retail stores.

We are in grave danger of Burlington, Milton and Oakville forming another Mississauga as the greenspace between the cities is gobbled up by developers and quarries. And we are also in grave danger of our precious views of the Escarpment being blocked as the subdivisions have gone all the way west to Tremaine Road.

It's a vicious cycle. More subdivisions equals more cars equals more traffic equals less safety for all. On the other hand, if Milton has the courage to increase density, we can increase the walkability of our streets and build more sustainable and vibrant communities. We need more low-rise and high-rise apartment buildings and condomimiums to provide affordable housing for all levels of income and ages, rather than continuing to build single-family dwellings at an unsustainable pace.

We live in milton it's been 9 years it was so nice and quiet but not anymore why you bulid so many houses but not stores or shops for Us we live near by trudeau And Derry every time we need to buy anything we have to go Far like walmart or metro why mangamenent of milton not focus on Mall or stores but just building a bunch of houses and get so crowded so disappointed to see how milton became like a mini Brampton!!!

Thank you for the organization of this forum.
We are Dorset Park residents who use Wilson Ave as our main thorough fair to get to our house.
Over the last number of years traffic, has, understandably, increased on Wilson as people travel north and south between Steeles Ave and Main Street.
My greater concern is the increased traffic that will occur when the condos, slated for the south side of Main Street, get built.
Being proactive now by installing vehicle calming measures, such as speed bumps, a stop sign on Wilson and McKenzie will slow traffic before they get to the school areas on Wilson.
Understandably the installation of speed bumps would involve a number of Town (and maybe Regional) departments. The installation of a three way stop at Wilson and McKenzie should be considerably easier.

Here are a few items that I believe should be prioritized in order to make this a livable town:

- synchronized traffic lights in order to reduce aggressive, driving, control, omissions, and improve commuting experience,

- integrate right turn lanes

- eliminate cookie cutter plazas in favor of community hubs with places to gather such as outdoor patios, small restaurants, and outdoor areas

- Increase transit ridership by coordinating routes/timings with go transit, and other municipalities

- beautify street scapes, including main and and secondary boulevard/roundabouts;. Guelph does this very well, their streets are beautiful

- restrict high turnover/high traffic home-based businesses (personal care shops) protecting residencial neighborhoods have the right to preserve the quiet home that was purchased before a parking lot began to operate on the street directly outside of homes, impacting privacy, security, noise, pollution, traffic, safety, stress

- restrict any future, approvals and development of large warehouses that do not have a office component to expand the availability of jobs

- restrict transport trucks to a few in town road arteries eliminating truck traffic on secondary roads in town who are trying to avoid highway inspections

I have written about this subject before however I feel my comments should be part of this Official Plan Review.
As part of the urbanization process there are many benefits to be gained ranging from job creation, housing creation, monetary profits to both private and public entities etc. With this net gain as some would call it comes at a cost to primarily the rural resident. To date Official Plans have normally ignored this impact or simply paid lip service to this real issue.
My main area of concern is with water supply and impacts caused by road widenings/reconstruction. As it stands now a rural resident is ill equipped to address the impacts caused by urbanization. For example the impact to wells created by the Regions landfill site took years to resolve at the expense of many residences and farmers. There should be Town funds set aside that a resident can access to assist in the review of impacts to their water supply.
When is comes to road work much more creative designs should be used to ensure minimal or no impacts on the existing residences. Since there are so few rural residents that may be impacted the Town should consider buying rural properties that are unduly impacted. In addition Town funds should be available to rural residents to assist them in their review of potential impacts. All residents that may be impacted by any proposed road work should be contacted directly instead of relying on often missed newspaper notices.

I have not read this plan so this comment may be addressed.
In the older area East of Ontario street between Derry and Steeles there are few areas where you can walk other than on sidewalks. It would be great as more changes take place if the Town could develop walking trails and connect with other trails to the east of Main. Now we have concrete and more concrete! I lived in Oakville for several years and they have nice trails that were part of their development plans

Even though I've never worked for the Town of Milton, I would never consider working for them, even if someone handed me a good job with them. Never. I'll tell you why: like many municipal governments (and for that matter, almost every level of government), the Town of Milton were complicit in the crime of mandating vaccines for current employees and any future ones. Yes, those mandates were lifted, but I should remind the Town that they were never mandated into law at either the provincial or federal level and yet you coerced people to get them to keep their job or to be hired. I had very employable skills and was not considered by Milton simply because of the vaccine mandate. The Town should be ashamed of themselves. What happened to bodily autonomy? Sure you probably claimed no one forced you to get the vaccine, but if you did not you were out of a job. And it was especially hard to find one where an employer was not coercing people to get one in order to be eligible for employment. The world evidence has been obvious for nearly three years that this was not a pandemic and even Pfizer themselves have publicly admitted that the C19 vaccine they produced was not test for efficacy. What was your data based on that directed you to terminate someone if they did not comply? Shameful.

Great that there is transit, but there needs to be some updates.

Have busses that go along some of the major routes, and have some routes continue through the GO station. It would be good if it were easier to take a bus downtown from the different parts of Milton.

Also, all routes should be bidirectional. Improves knowledge of the routes.

The busses should take presto. Probably the number one reason I don't get on when I want to. I never have coins, and transit token only sells in qty 10 min.

We moved to Milton from Oakville in March 2023. We live by Kovachik Blvd & Boyd Lane. The 2 major pain points are that the closest Costco is like 35min away & the fact that there are zero squash courts. All other towns have both. I would really appreciate that if the town can look into these two!

We are in Derry and Trudeau intersection and this entire community got to travel 3-5kms for groceries, house hold utility and appliance and also there is no proper grounds for kids to play. We got to travel to Main street/Thomson or St louis Laurent /Thomson . There seems to be a big vacant land opposite Irma Coulson and also JamesSnow Derry intersection. Can these areas be converted to shops so that we don't have to depend on cars for our daily activities.Luckily we just got a new timhortons nearby recently atleast

Beaty Trail Park is a very small park in our neigbourhood. Having a Splashpad would be a very great option. We see a lot of green spaces in the mid of the waling trail. Also adding some kids play area will be great in this very smaller place.

The township of Milton continues to support the cycling community drawing cyclists from Toronto to Hamilton to make use of the network. We need to better understand where cyclists are entering into our township and improve that gateway experience. Pushing adjacent municipalities to meet those transition points with thoughtful connectivity. The velodrome marks Milton as a cycling hub and it is vital to continue to draw visitor and attract new residents

After completing the survey on employment areas I wanted to focus on a point talking about bringing small businesses into neighborhoods and I just love this idea. How our schools mainly high schools can become hubs in our community with parks and small business all working together. Often our schools are isolated and far from other community amenities. We have already added daycare to our schools, what about including some other small businesses.

Active transportation:
- The multi-purpose trails and bike lanes in Milton are very helpful, but there needs to be more connectivity between the various components to make it a more complete system.
- There's a road maintenance program, in which crews fill surface cracks with tar. The same procedure should be used on multi-purpose trails, so they don't fall into disrepair.
- Multi-purpose trails and/or segregated bike lanes should be included on several roads connecting nearby communities (Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington). They should have good connectivity with the trails and bike lanes within Milton itself.
- There should be no curbs prohibiting entry/exit from multi-purpose trails at road intersections. An example of this problem is at the newly-designed intersection of Louis St. Laurent and 4th Line (west-bound). Users of the multi-purpose trail have to veer over onto the sidewalk when they cross the street. If they're unaware of the curb blocking the trail, it could lead to an accident.
- Active transportation should be included on roadways leading to industrial areas.

Traffic calming:
- As a pedestrian, the most frustrating part of a journey is the walk-light activation system on traffic lights. If you don't press the walk button in time, you have to wait through two light cycles (traffic going in both directions) before you can cross. At major intersections, this is a very long wait. There are a couple of traffic lights where the walk light comes on automatically (one on the intersection of Thompson and a smaller residential street), but other lights should be calibrated to eliminate the walk light button. This would give the priority to active transportation over vehicular traffic. Car drivers would have to slow down to check if any pedestrians are waiting to cross, which would contribute to traffic calming. If there are no pedestrians, they could proceed as usual. As opposed to the walk-light button, the pedestrian countdown timer is still a useful tool.
- Coming from another part of Canada, where drivers have to stop for pedestrians at every crosswalk, Ontario's crosswalk/crossover designation is confusing to both drivers and pedestrians. It's also dangerous for pedestrians because many drivers ignore street crosswalks, even near schools when no crossing guards are present. All crosswalks in Milton should be converted into crossovers, with a driver education program so that drivers will learn to slow down and check for pedestrians.

Rural areas:
- The urban sprawl occurring in Milton and nearby communities is very disturbing. Farmland is being gobbled up by the construction of single-family dwellings and town houses.
- The greenbelt should be actively protected by all levels of government.
- It would be useful for Halton to explore other ways to protect farmland and provide support to farmers. This could include lobbying other levels of government to provide financial support for existing farmers, and for new farmers wanting to acquire farms that are being sold. Locally-grown food is important for our growing population and the environment, but it's going to disappear if the most profitable option for farmers is to sell their land to developers. In some parts of Canada, there are land-use restrictions on areas designated as agricultural. This could be done in Ontario too, but it would have to be balanced with compensation for farmers wanting to sell their land.

Housing and walkable neighbourhoods:
- As mentioned above, the continuing development of urban sprawl has negative effects on the environment. It also puts a strain on the town's finances, since infrastructure and services have to be provided to an expanding area.
- Housing densification must be included in the plan, especially on transportation corridors. There's been an increase in condo development, but the missing component is rental apartments. There are only a few dedicated rental apartment buildings in Milton, and there need to be more. Not everyone can afford to finance the purchase of their own home, and not everyone wants to either. Currently, due to the lack of options, renters usually live in units that are owned privately. This can cause housing insecurity, because renters often have to move if owners sell the property or want relatives occupy it.
- Developers usually don't want to become landlords too, but construction approval priority could be given to plans that include dedicated rental housing. All levels of government could work together to provide incentives for the construction of rental housing.

Public Transit:
- To be honest, I seldom use Milton Transit. I find it pricey for the distance that it goes. A fare system based on distance travelled, that's more integrated with GO Transit and bus services in nearby communities, would be helpful.
- There should be more transit options on north/south routes, making medical facilities, GO stations, and colleges in Oakville and Burlington more accessible. Milton should lobby for such routes with GO Transit.
- There should be frequent access to the Milton Highway 401 Park and Ride from the Milton GO Station. This would allow easier access to GO busses heading towards Pearson International Airport and other communities. The route could continue on to businesses along highway 25, including Service Canada.

A)Seniors
1)require free public transportation, GO train/bus and local transport!!!
2)public transport linking to burlington oakville and missisauga hospitals/malls/airport
4)have on demand bus stops.
5) with stops at front doors of hospital large medical clinics xray and physio,labs, senior/retirement/long term care homes plus senior center/leisure center/sports/arts center/velodrome/ malls/churches

This will not only help the Milton economy it will reduce the medical/social budget burden since it will encourage mobility, volunteering, independence, social interaction, less depression and promotes wellness
Thank you for allowing input from me and my many active senior friends

B) We need street names in area around art center , main library, area, Leisure center and art on main condo/parks require monitoring of many people not stopping at stop signs in the area
-we require a designated crossing area be it a light or cross walk between the library and arena going to the the superstore mall. With many people crossing there, we fear a serious accident or fatality on Thompson Rd may be evident in the near future.
-we need wheelchair assessable cut outs on sidewalks in the above area and street crossing marks on the road where pedestrians cross in above area
Many dogs are seen relieving themselves on library area without poop scooping causing this not to be friendly for young children and families thus a lease free or dog run area should be allocated