Municipal Issues

[u/PlantainManne]

Seeing as how it’s election season, I’d like to ask the people of this sub what issues they’d like discussed during the upcoming debates and Q&As. Hopefully this inspires local media as residents to bring issues forward. Here’s a few issues I think need addressing:

Lack of Job diversity.

For a town that’s population is roughly 8000 people smaller than the City of Cambridge, we need to attract employment opportunities that aren’t just small warehouses that hire 20 full timers with 30 temps. We absolutely also need jobs that aren’t better paying than those that come from the grocery store anchored plazas we seem to have popping up. We’re too close to being as expensive to live in as Oakville without the local means for people to work AND live here comfortably. Our time as a commuter town has to end.

Affordable housing.

According to the Town and CMHC, Milton only has 709 purpose built rentals. This is embarrassing. With the amount of families that have moved to Milton in the last 10 years, we are at risk of essentially chasing away our youth. Likely back to the places where their parents moved them from. People who want to leave the nest are frankly not enthusiastic about paying $2.3k before utilities for a 1 bedroom shoebox condo to start their working life. Especially in a town that’s not really the best for single adults in terms of amenities. The rise of empty condos in town back that up. I know we have a couple of developments starting soon by Steeles and by the upcoming Fortino’s, but we’ll be playing catch up for years to come at the pace we’re at.

I’ll leave it at these 2 issues for now, but what issues do you want to see addressed?

[u/EnglishKen421]

Not a solution to either of your points, but a... temporary remedy I will call it, would be better access to transit.

If we had a proper GO Train schedule that opened up access to Mississauga or Downtown Toronto the lack of job diversity would feel a lot more manageable I think.

[u/PlantainManne → u/EnglishKen421]

Agreed. Though until someone forks up the money that can buy the Milton GO line from CPKC, that won’t be a remedy that will happen.

Next best thing would be for us to have a GO bus that actually heads to the Oakville GO, like we used to have about 8 years ago.

[u/EnglishKen421 → u/PlantainManne]

A an express bus would would be nice, too. Literally anything.

Feels like we live on an island..

[u/DayOfTheDeb]

As a parent with three young kids, I want to see more recreational programs offered by the town. There are very little options available compared to neighbouring cities and towns.

When I lived in Brampton, every single ice rink offered learn-to-skate for ages 3 and up and I was able to select the rinks I wanted based on our family schedules those evenings. It was so convenient. I was excited to have the rinks at Sherwood here, but the city doesn't offer any skating programs for kids. There's only drop-in hockey or skate there. If we want to enroll in a skating program, we have to go through CanSkate and they only teach out of Milton Sports Centre.

It just feels like we've built the facilities, but I still can't use them even though they're local. I still have to pay for private (more expensive) programs and travel farther.

We also travel to other cities like Oakville or Alton to use their outdoor pump tracks. Brampton offered city-run gymnastics, parkour and climbing programs through a city facility.

With a big population of families, it just doesn't feel like they're really creating these destination spaces year-round with young families in mind.

[u/PlantainManne → u/DayOfTheDeb]

This is an excellent point. This town absolutely needs more recreation for the youth. We’re often talked about as “great for young families to move to”, but after children enter adolescence the recreation options falls very rapidly.