Trade-Offs
My middle son is notoriously indecisive. It doesn't matter what the choices are. He agonizes over them. In fairness, it's just who he is. He's never met a feeling he didn't want to feel to the fullest. It makes him the best person to watch sports with.
It doesn't matter who is playing or what the stakes are. Once he's invested, he's invested with his whole heart. But sometimes it's just ice cream and I need him to make a choice.
That choice comes with tradeoffs. Getting cookies and cream means you don't get mint chocolate chip.
Life, in so many ways, is a series of tradeoffs. The challenge is that we often want the benefits without accepting the costs. Housing is no different. Across the country, people are worried about affordability. Young adults are struggling to buy their first home. Families are spending more of their income on rent. Most people agree we need more housing. The harder question is where.
For decades, Waterloo Region has made a deliberate choice to protect farmland and limit urban sprawl. The Countryside Line has become one of the defining features of our community and something many residents are rightly proud of. Protecting agricultural land matters. Protecting natural spaces matters. Avoiding endless sprawl matters. But that choice comes with a tradeoff. Waterloo Region is growing and will continue to grow.
People move here because this is a remarkable place to live. We have strong employers, world class educational institutions, vibrant arts and culture and a quality of life that attracts people from across the country and around the world. If we have decided we won't grow outward indefinitely, then we must grow inward. That means greater density in our existing communities. To me, that's a reasonable tradeoff. In fact, it's probably the right one. The problem is that we often forget the second half of the bargain.
We celebrate protecting farmland and limiting sprawl, then resist the density that inevitably follows from those decisions. Recently, residents in Waterloo have expressed concerns about proposals to add housing on former church properties. Similar conversations are happening in communities across Canada. Concerns about traffic, parking and neighbourhood character are common.
Some of those concerns are legitimate and deserve thoughtful discussion. But we also need to be honest about the bigger question. If not here, where? If we can't add homes on land that already sits within established neighbourhoods, close to transit, schools, parks and services, where should those homes go? If we reject housing in existing communities, our alternatives become increasingly limited. We either build farther outward into farmland and natural areas or we build fewer homes and accept higher housing costs. Those are tradeoffs too.
To me, this is ultimately a question of stewardship. How do we steward the land we have? How do we value people, the environment, agriculture and neighbourhood character while also responding to the realities of today?
Stewardship isn't preserving everything exactly as it is. Stewardship is making thoughtful choices about competing priorities and recognizing that every choice carries consequences. We cannot simultaneously say we want affordable housing, protect farmland and oppose new homes in existing neighbourhoods.
At some point, those positions become incompatible. If we choose to protect the countryside, we must also be willing to welcome more neighbours within our cities. That's the tradeoff.
The question isn't whether there are tradeoffs. The question is whether we're prepared to accept the ones that come with the future we say we want
-Philip Mills
Philip Mills, CEO Habitat Waterloo Region
