For Voters

• Enhance policies for public engagement, transparency and accountability so decision-making reflects citizen participation and input.
• Create information-sharing policies that make sure municipal data, feedback from public consultations, and decision rationale are clearly explained and accessible to citizens, including easy access to voting records of councillors.
• Develop policies to ensure ethical behaviour, like creating a registry of companies and individuals who directly lobby council or senior staff; establishing a code of conduct for council members, including the requirement for honesty in council meetings; or setting transparent procedures for appointments to municipal boards and committees.
• Develop measures to increase public participation, like establishing accessibility and equity policies, creating citizen advisory committees, and conducting participatory budgeting processes.
• Ensure democratic processes are protected and defended, like officially declining to use Provincially allocated Strong Mayor Powers, and advocating for the election of local leadership, such as the Regional Chair, rather than this position being filled by appointment by the Province.

• Support citizen-powered governance, by involving citizens directly in budgeting and public decisions around big economic choices, through tools like participatory budgeting and citizen assemblies.
• Support inclusive and equitable tax spending and planning, by supporting strong public services and use taxes and fair pay to ensure all people get basic needs like food, health care and homes; by using inclusive zoning to reduce living costs by mandating affordable housing near transit lines; by investing in low-fare transit and safe bike networks; by reducing barriers to employment participation by newcomers, Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities, people with disabilities, youth, seniors, and women through policies and collaborations with organizations and other levels of government.
• Ensure green and sustainable growth by protecting nature and using clean energy so the planet stays safe for future life and by creating sustainable; by creating resilient shared public spaces like green spaces and community hubs that are accessible to all; and by holding open consultations on the sale of publicly owned lands that may have environmental significance.
• Support circular resource loops by supporting local tool libraries, repair cafes, and food waste redistribution programs; by mandating reusability, repairability, and recycling in municipal operations to eliminate waste and tread lightly on natural systems.
• Improve asset and property management, by turning empty or under-used public and religious spaces into local hubs, parks, or community-owned green energy projects, and transferring vacant, city-owned lots to non-profit community land trusts for permanent affordable housing; by developing city property through public-private partnerships that mandate community spaces and parks; by offering discounted rents and rental spaces in city buildings to local non-profits and social enterprises.
• Increase community wealth building, by prioritizing local companies for municipal contracts; enacting living wage policies that require city contractors to pay employees a sustaining wage; and depositing city cash reserves into local credit unions that reinvest in neighborhood loans.
• Increase business ecosystem support, by supporting local businesses, entrepreneurs, and social enterprises through property tax policy, zoning and development decisions; by building on our region’s strong record of innovation through collaboration with higher education, businesses, and other levels of government to support innovation districts and make it easier for new businesses to start and grow.
• Support progressive procurement, by developing community benefits agreements requiring legal promises by large construction or infrastructure projects (such as bridges or transit lines) to guarantee local hiring, small business support, and funds for local parks; by setting local purchasing targets to buy goods and services from local, independent vendors; by using social value scoring in public bidding contents for businesses that hire locally or pay a living wage; and by unbundling large infrastructure contracts into smaller pieces so local small businesses can bid.
• Consider issuing city-based or community bonds that let residents invest directly in local green energy or recreation centers.
• Ensure development supports long-term financial health of municipal governments and community wellbeing. When we expand cities and towns outwards through new subdivisions and businesses on land that is unused or was farmland, the upfront fees municipalities collect from developers to cover the costs of infrastructure, such as new water and sewage connections and expanded transit, don’t cover the ongoing costs of maintaining these services. The taxes collected from home and business owners in these areas also do not cover the costs of maintaining these services. Even though municipalities balance their operational budgets every year (as required by law) they commonly end up having to carry infrastructure debt – either in the form of infrastructure that is not maintained, or debt used to pay for the maintenance. So more urban sprawl means more debt. It also means there is less money for other shared public resources like community spaces, libraries, recreational facilities etc. One way municipalities can address this is to prioritize growing up rather than out, increasing densities in urban cores and re-developing areas within cities and towns rather than developing whole new subdivisions and large commercial areas on the outskirts. Municipalities can also look at different ways to finance infrastructure that are more financially self-sustaining.

Both the Region and individual Municipalities have roles to play in addressing the housing crisis. Municipalities have significant influence over land use planning, infrastructure, and partnerships that affect housing supply, security, affordability, and quality. By using these influences strategically, they can help ensure that everyone has access to safe, secure, and affordable housing. Regional Council manages affordable and supportive housing programs, so it has a key role in providing funding and leveraging partnerships to provide the required social and health supports.

• Plan for a full range of housing using zoning rules to allow for more higher-density housing; encouraging complete communities where people can live close to jobs and services; and supporting the redevelopment or intensification of existing urban areas, instead of expanding onto farmland
• Encourage ‘missing middle’ housing, such as townhouses, duplexes, small apartment buildings, and secondary suites, particularly in established neighbourhoods
• Consider housing needs for people at every stage of life and income level – including family-sized housing; homes for seniors, students, and people with disabilities; and the development of accessible and inclusive housing features
• Increase supportive housing and emergency shelters for people with low incomes, those at risk of homelessness, and people who are already unhoused – through funding for and policies requiring new affordable housing, as well as protection against the loss of existing affordable housing
• Support unhoused residents by providing safe places for encampments and supporting community housing projects such as A Better Tent City
• Protect renters from unfair evictions (including renovictions), and unsafe housing, and ensure that renters are given appropriate financial support when renovations necessitate people moving out
• Build “Complete Communities” where people have convenient access to public transit, schools, healthcare, grocery stores, parks and green spaces, recreation, employment, and community services to reduce transportation needs and improve quality of life.
• Speed up approvals while maintaining quality by simplifying planning processes, providing clear development guidelines, coordinating approvals between departments, using digital permitting systems, and prioritizing projects that include affordable housing
• Lower utility costs and increase safety and comfort by encouraging sustainable and healthy housing. Encourage and incentivize energy-efficient construction, low-carbon building materials, trees and green spaces, resilience against flooding and storms, good indoor air quality, and neighbourhoods that encourage walking and cycling
• Work with other levels of government and community partners to address the housing crisis and meet our safe, affordable and accessible housing needs; foster strong partnerships with provincial and federal governments; and work with Indigenous communities, non-profit organizations, housing providers, and the private sector to expand housing options and secure long-term funding.

Although the Province (through Bill 23) has recently taken away the ability of Municipalities to use building standards to favour non-polluting and resilient development and meet their climate goals, Municipalities can still advocate for and find ways to incentivize sustainable development.

• Encourage high-performance buildings, by promoting buildings that use less energy, produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions through clean renewable energy, are well insulated, have efficient heating and cooling systems, are designed to reduce operating costs over their lifetimes, and are future-ready through EV and solar readiness
• Support the transition away from fossil fuels, by encouraging efficient electric energy in new construction rather than burning fossil fuels; supporting the installation of electric heat pumps, expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure, promoting rooftop solar energy and battery storage, encouraging neighbourhood energy systems and promoting renewable energy projects.
• Improve existing buildings, by supporting home energy retrofit programs, promoting better insulation, windows, and air sealing, encouraging replacement of fossil fuel heating systems with low-carbon alternatives, providing information about available rebates and financing, and leading retrofit projects in municipal buildings.
• Use planning policies to support sustainability by encouraging compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods, allowing higher-density housing near transit, reducing unnecessary parking requirements, supporting active transportation (such as walking, biking, rolling), and preserving green spaces and tree canopy around new development.
• Make buildings climate resilient by designing buildings to withstand future climate conditions, including more frequent heat waves, heavy rainfall, flooding, severe storms, extreme cold, and wildfire smoke. Municipalities can encourage flood-resistant design, backup power for critical facilities, durable building materials, passive cooling through shading and natural ventilation, reflective or green roofs, rainwater harvesting systems, permeable landscaping that reduces flooding, and landscaping with drought-tolerant native plants.
• Reduce construction waste by encouraging builders to reuse and recycle construction materials, reduce demolition waste, design buildings that can be adapted over time, and use lower-carbon building materials where practical
• Lead by example by constructing high-performance municipal buildings, retrofitting existing public buildings, purchasing renewable electricity where available, improving energy efficiency in community facilities, and publicly reporting on energy use and emissions.
• Support innovation and affordability by offering incentives for green building certification; supporting innovative construction methods, such as prefabricated housing; streamlining approvals for high-performance projects; partnering with utilities and educational institutions on innovative solutions; and ensuring that affordable housing is also energy-efficient so residents benefit from lower utility bills.
• Educate and collaborate by working with homeowners, builders, developers, utilities, schools, and community organizations to share information, demonstrate best practices, and help residents understand the long-term financial and environmental benefits of sustainable buildings.

• Invest in reliable public transit to reduce congestion and emissions by expanding public transit service to growing communities; increasing the frequency and reliability of buses and trains; improving connections between local and regional transit systems; making transit affordable for low-income residents, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities; and designing transit stations that are safe, comfortable, and accessible.
• Build safe and convenient active transportation networks by building connected/continuous sidewalks, cycling routes, and multi-use trails; separating cycling infrastructure from vehicle traffic wherever possible; ensuring pathways are wide enough for wheelchairs, mobility devices, strollers, and bicycles; improving street lighting and crossings, and maintaining sidewalks and trails year-round, including snow and ice removal.
• Design complete communities by encouraging mixed-use neighbourhoods where homes, jobs, schools, parks, shops, and services are close together; increasing housing near public transit; supporting higher-density development along transit corridors; and by reducing the need for long car trips by making daily destinations easier to reach by walking, cycling, or transit.
• Support low-emission vehicles by expanding public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, transitioning municipal fleets to electric or other low-emission vehicles, and encouraging electric buses and municipal service vehicles.
• Make transportation accessible and inclusive so it works for everyone by designing streets and transit that are accessible to people with disabilities; consulting with seniors, youth, Indigenous communities, newcomers, and people with lived experience when planning transportation projects; ensuring transit information is available in accessible formats and multiple languages where appropriate; and improving safety through universal design, and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles.
• Reduce traffic and improve safety by designing streets that accommodate all users, not just those in vehicles, implementing traffic calming in residential neighbourhoods, lowering speeds where appropriate, improving intersections for pedestrians and cyclists, and using data to identify and address high-collision locations.
• Support regional transportation by working with neighbouring communities (within and outside the Region of Waterloo) and other governments to expand regional transit connections, improve passenger rail service, coordinate transportation planning across municipal boundaries, and support intercity cycling and trail networks.
• Use green infrastructure to improve environmental outcomes by using permeable pavement where appropriate, planting trees along streets to reduce urban heat, incorporating rain gardens to manage stormwater, reducing the environmental impact of roads and parking areas, encouraging solar over parking lots and on parking garages.
• Lead by example by encouraging employees to use sustainable transportation, providing bicycle parking and electric vehicle charging at municipal facilities, integrating transportation and climate planning, measuring transportation emissions, and reporting progress toward climate goals.

• Further enhance stormwater management by encouraging natural infiltration through wetlands, green infrastructure, permeable surfaces, rain gardens, and preserving and planting more urban trees.
• Further protect groundwater and recharge areas by developing aquifers and wellhead protection areas; limiting development in sensitive groundwater recharge areas; preserving wetlands, forests, and natural landscapes that help replenish groundwater; and supporting planning policies that maintain long-term water security.
• Plan responsibly for future growth by using evidenced-based assessments and transparent monitoring and reporting around capacity of water and wastewater systems; ensuring sufficient coordination between land use planning and infrastructure planning; and ensuring that new development can be serviced without compromising environmental sustainability or the homes of existing residents.
• Increase water conservation by encouraging efficient water use through public education, water-efficient landscaping, leak detection and infrastructure maintenance, incentives for water-saving solutions such as low-flow fixtures and cisterns, and programs that reduce unnecessary water consumption and incentivize water conservation.
• Prepare for climate change: Climate change is increasing the risks of drought, flooding, and extreme rainfall. Municipalities can improve resilience by protecting wetlands and floodplains, restoring natural waterways, increasing urban tree cover, designing infrastructure for more extreme weather, expanding green infrastructure, and planning for long-term changes in water availability.
• Work with partners: Water management is shared among municipalities, conservation authorities, Indigenous communities, the Province, and neighbouring municipalities. Regional councils often coordinate large-scale water supply and wastewater systems that serve multiple local municipalities. Municipalities can work more closely with these partners, work closely with subject matter experts and also proactively solicit input from citizens to identify problems and implement solutions.

• Protect farmland, by protecting prime farmland from urban expansion, maintaining urban growth boundaries such as the Countryside Line in Waterloo Region, preventing the fragmentation of agricultural land, and supporting policies that keep farmland available and viable for farming over the long term.
• Protect water and healthy soils, by protecting groundwater recharge areas and watersheds, restoring wetlands and natural areas that improve water quality, encouraging soil conservation and erosion prevention, and supporting practices that improve biodiversity and pollinator habitats.
• Strengthen the local food economy to create jobs, and increase food quality, affordability and accessibility by supporting farmers’ markets and local food hubs, encouraging local food processing and distribution businesses, promoting agricultural innovation and value-added food production, including local food businesses in economic development strategies, and buying more local food for municipal facilities and events where possible.
• Improve access to healthy food by encouraging grocery stores and fresh food markets in underserved neighbourhoods; supporting community gardens, urban agriculture, and edible landscapes; partnering with food banks, community organizations, and schools to improve access to healthy foods, and an increase in plant foods, as suggested in the Canada Food Guide; and improving public transit and active transportation so residents can easily reach food retailers.
• Support urban agriculture by permitting community gardens and allotment gardens; encouraging rooftop gardens and greenhouses; allowing edible landscaping in parks and public spaces, where appropriate; and supporting backyard gardening and small-scale food production through local bylaws.
• Support climate-resilient agriculture by protecting agricultural water supplies; increasing the production of plant-based foods; encouraging natural landscape features that improve climate resilience; reducing greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable transportation, and land-use planning (such as encouraging the production of plant-based foods); and working with farmers to prepare for changing climate conditions.
• Reduce food waste by expanding organics collection and composting programs; supporting food rescue organizations that redirect surplus food; educating residents and businesses about reducing food waste, using compost to improve soils in parks and community gardens.
• Support new and diverse farmers by supporting beginning farmers, encouraging agricultural education and mentorship, recognizing and supporting Indigenous food systems and knowledge, reducing barriers for small-scale and diverse agricultural enterprises, and supporting succession planning for family farms.
• Integrate food into community planning: Food systems should be considered alongside housing, transportation, health, and economic development. Municipalities can include food system objectives in Official Plans, preserve land for food production and distribution, ensure new neighbourhoods have access to grocery stores and fresh food, plan infrastructure that supports farming and food businesses, and measure food security as part of community well-being.

• Protect natural areas by using Official Plans, zoning, and development policies to prioritize and protect forests and woodlands, wetlands, rivers, streams, lakes, groundwater recharge areas, grasslands and meadows, environmentally sensitive areas, and wildlife habitat, and by ensuring that protections are in place before development occurs, as this is the most effective and least expensive approach. Require public input before land owned by municipalities is sold if that land encompasses wetlands, forests, and other wildlife habitat.
• Connect wildlife habitats that allow plants and animals to move, find food, adapt to climate change, and maintain healthy populations by establishing ecological corridors between natural areas, protect river valleys and stream corridors, requiring wildlife crossings where appropriate, connecting parks with natural areas, and working with neighbouring municipalities to protect ecosystems that cross municipal boundaries.
• Restore ecosystems degraded by development, invasive species or pollution by restoring wetlands, naturalizing streams, planting native trees and shrubs, restoring meadows, removing invasive species, and rehabilitating degraded municipal lands.
• Protect pollinators by planting native flowering species, reducing pesticide use, creating pollinator gardens, protecting meadows and grasslands, and encouraging pollinator-friendly landscaping on both public and private lands.
• Integrate nature into urban areas by expanding the urban tree canopy, creating and protecting naturalized parks, establishing green roofs and living walls, preserving mature trees, increasing and preserving green spaces in new neighbourhoods, and incorporating biodiversity into streetscape design.
• Protect water ecosystems by protecting riparian buffers along waterways, improving stormwater management, reducing pollution entering waterways, protecting and restoring wetlands that filter water and reduce flooding, and conserving groundwater recharge areas.
• Consider biodiversity in the sale of all public land, and in all development decisions to avoid or minimize harm to important natural features, by requiring publicly available environmental studies, avoiding development in sensitive habitats, requiring ecological restoration where impacts occur, encouraging low-impact development practices, and protecting significant trees, wetlands and other natural features during construction.
• Lead by example. Municipal governments manage large areas of public land. Municipalities can adopt biodiversity strategies, naturalize municipal properties, reduce mowing in appropriate areas, use native plants in landscaping, eliminate cosmetic pesticide use on municipal lands, and monitor ecosystem health over time.
• Partner with the community. Protecting biodiversity is a shared responsibility. Municipalities can work with conservation authorities, Indigenous communities, environmental organizations, farmers, schools, businesses, and volunteers to restore habitats, monitor species, and educate residents.
• Support climate resilience. Healthy ecosystems help communities adapt to climate change by reducing flooding, storing carbon, cooling urban areas, improving air and water quality, supporting pollinators, and increasing resilience to drought and extreme weather. Protecting biodiversity is, therefore, an important climate adaptation strategy.

• Promote equitable hiring and leadership by recruiting from diverse communities; removing barriers in hiring and promotion; building diverse leadership teams; ensuring that appointments to municipal boards, committees, and advisory groups reflect the community’s diversity; and providing mentorship and leadership development opportunities for underrepresented groups.
• Create inclusive policies by promoting equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, addressing systemic discrimination, ensuring public services are accessible to everyone, requiring equity considerations in municipal decision-making, and measuring progress through public reporting.
• Make public participation accessible by offering public engagement in accessible locations and formats, providing interpretation and translation where appropriate, removing physical and financial barriers to participation, engaging with communities that have traditionally been underrepresented, and seeking input from a variety of groups early in the decision-making process.
• Address hate and discrimination to create safe and welcoming communities by publicly condemning hate and discrimination, supporting anti-racism and anti-hate initiatives, partnering with community organizations, collecting and reporting data on hate incidents, supporting education and awareness campaigns, and fostering respectful dialogue across communities.
• Design inclusive public spaces such as parks, libraries, recreation centres, and streets by applying universal accessibility principles, creating safe public spaces for people of all ages and abilities, celebrating diverse cultures through public art and events, ensuring recreation programs are affordable and accessible, and providing facilities that meet the needs of diverse communities.
• Support community organizations providing services that municipalities cannot by funding organizations that promote inclusion and belonging, supporting newcomer settlement services, partnering with Indigenous organizations, working with disability and accessibility groups, collaborating with youth and seniors’ organizations, and strengthening relationships with cultural, 2SLGBTQ+, and faith communities.
• Collect and use data responsibly, by measuring representation within the local government workforce, evaluating who is using municipal services, identifying barriers to participation, monitoring equity outcomes, and using data to improve programs while protecting privacy.
• Build inclusion into economic development by supporting diverse entrepreneurs and local businesses, encouraging supplier diversity in municipal procurement, reducing barriers for newcomers and underrepresented groups, promoting accessible workplaces, and recognizing the economic value of diversity.
• Lead by example by offering ongoing equity and accessibility training, implementing transparent hiring practices, ensuring accountability for equity goals, fostering meaningful engagement with diverse communities, and celebrating diversity through municipal events and communications.