Hi everyone, my name is Salman Zafar. For those new to my page, I am running in Ward 3 for Halton Regional Council, and I want to share a full overview of my platform.
While my name will be on the Ward 3 ballot, my goal is to bring responsible, long-term planning to the Council table to serve, represent, and be a strong, practical voice for all Miltonians.
Milton is our home. It’s where my wife and I are raising our two daughters. Like many of you, I watch how fast our Town is growing, and my biggest worry is that we’ll patch over today’s problems only to hand a massive bill to our taxpayers tomorrow. We simply cannot afford to build that way. We have to plan for growth responsibly.
As a strategic infrastructure asset management practitioner with 13 years of experience working with Ontario municipalities, I am running for Regional Councillor to bring hands-on, technical oversight to local government. Miltonians need a representative who understands that dual-tier municipal governance (local and regional government) is about responsibly managing a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure portfolio, not a popularity contest.
Combined, the Town of Milton and Halton Region own and manage a massive $23.3 billion infrastructure portfolio that our community relies on every single day:
- Safe, high-quality drinking water with reliable pressure and flow
- Wastewater collection and treatment
- Stormwater management
- Environmental protection, waste collection, diversion and disposal
- Safe, reliable roads and optimized traffic flow
- Public transit
- Emergency response services (Police, Fire, Paramedics)
- Parks
- Recreation facilities
- Libraries
- Community housing
- Long-term care homes
- Green infrastructure
Miltonians are being hit with steep local tax increases and rate hikes to bridge provincial funding shortfalls and cover the costs of new growth. Without proactive planning, these assets will eventually reach the end of their lifespan all at once, triggering a massive wave of future replacement costs.
Milton’s rapid growth demands more than empty promises and the same old political rhetoric. We need a technical expert at the Council table who knows how to cut through the red tape and deliver real results:
Solving the Infrastructure Bottleneck
Milton has grown from 31,000 to over 157,000 residents in just over two decades. Yet, new housing subdivisions continue to be approved much faster than the highly expensive transportation and utility infrastructure required to support them.
I will enforce a policy that ties new subdivision approvals directly to actual road and transit capacity—ensuring necessary upgrades are built before residents move in, rather than simply reacting to growth and playing catch-up with gridlocked traffic, strained municipal services, and escalating costs for taxpayers.
Closing the Funding Gap
Growth must pay for growth. According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), Development Charges (DCs) are vital cost-recovery tools; without them, the cost of growth-enabling infrastructure would fall squarely on existing homeowners, forcing property taxes up by an estimated 13%. I will ensure developers pay their fair, equitable share, stopping the practice of using existing taxpayers to subsidize new subdivisions.
Shifting to rigorous asset management and long-term financial planning will protect current and future residents from unplanned and unreasonable increase in property taxes and utility rates.
Data-Driven Decision Making
A municipality can pass a perfectly balanced budget on paper while its physical infrastructure quietly falls behind because standard accounting tracks what assets cost decades ago, not what they cost to replace today.
To protect taxpayers from massive future liabilities, we must pivot to a data-driven decision-making framework in alignment with community expectations and affordability.
This can be accomplished by prioritizing capital investments based on objective criteria such as ranking infrastructure projects based on their total whole lifecycle costs and future tax implications. It will ensure we don’t build today that we cannot afford to maintain tomorrow.
Civic Responsibility
Community housing is frequently mischaracterized as a static taxpayer burden. In fact, it’s a high-return investment. According to the April 2026 report by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, investing in community housing will generate an estimated $102 billion in economic and social value for the GTHA by 2050—delivering a nearly 3-to-1 return ($2.80 for every dollar invested).
True civic responsibility means strategically investing in community housing to protect our community from future downstream healthcare and policing costs.
Stewardship & Accountability
Without deliberate care, our municipal infrastructure will naturally degrade. We must reject short-term thinking and responsibly maintain our infrastructure today to avoid massive, unplanned replacement costs in the future—protecting Milton’s taxpayers from an unfair financial burden.
True accountability requires the humility to acknowledge our blind spots, actively seek community consultation, and ensure that objective facts drive our decisions.
If I earn your vote, here is my commitment to you:
• Real Experience
I will bring actual, technical experience straight to the Council table. I know how to navigate the complex trade-offs between risk, quality, and the cost of delivering essential infrastructure services.
• Data-Driven Decisions
I will prioritize hard facts, fiscal transparency, and community affordability over empty political talking points.
• Listening First
Technical expertise is only valuable when it answers the real-world problems of our community. My commitment doesn’t end on election night—throughout the term of Council, I will keep an open door and actively listen, turning your everyday challenges and financial pressures into actionable solutions at the Council table.
I promise to prioritize auditable evidence, climate resiliency, and intergenerational equity over political noise. Above all, I am committed to serving as a faithful trustee for our community, putting my professional experience to work to build a socially, environmentally, and financially sustainable Milton for everyone.
I encourage you to read about my core principles and my accountability framework.
