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Two Secondary Plans presented at Planning and Development Public meeting seeking Official Plan amendments

October 23, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Two secondary plans were presented this week seeking Official Plan amendments.

The presentations took place at the October 21 Planning and Development meeting. 

The first secondary plan was the proposed Mount Hope West Secondary Plan, which is expected to generate between 700 and 1,000 new residential units, accounting for an estimated population of approximately 2,400 new residents.

The Secondary Plan area is approximately 33.5 gross hectares of land.

The applicant proposes a Neighbourhood Area designation for a majority of the lands with natural features and area designations in the southwest and northern portions of the secondary plan area. 

The proposal includes a mix of residential uses, single-detached, semi-detached, townhouse, and apartment dwellings, along with a neighbourhood park, a commercial block and a stormwater management facility.

In the applicant’s presentation, they shared they hope to “create a new community that will expand on Bolton’s existing residential communities to the north, offering a broader range of new housing types than what’s currently existing.”

“We also wanted to introduce a new community commercial node and open spaces, in the form of a central park, to really just meet the day-to-day needs of residents.”

The secondary plan aims to support a diverse mix of housing types and tenures, incorporating high-quality design and attractive built form, while creating a walkable community centred around park space.

Residents voiced concerns on issues at the Public Meeting, such as density, parking, traffic, transport, infrastructure, bike lanes, and more.

Amanda Corbett from the CCRSA voiced various concerns regarding density.

She noted this type of dense housing development, combined with the current lack of transit, creates several problems, including insufficient space for car parking, snow storage, and issues surrounding bike paths, walking paths, and sidewalks. She suggested adding “traffic calming, signage, turn restrictions in North Hill, and don’t open Street A fully until Columbia Way has been upgraded.”

Staff noted that as they’re discussing a secondary plan, they’re “thinking about higher level policies to guide it at all.”

“We do understand that this is high level, but we’re also not involved in the site plan process so basically now is the only chance we have to have our say,” says Corbett.

Other residents also came up to speak about issues of density and car traffic. They requested that staff and planners look at the roads regarding visibility, nearby schools, and tractor traffic.

Staff state that following this meeting, they will come back with a report detailing the issues raised during the meeting and identifying how they have been addressed.

Many concerns were also raised regarding water and servicing, and Mayor Annette Groves noted that the province is currently looking at how servicing is going to be addressed.

The area currently falls under BRES, or the Bolton Residential Expansion Study.

It was initiated to determine where to accommodate the 2031 population assigned projected for Bolton by the Region of Peel. 

“The province is going to be making a decision at some point in the next month or so with respect to servicing and who is going to be responsible for that,” said Groves.

The second proposed official plan amendment was for the proposed Mayfield Tullamore Secondary Plan.

This proposed community will offer approximately 7,650 new residential units.

Staff presented that this new community plan area is meant to assist with providing population and household employment targets to the year 2051.

The units will be composed of a mix of detached, semi-detached, townhouse, and apartment dwellings, along with parks and open spaces, schools, and community facilities.

It would also provide for approximately 2,000 jobs related to population growth.

The proposed land is on approximately 617 hectares, “almost 30 percent, through the middle of the plan areas and the Greenbelt plan,” it was shared during the applicant’s presentation.

“That has always stood out as a starting point for this landowner group and for the work we’re doing here. That spine of natural heritage provides both a beautiful landscape that needs to be protected and features that have to be protected through the development process, but also a great opportunity for trails and connectivity, especially for pedestrian and active transportation at work.”

The applicant shared they also aim to have lots of housing options as opposed to a singular housing choice.

“Around 28,000 people and about just over 2,000 jobs is the estimated yield that would come from this development.”

There are four additional proposed schools in the area, alongside 15 proposed parks and separated cycling networks.

During the applicant proposal, it was shared they aim to maximize walkability.

Corbett voiced similar concerns on this matter, including parking, snow storage, emergency services, trucking, and more.

With 4,000 two-way trips in the morning peak hour and about 5,000 in the afternoon peak hour, when it comes to the entire Secondary Plan, she voiced concerns about whether infrastructure is going to be in place to address the significant increase in traffic.

Malone Given Parsons Ltd., on behalf of Mayfield Tullamore Landowners Group, addressed some of these concerns, saying that parking has been “top of mind,” and it will be determined through the zoning by-law.

“It will take time, and part of the phasing discussion we have is to look at that to make sure that the sequencing of our road delivery and the roads that are going to be provided will happen in concert with the Town’s planned upgrades of the arterial road system, and in addition to our delivery of the collective road system through our area. It’s going to be a multi-phase thing. It’s not happening all at once,” he says, noting concerns various other residents raised about arterial roads and traffic issues.

Many residents noted issues with the density, and Malone Given Parsons Ltd. shared that “if it was less dense for that many people, there’d be a lot more land brought into the settlement area to accommodate the housing, and there was a desire to have less land and have more density.”

When it comes to parking, the issue was raised again regarding the amount of available spaces in such a dense area.

“It’s a big challenge. You cannot have more affordable and smaller homes and have a plethora of parking to go with them because it undermines the whole nature of doing more affordable and smaller homes in the first place,” noted Malone Given Parsons Ltd. 

He noted that parking has been a significant consideration in the process, “we’re very much up for those discussions and hoping that the Town will explore any of those options through the master transportation planning.”

Both of these secondary plans will now move to the revised submissions stage in the status of applications.

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