Amid a condo market that is dropping like a stone, Oakville Town Council members met with Ontario's Minister of Infrastructure at the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, held in Ottawa in August.

For Council, one objective of the meeting was to underscore the importance of aligning the TOC with Oakville's recently completed Midtown Official Amendment. This would create a consistent and cohesive plan for Midtown in terms of building heights, massing, construction schedules and the provision of things like hard infrastructure and green space.

The response? Oakville's request for alignment with the OPA was declined.


 Minister Surma stated:

• The developer is following the TOC process
• The developer has considered public feedback
• A new TOC proposal is expected this fall

The Minister's comments were short and pointed.

She adjourned the meeting.

** It is important to note, the TOC is totally under the control of the Province and if it decides to impose this tall sprawl, hyper density growth on Oakville, the Official Plan can't protect us.

To make matters worse, expanded authority, granted through recent legislation like the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 and the Protecting Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025, allows the Minister of Infrastructure to sidestep municipal planning powers and employ a Minister's Zoning Order to override approvals or decisions made by local planning authorities - such as Oakville Town Council. AND ... that decision CAN NOT be appealed.

Toronto condo market is in ‘free fall,’ federal housing minister says

• Read the Article - Toronto Star, September 3, 2025

***

The Condo Crash

For years, low interest rates fuelled a big-city condo-flipping frenzy. Profits got bigger and condos got smaller. Now the bubble has popped, leaving behind thousands of unsellable, unlivable units.

• Read the Article - Maclean's Magazine, August 18, 2025

***

Toronto developers are quietly cancelling condos ...

A planned condo next to the Mimico GO station went into receivership in early 2024. The court approved sale of the site, but no buyer was found. It sits abandoned; a muddy eyesore surrounded by fencing. Metrolinx terminated an agreement with the original Mississauga-based developer, Vandyk, to build a transit-oriented community.

• Read the Article - Toronto Star, July 2025

• Developers are unable to sell enough pre-construction units to finance new buildings which are built first and foremost as financial assets rather than functional housing. Many are entering receivership, postponing new construction and exacerbating an already painful housing shortage.

• Since the beginning of last year, at least 28 projects in Toronto, with more than 5,700 units, have been cancelled, postponed or put into receivership. It would take 58 months to sell the available stock at the current rate of sales. (Let's remember, the Oakville Midtown TOC is over 6,000 units!)

• In 2023, unpaid construction workers walked away from a four-tower development in Kitchener, Ontario, with the project 80 per cent completed. When that project went into receivership, the owners owed $100 million, but only had $300 in the bank. 

The Provincial Target:

1.5 Million homes over a 10-Year Period

That target has been used as the driving force

behind the push to impose the 6,000 Unit

Transit Oriented Community (TOC) on Midtown Oakville.

The Reality

On average, 150,000 housing units would have to be built every year from 2022 to 2031 to achieve the Provincial goal.

According to the provincial budget tabled by finance minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, Ontario’s starts were only half of this figure in 2024 at 74,573 and are forecast to drop to 71,800 in 2025.

Canada Mortgage & Housing Outlook: Given the national and global economic outlook, there is little evidence to suggest that price and rent declines are likely to quickly reverse. As a result, project cancellations and reduced construction activity are also likely to continue in the near term, hindering efforts to increase housing supply over the long term.

The TOC does not answer the Premier's objective of 1.5 million homes within in the next 10 years.

In fact, a best-case scenario as projected by Watson Associates Economists suggested it would take about 23 years to fill the 6,000+ units in the TOC complex. That assessment was made prior to the most recent condo market free fall.

Imposing the current TOC on Oakville is negligent.

The Province's plan for the Midtown Oakville TOC is out of touch with reality, careless and financially irresponsible.

It places the Town of Oakville and its resident taxpayers in a high risk position and ignores reasonable care to prevent foreseeable harm.

The costs of hard infrastructure as well as the damage caused by a poorly planned TOC will carry financial and commercial repercussions for decades into the future.

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Coronation Park Residents Association | pknight@cogeco.ca

www.coronationparkresidents.com