In case you haven't seen it on social media, THIS is what the province is planning for Midtown Oakville - 11 monoliths towering over their surroundings, jam packed with 12,000 people on just 5 ha of land. 

Thousands of residents have no idea what this TOC represents, why it's happening or what it really represents. It's not good for Midtown. It's not good for Oakville.

If this level of development in Midtown is allowed to proceed, the results will be ruinous for all of Oakville

• Total gridlock on Trafalgar Road, QEW interchanges, Cornwall Road, Cross Avenue and others.
• Thousands of people stuck in a wasteland with no liveability without schools, parks, emergency services or a host of other needs for daily life.
• Overloading on other areas and streets throughout Town that will be called on to provide these missing services to those who will need them - think schools, parks, community services, shopping for essentials, etc.
• Your tax bill will have to pay for a new city in the middle of Oakville. A hyper-density Midtown will have needs for services and Infrastructure will not be covered by the developers. The shortfall will be significant to support a community of this size and it will fall on ALL Oakville taxpayers

For months our Town Council has been under an imposed gag order, unable to share information on a development that has now revealed itself to be one of hyper density and overdevelopment of land - all achieved through secretive back room negotiations with a developer that will reap large financial benefits if this proceeds. 

No matter what your political stripes - these actions, which echo the tactics exposed in Ontario’s Greenbelt Scandal, continue to create an ever-mounting level of suspicion and distrust with our provincial legislative body. Imposing this kind of growth on a municipality and removing its ability to plan its own future is simply wrong.

• These 11 monoliths with heights reaching as high as 59 storeys will contain over 6,900 housing units - over 65% of which will be less than the size of a double car garage.

The end result? A possible 12,000 or more people living on just 5 hectares of land with a density of 2,800 people per hectare. That’s 14 times greater than the province’s original target of 200 people and job jobs per hectare for Midtown.

• Given the scope of this TOC, other Midtown landowners will want to seek parity in terms of height and density.

If the rest of the 43 developable hectares of Midtown were developed at this level of density, it could result in over 90,000 people in Midtown, which would put Midtown beyond the highest density levels of any city in North America.

This isn't liveability and it isn't acceptable. More importantly it is not needed to achieve the province’s minimum density targets.

• For those who think building this many units will result in affordability, that's not the case. 

A recent Real Estate article in the Toronto Star confirms that developers build for investors - not families. "Developers rely on pre-construction sales to fund their projects. They typically need to sell 70 to 80 per cent of a building for construction to begin and, in Ontario, 80 per cent of pre-construction condos are bought by investors. The easiest unit to sell is the cheapest one,”

In fact, most affordable housing is the result of purpose-built housing created by various levels of government or through legislated requirements for a percentage of affordable units. Market rents are rarely sufficient to cover the development and construction costs of projects. That's why private developers don't undertake them.

Families aren't any better off. That same Toronto Star article speaks of Frankensuites, the term now being used to describe family-sized units full of glass dividers around tiny rooms, bedrooms with a closet and room for a bed which you can barely walk around. One realtor interviewed said it this way: "These units are geared to unfussy post-secondary students and definitely not adults living with children, he said. “There is no counter, no island to roll out Christmas cookies.” He refers to the bar-style kitchens that now commonly back onto living spaces as “litchens.”

All of this imposed upheaval comes from the same government that told us “We’re not going to micromanage and dictate a one size-fits-all approach across the province. Municipalities know their communities best – they know where it makes sense to build homes”. 

Midtown is a challenging site. To develop a complete and liveable community it must be planned as a whole. We can’t take a patchwork quilt approach to planning if we want to deliver a Midtown that includes the necessities of liveability - schools, parks, social amenities and dependable infrastructure. Surely the fact that Oakville ranks 12th in all of Canada for housing starts per capita between 2018 and 2024 is proof positive of not only our commitment to meeting our housing needs but as well, our expertise in doing so.

It is the Town of Oakville, through its Official Plan Amendment, that should create a plan for Midtown’s future that will reflect an integrated set of policies and planning parameters, compliance with provincial planning guidelines and a reflection of the objectives of the TOC.

Oakville knows its community best.

The TOC approach lacks transparency and puts the success of Midtown as a livable community at risk with extreme density.

A new letter campaign is underway! Coronation Park Residents Association has joined with other residents associations across Oakville to STOP THE TOC. We are part of the We Love Oakville group and we'll be reaching out to residents in all areas of Oakville, because this is an ALL Oakville Issue.

The latest ONLINE LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN will send a letter to Premier Ford, Housing Minister Paul Calandra, Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma and local MPP Stephen Crawford to halt the imposed Midtown Oakville TOC program and let Oakville use its expertise, knowledge and insight to plan MIdtown’s future. If you wrote a letter in past, this one is new.

Please take time to sign on. Please stand up with us and show your determination to put Oakville in charge of its own future.

Last but not least, is the importance of ensuring that people receive dependable, factual information.

The We Love Oakville web site is full of important details, background information, the latest news on Midtown, video clips and more.

Learn More About Midtown and Our Actions to Help Ensure its Future as a Liveable Community We Would All Be Proud to Call Home.

Coronation Park Residents Association | pknight@cogeco.ca

www.coronationparkresidents.com