A rendering of the proposed boulevard design of the Heritage Heights development in Brampton.Supplied
Ontario’s plan to build a four-to-six-lane highway through northwest Brampton has curbed ambitions for a sustainable community in the area, the city’s final frontier of undeveloped greenfield – and is keeping builders on the sidelines in the process.
“We’re at the mercy of the province,” says Martin Medeiros, a regional councillor, former chair of Brampton’s planning committee and long-time champion of the Heritage Heights Secondary Plan that was first proposed in early 2009.
“This was a plan that everyone came together on, a really different vision for the province to consider.”
It would see a high-density housing and mixed-use commercial development, integrated with parks and trails along a grand boulevard accessible to cyclists, pedestrians and transit users over the 3,500-acre site.
Progress on the project has stalled because of factors including a moratorium to protect shale resources that has since been lifted and an interim control bylaw to hold lands for the planned transportation corridor.
Brampton’s proposal for Heritage Heights, which makes up one-16th of the city’s total land area, has also been targeted in 30 separate appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal, mostly over site-specific land-use and infrastructure issues.
The tribunal says it has scheduled mediation hearings from July 15 to Aug. 9 that could flesh out how development might proceed in areas not directly affected by the proposed highway.
The project can move forward without a full environmental assessment after the Supreme Court of Canada in an October, 2023, opinion said the Impact Assessment Act used to allow federal review of major projects infringes on provincial authority and is partially unconstitutional.
When these developers bought land decades ago nobody anticipated being held up because of a major freeze for a highway.
— Mike Czestochowski, vice-chair of the land services group, CBRE Canada
The provincial Highway 413 website says the boulevard design of the Heritage Heights plan is incompatible with the Highway 413 transportation corridor.
“The Heritage Heights boulevard would have to operate at much lower speeds. … The boulevard would also require stoplights at intersections to connect to the pedestrian-focused community design. This conflicts with the high-speed operations and controlled access design of the Highway 413 corridor,” it states.
According to the city’s website, the highway “will limit east-west connectivity within the community and severely impede its ability to become a vibrant and complete community and promote unwanted suburban sprawl. Key issues beyond the control of the city have delayed secondary planning, notably the GTA West Corridor.”
That 10-year highway project, with an estimated price tag of $8-billion to $10-billion, would include a 400 series highway designed for cars and trucks only.
The 59-kilometre Highway 413 would extend from Highway 400 in Vaughan to the interchange of highways 401 and 407 near the boundary of the districts of Peel and Halton, passing through the corner of Brampton where the Heritage Heights development is envisioned.
The PC government’s highway strategy and its opposition to Brampton’s Heritage Heights Official Plan zoning amendment have frozen development across portions of a vast parcel of urban land, says Mike Czestochowski, vice-chair of the land services group at commercial real estate investment firm CBRE Canada.
Areas in the southeastern section of Heritage Heights have been serviced by the municipality for some time and major landowners in the area, who are assuming the province will exercise its authority and build a highway, “are anxious to get at it,” he says.
“When these developers bought land decades ago nobody anticipated being held up because of a major freeze for a highway,” Mr. Czestochowski says. “Nobody buys land to be put on a freeze for decades.”
While developers factor in the possibility of delays, banking on rising prices to offset the cost of holding land, he says land prices have declined in some areas because of a slowing economy amid spiralling interest rates.
“Time is not necessarily on our side. Once the transit corridor realignment has been solidified and if you’re far enough away from a buffer … those lands could be released for development sooner rather than later.”
The plan for Heritage Heights aims to create sustainable and walkable communities for people to work, live and play.Supplied
Mr. Czestochowski says construction could start within a couple of years, with the balance of the Heritage Heights lands developed once the highway is built.
The highway project is essential to support the movement of goods through one of the continent’s fastest-growing regions and to ease congestion on Highway 401, says Ontario Transportation Minister and Brampton South MPP Prabmeet Sarkaria.
It’s a view supported by business groups including the Brampton Board of Trade, which calls the highway critical infrastructure.
Ontario opposes Brampton’s concept plan for Heritage Heights even though it would further provincial homebuilding objectives, with the construction of nearly 36,000 residences.
It would also provide 320,000 square metres of commercial gross floor area and create more than 42,000 jobs, many at high-tech enterprises, according to an economic analysis commissioned by the city, Mr. Medeiros says.
He says city council in 2020 unanimously endorsed the HHSP plan after extensive community engagement, which saw the concept supported by landowners as well as environmental groups.
Mr. Medeiros says he’s hoping aspects of the HHSP could co-exist with Highway 413, with on- and off-ramps linked to the boulevard, noting as well that Brampton has sent a letter to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation asking it to consider the boulevard option.
If highway construction does proceed through Heritage Heights in place of a boulevard, Brampton would need to review its zoning designation to accommodate the development, allocating portions for uses such as residential and employment, says Emelie Rowe, a sales associate with CBRE.
And while area landowners in letters to the city say they support the HHSP concept for a walkabout community that fosters “desirable neighbourhoods” and economic growth, Mr. Czestochowski suggested that a highway could be a positive for some property valuations, depending on the intended use.
If the use is higher-end employment, “I’d rather be next to a highway. If it’s residential or retail, I’d rather be next to a grand boulevard.
“In this area now, developers would rather see a grand boulevard and residential use,” he says. “We’d all like to see the Heritage plan proceed but, unfortunately, we’re not in control.”