Town of Oakville Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy and Community Improvement Plan (CIP)

Unlike municipalities that struggle to attract investment, the Town of Oakville faces significant development pressures. In its Places to Grow Growth Plan, the Province of Ontario identified Midtown Oakville as an Urban Growth Centre that should accommodate approximately 12,000 residents and 8,000 jobs by 2031. As part of a multi-phase Comprehensive Brownfield Management Project (CBMP), a Community Improvement plan (CIP) and Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy will stimulate remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites across the municipality and promote and guide development in a manner that achieves the town’s planning, design and sustainability goals in the future. Three phases make up the development of the CBMP: Phases one and two address the management of publicly owned contaminated sites and the town’s approval processes related to contaminated sites development on public and private lands. This application relates to the third phase, led by The Economic Development Department, which focuses on the Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy and the CIP to support redevelopment of contaminated private lands. The initiative’s workplan includes the identification of the amount of brownfield lands requiring assessment, coupled with a review of impediments to sustainable development on brownfield sites. This work will direct the development of incentives programs that achieve specific environmental, social, and economic objectives of the brownfield strategy. A wide-ranging engagement program will support this phase through stakeholder interviews and workshops with key participants such as brownfield property owners and developers, and legal, environmental, real estate, financial and planning representatives. Two public engagement sessions will obtain input on the proposed and final Brownfield strategy and CIP, and the Town will consider adoption of the plan at a final statutory public meeting required under Ontario’s Planning Act. The municipality adopted a comprehensive, cross-departmental, and integrated-policy approach to the CBMP. The Town’s Community sustainability plan, its official plan, its sustainable community 2057 vision, and its environmental strategic plan will all support the strategies and direction of the plan. The Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy and CIP is innovative because it will not only promote brownfield redevelopment, but also focus on and promote other types of sustainable development, such as intensification, quality urban design, and green buildings and development. Furthermore, where possible, the CIP will include performance targets, creating a focus on quality of outcomes rather than simply generating development. Because the CIP is an integral phase of the Town’s three phase CBMP, the Town will be able to share information on the other innovative phases (public brownfield policies, environmental risk management procedures, plan review processes, and contaminated sites data management) of its CBMP with other municipalities. (Project description from original funding application)