Urban Growth Boundary Expansion

[CanadianTalk]

City planning staff have completed a draft Lands Needs Assessment study for Council and it confirms that some land will need to be brought into the Urban Growth Boundary to meet demand within the next couple decades for residential use and possibly industrial.

https://london.ca/sites/default/files/20...ssessment%20-%20O-9595%20%28JL_BC%29.pdf

For reference, the UGB is a boundary within city limits where development can occur. Lands outside the UGB are to remain for farming use.

The current UGB can be seen here as a red line: https://london.ca/sites/default/files/2023-06/Map1_PlaceTypes_CONSOLIDATED_2023_esize.pdf

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I actually believe this may be the first UGB expansion since it was first put in place in the late 1990s after the city annexed lands from the surrounding townships. From what I can remember (and the articles I can find online) there were talks during the Joe Fontana years about potentially expanding the UGB, but that never actually did happen.

Regardless, this is just a draft study and the final land needs study will be presented to Council in the fall.

[haljackey]

Do they not have proposal to draw the new urban growth boundary?

Here's something I made in 2 mins



With the city sating they are lacking industrial land, opening more along the 401 corridor makes sense? You can get more room for housing in the NE up to Clarke, and the SW down to the 402. Highbury South also looks attractive for lots of growth as more travel happens to St. Thomas for the VW battery plant and spinoff supplier jobs.

Ask the province to let London annex Arva while you're at it.

[jammer139]

CTV piece on the UGB discussions.



https://london.ctvnews.ca/should-develop...nning-city-s-future-land-needs-1.6923157

[CanadianTalk]

City planning staff is recommending to Council that the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) should be expanded to include 1,130 - 2000 hectares of land.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=112896

The UGB is a boundary within city limits that defines where development is allowed. This would actually be the first major expansion since the UGB was put in place in the late 1990s after the city annexed land from the surrounding townships in 1993.

Staff will come back to Council in the future with where exactly the UGB should be expanded after consulting with landowners.

Here is a map of the current UGB:

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by CanadianTalk

City planning staff is recommending to Council that the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) should be expanded to include 1,130 - 2000 hectares of land.

Question is where are they going to expand it? I know there is a shortage of industrial land- and obv we need land for more housing. Some ideas perhaps

[jammer139]

Interesting perspectives on urban growth boundaries. The reality of all the bedroom communities surrounding London already expanding with many new subdivisions in various stages of development is a fact. The article mentions only a few and misses large new subdivisions being built in Dorchester, Ilderton, Thorndale, Talbotville. Will not be surprised to see new subdivisions in Arva, Belmont, Kilworth and Komoka soon. Will we see London appealing these new residential neighbourhoods in these bedroom towns to the OLT in the future? It's inevitable that annexation or some form of regional government may be needed in the future in order to control urban sprawl?

https://london.ctvnews.ca/developers-win...or-new-housing-in-rural-london-1.7132930

LFP article - https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/arguments-for-against-expanding-londons-urban-growth-boundary

[CanadianTalk]

A Land Needs Assessment Report prepared by city staff estimates the UGB should be adjusted to add 1,130 more hectares of land for residential to accommodate population growth for the next 25 years.

Whereas a Housing Supply Marketplace Analysis performed by independent consultant, Colliers, estimates 2,000 hectares of additional land will be required over the same timeframe.

"If you took the area that was bounded by Fanshawe Park Road to the south, north to Sunningdale, Adelaide to the east and Richmond to the west, that's approximately 340 hectares," Deputy City Manager Scott Mathers explained. "So, if you're looking at 2,000 hectares, that is approximately six to almost seven times that area."

Wow... that really puts it into perspective... that is a lot of farmland.

The planning committee voted 5-1 to go with the 2000 hectares.

[CanadianTalk]

Council voted to add approximately 1,130 hectares to the Urban Growth Boundary. This is the first major expansion since the 1990s.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/city...-to-urban-growth-boundary-and-maybe-more

Council also voted (in a narrow 8-7 vote) to ask the province to add even more land to the boundary (totalling approx. 2,000 hectares).

City staff will come back in the spring with recommendations for lands to be added to the boundary.

[MolsonExport]

We had to expand the urban growth boundary. Otherwise the growth would have been directed disproportionately to St. Thomas, Arva, Lucan, Strathroy, Komoka, etc. This would absolutely not benefit London (having to accommodate all the traffic from people living outside of London, while not getting the tax revenues to support this accommodation).

[haljackey]

Ya this sucks. If London doesn't sprawl, the sprawl will just happen anyway, just further away past the city limits.

I think the best course of action is to ask the province if London can annex the surrounding communities, or start the process of establishing a regional municipality. Looks like we've come to this point.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Except this goes contrary to the London Plan. The only way to solve it is probably to have a regional government which I don't believe will be popular with anyone. No one wants another layer of government, but it might be needed for planning purposes.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

We had to expand the urban growth boundary. Otherwise the growth would have been directed disproportionately to St. Thomas, Arva, Lucan, Strathroy, Komoka, etc. This would absolutely not benefit London (having to accommodate all the traffic from people living outside of London, while not getting the tax revenues to support this accommodation).

I agree. Expanding the boundary so more sprawl can happen is not ideal, but given that regional growth is very high, the demand for sprawl would otherwise just get diverted to the satellite cities/towns. Windsor has this exact problem where close to half the regional population is located outside of city limits, and there is subsequently a large population that uses Windsor infrastructure but does not pay taxes in Windsor which has historically caused major problems.

It'll be interesting to see what they add to the Urban Growth Boundary.

[CanadianTalk]

I decided to move all the posts pertaining to the UGB expansion from the "Urban Planning" thread into its own thread as I'm sure there will be lots of discussion as the City dives deeper into the process next year.

[CanadianTalk]

Here is the draft Urban Growth Boundary expansion. It will be presented at a community information meeting on May 20th, and then at the June 23th Planning and Environment Committee meeting.

As I've said in earlier posts, this will be the first major expansion to the boundary since it was put in place in the 1990s.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/london-plan-review

The draft mapping represents a proposed expansion of 1,476 hectares for community growth (i.e., non-industrial land use) and is intended for continued consultation. A finalized UGB expansion recommendation will be presented to Council in forthcoming meetings and will include the results of the Industrial Land Needs Assessment.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/35407/widgets/147493/documents/152602

[MolsonExport]

Thus mostly northwest and west London. My neck of the woods.

Away from the highways and most arterial roads. The city needs a north-south connector (other than unWonderland, which slows to a crawl), so that it doesn't take 30 minutes to get to the highways.

[jammer139]

Nobody wants to live in the south end given the stench from the garbage dump. Was at the south end Costco a few days ago and the smell was really really bad.

[CanadianTalk]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Thus mostly northwest and west London. My neck of the woods.

Away from the highways and most arterial roads. The city needs a north-south connector (other than unWonderland, which slows to a crawl), so that it doesn't take 30 minutes to get to the highways.

I think the most realistic solution would be to extend Westdel Bourne over the Thames River to connect to Gainsborough... there is already a little road that exists north of the river (Franks Lane)... and it could even be extended up to Fanshawe Park Road. It also helps that there are now official plans to improve Westdel from Oxford down to at least the 402.

However, the county and the province would likely be involved as everything north of the river is outside city limits, and there is an environmentally significant area there (Kains Woods).

But you're right... something needs to be done because that's a lot of pink along the west side of the city on the map.

[Djeffery]

Been saying that for years about Westdel but I doubt there is enough will from the city to both push for the construction, as well as push for the annexation to the north that should happen.

I wonder how much Steve Plunkett's property would increase in value with it being included in this UGB update lol.

[jammer139]

LFP article on UGB discussions.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/lond...building-with-the-bulk-of-it-in-one-area

[haljackey]

Video regarding the proposed urban growth boundary expansion

• Video Link