Council refused 40 stacked townhouses on employment land at 15 Loyalist Trail on March 3, 2025; the appeal is on hold

What Council decided

On March 3, 2025, Oakville's Planning and Development Council refused an application to build 40 stacked townhouses on employment land at 15 Loyalist Trail, on the north side of the street east of Sixth Line in Ward 7. The motion to refuse was moved by Councillor Nanda and carried without a recorded vote. The Town issued its notice of refusal on March 17, 2025.

The applicant, Rowhedge Construction Limited, had asked for two things: an amendment to the North Oakville East Secondary Plan and a change to Zoning By-law 2009-189. Together they would have moved the property from Service Area Employment to Neighbourhood Centre, with site-specific rules. The Town's project page describes 40 stacked townhouse units with two parking spaces each and three visitor spaces, and the Town's planning record says they were to be condominiums.

Four months from filing to refusal

The file moved quickly. The Town's record shows the applications arrived on November 1, 2024, and the notice of complete application is dated December 6, 2024. At the statutory public meeting on February 3, 2025, the only speaker was the applicant's representative. Council asked staff to analyse six things in the recommendation report: the density, traffic and parking, waste collection, height and privacy, whether the lands suit commercial retail uses, and conformity with the Province's D-6 guidelines, which deal with housing and other sensitive uses close to industry.

The recommendation report came back one month later, and Council refused both applications that night. The minutes record the decision but not the debate, and the staff report itself was not available to read for this record, so the reasons are not set out here.

A wider fight over employment land

The Town's notices point to the larger context. They say the property is also subject to official plan amendment file 52.57.03, which is under appeal at the Ontario Land Tribunal as case OLT-24-001248. The Tribunal's listing identifies that case as an appeal of Official Plan Amendment 68, grouped with appeals of Official Plan Amendments 332 and 333, and Council's minutes describe all three as the employment lands amendments. Rowhedge Construction is also one of the appellants of those amendments, according to the Tribunal's July 2025 decision on that case.

Where it stands now

The refusal was appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. On July 8, 2025, in the same resolution that authorized staff to take part in mediation on the employment lands amendments, Council directed staff to oppose the appeals at 15 Loyalist Trail.

When checked on November 9, 2026, the Tribunal's case status service listed the official plan appeal, OLT-25-000337, as the lead case and as on hold, with the zoning appeal, OLT-25-000338, following it. The same listing showed the employment lands case at the pre-merit hearing stage. The Town's planning record listed both 15 Loyalist Trail files as appealed. No Tribunal decision on the townhouse appeal was found, so the refusal stands for now and nothing has been approved for the site.