Palermo Village at 3069 Dundas Street West: refused by Council in 2023, approved by the land tribunal in 2025

What Council decided in December 2023

On December 18, 2023, Oakville Council refused a zoning by-law amendment and a draft plan of subdivision filed by Palermo Village Corporation for 3069 Dundas Street West and 3278 Regional Road 25. The land is about 47 hectares north of Dundas Street West, south of Highway 407 and generally west of Regional Road 25 and Old Bronte Road, in Ward 7. The minutes record one motion, carried, to refuse files Z.1331.02 and 24T-23002/1331 for the reasons in a Planning Services report dated December 12, 2023.

The Town's development record gives December 8, 2023 as the day the applications were received, ten days before the vote. The Town's notice says Council had no written or oral submissions to consider. A revised notice of refusal dated January 3, 2024 set January 10, 2024 as the last day to appeal. Neither the notice nor the minutes reproduces the staff report's reasons.

What was proposed

The Town's application page describes three mixed-use condominium blocks, four high-density and four medium-density residential condominium blocks, 28 detached houses, a transit terminal block, a neighbourhood park, part of a village square, part of a stormwater pond, a block for the 407 Transitway, open space and natural heritage blocks and public roads. The Ontario Land Tribunal's description of the case is a medium- and high-density master-planned community "containing a total of 6,890 residential units".

The appeal and the mediation

Palermo Village Corporation appealed both refusals. At a case management conference on May 8, 2024, the Tribunal dealt with them alongside the company's older appeals of the Town's official plan amendments for Palermo Village, and made Halton Region, the Halton District School Board, Conservation Halton and two neighbouring landowners parties. The school board told the Tribunal it had identified a need for an elementary school within the plan. The Oakville Community Association was made a participant.

Council gave its lawyers confidential instructions on the Palermo appeals on July 8 and December 9, 2024 and January 20, 2025. The Tribunal's orders record that the parties took part in Tribunal-led mediation between August 2024 and June 2025.

What the Tribunal approved

On July 16, 2025, after a settlement hearing, the Tribunal approved a revised Official Plan Amendment 34 to the Livable Oakville Plan for Palermo Village, agreed to by the company, the Town and Halton Region. On November 10, 2025, on a written settlement motion made with the consent of the Town, the Region, Conservation Halton and the school board, it approved zoning By-law 2025-148 and the draft plan of subdivision, subject to conditions. An amending order on December 4, 2025 replaced the by-law and the plan to correct technical errors. Final approval of the subdivision rests with the Town.

The by-law sets maximum heights of 20 to 30 storeys, or 70 to 105 metres, on its tallest blocks, with podiums of up to six storeys. The conditions require the owner to reserve an elementary school site for the Halton District School Board, secured by a purchase agreement or a seven-year option, and list a 2.53-hectare community park, two village squares and an urban square.

Two unit figures appear in the record. The Tribunal's description of the appeals and the Town's development data both give 6,890 homes. The draft plan conditions calculate the parkland owed, 3.65 hectares, from an "agreed upon estimated unit count of 2773 units".

Where it stands now

As of November 9, 2026, the Town's development data lists the zoning file as approved by the Tribunal and the subdivision as draft approved on November 10, 2025, and the Tribunal's case status shows the two appeals as closed. Draft approval is not registration: the conditions must be cleared before lots and blocks can be created. Appeals over two other Palermo properties, 2483 Dundas Street West and 3005 and 3015 Dundas Street West, were left to separate Tribunal orders.