358 Reynolds Street: 11 townhouses refused by Council in 2024, approved in a tribunal settlement in 2025

What Council decided

On March 4, 2024, Oakville's Planning and Development Council refused a zoning by-law amendment and draft plan of subdivision for 358 Reynolds Street, at the southwest corner of Reynolds Street and Macdonald Road in Ward 3. The applicant, MacDonald Rose Inc., proposed 11 townhouses in two blocks with access to both streets. The files are Z.1613.65 and 24T-23003/1613.

The item was a combined statutory public meeting and recommendation report, so the public hearing and the decision happened the same night. The motion refused the applications "as proposed". The same motion authorized Town staff, if the refusal was appealed, to negotiate and finalize a settlement "addressing the concerns outlined in this report affecting zoning regulations and development standards". It carried.

The Town's notice of refusal, dated March 15, 2024, prints the decision date as March 3. The minutes, the Town's development data and the Ontario Land Tribunal all place it on March 4. The last day to appeal was April 4, 2024.

The site

The Tribunal's decision describes a lot of about 0.28 hectares holding a vacant three-and-a-half-storey medical office building and a rear parking lot. It lies inside the Trafalgar Road Heritage Conservation District. Across Reynolds Street, the decision notes, are the former Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital lands, with the Oakville Trafalgar Community Centre and an area planned for detached houses and townhouses.

This was the second proposal for the lot to reach the Tribunal. On July 19, 2022, it approved a three-storey condominium building with 14 units and underground parking, which changed the site's designation from low to medium density residential. The townhouse applications were filed in December 2023.

What the Tribunal approved

MacDonald Rose appealed, and the company and the Town reached a settlement. The Tribunal heard it by video on January 13, 2025 and allowed the appeals in part in an oral decision that day, issued in writing on January 23. The planning evidence, from the company's planner, was uncontested.

The settlement keeps 11 townhouses, each with three bedrooms. Ten face Macdonald Road and one faces Reynolds Street. The maximum height is 13.6 metres, the minimum rear yard is 8.6 metres and the minimum interior side yard is 1.4 metres, with at least three parking spaces a unit and 34 in all. The land is rezoned from a site-specific Residential Medium 4 zone to Residential Medium 1 with special provisions. The Tribunal called the plan "gentle intensification on underutilized land" at 38.9 units per hectare. The company's planner told it the settlement had taken into account a participant's concerns about setbacks, height, privacy, shadow, trees and heritage.

The order amends Zoning By-law 2014-014, approves the draft plan of subdivision subject to conditions, and gives the Town authority to clear those conditions and grant final approval.

Where it stands now

On March 3, 2025, Council approved a heritage permit to demolish the medical building and parking lot, on conditions that the owners seed and fence the property afterward and allow materials to be salvaged; the permit expires two years after approval. As of November 9, 2026, the Town's development data lists the zoning as approved by the Tribunal and the subdivision as draft approved, and the Tribunal's case status shows the appeals as closed. The Town no longer lists the file among its active development application pages. The sources checked do not show whether the plan of subdivision has been registered or construction has begun.