Council removed nightclub and hotel permissions on Loyalist Trail and allowed indoor sports instead

What Council decided

On March 17, 2025, Oakville's Planning and Development Council approved a zoning amendment for 65, 71, 77, 83 and 89 Loyalist Trail and passed Zoning By-law 2025-080 the same night. The recorded vote was 14 to 0, with one member absent. The applicant was Tafia Development Corporation and the file number is Z.1215.04. The property is on the north side of Loyalist Trail in Ward 7, east of Loyalist Woods Park and opposite Channing Crescent and Eternity Way. The Town's site plan record for the property describes five single-storey employment buildings.

What the by-law changes

The land is in a Light Employment zone, which did not allow commercial fitness centres. The amendment adds that use, which the Town's notices said would cover a children's indoor playground, a gymnastics club and indoor courts for sports such as soccer, badminton, pickleball and basketball inside the existing buildings. At the same time it strikes two uses from what the zone would otherwise permit.

How the hotel came off the list

The application changed shape as it moved through Town Hall. When it was filed in the fall of 2024, the Town's first notice described only the addition of fitness uses, limited to half the floor area, and a lower parking requirement. By the statutory public meeting on November 25, 2024, removing the nightclub permission had been added. At that meeting Council asked staff whether any other use then permitted, such as a hotel or a club, should also come out. The recommendation that returned on March 17, 2025 removed both nightclub and hotel, and applied the cap, set at 49 per cent, to all commercial uses on the site rather than to fitness alone.

One member of the public spoke on March 17, describing plans to open a technology-equipped basketball facility that could employ about 20 people, from high school students and coaches to referees and scorekeepers. Council deemed the final revisions minor and decided no further public notice was needed.

Where it stands now

The Town issued its notice of passing on March 18, 2025, with April 7, 2025 as the last day to appeal. A search of the Ontario Land Tribunal's case-status database on November 9, 2026 found no appeal for the address or file number, the by-law's provisions appear in the Town's consolidated zoning by-law, and the Town's planning layer lists the file as closed. The zoning decides what may operate in the buildings, not what does; the Town records read for this story do not say which tenants have opened.