Oakville Council refused four units per lot and a Sheridan College housing area on May 6, 2024

What Council decided

On May 6, 2024, Oakville's Planning and Development Council refused the by-laws that would have let a detached house lot anywhere in town hold four homes and would have opened the neighbourhood beside Sheridan College to townhouses and four-storey apartment buildings. The meeting was the second statutory public meeting on the two proposals, files 42.15.62 and 42.15.63, and the night staff's recommendation report came forward. About 15 people spoke, on both sides.

Mayor Rob Burton handed over the chair and moved the motion. It passed By-laws 2024-051 and 2024-052, adopting Official Plan Amendment 65 to the Livable Oakville Plan and Amendment 330 to the North Oakville East Secondary Plan. It refused By-laws 2024-053 to 2024-056, the four in the staff report that would have written four units into both zoning by-laws and created the Sheridan College Housing Area. The refusal was voted on separately and carried 14 to 1, with Councillor O'Meara opposed. The rest carried.

The Town's notice of passing, dated May 21, 2024, says the two amendments "recognize existing permissions only". Zoning already allowed up to three dwelling units on a property with a detached house, semi-detached house or townhouse, as the Planning Act requires. The amendments updated terminology and confirmed that additional units do not count toward density. Only the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing could appeal them, by June 10, 2024.

What had been proposed

The first initiative would have allowed up to four units on a property with a detached house: the main home plus three additional units inside the house, or two inside and one in an accessory building. The second would have created a special policy area generally bounded by Upper Middle Road, White Oaks Boulevard, Sewell Drive and Sixth Line, in Ward 5. There, low-density lots could have been redeveloped with medium-density housing, including apartment buildings of up to four storeys, and neighbourhood commercial sites could have added homes above the ground floor, behind a holding provision meant to ensure coordinated redevelopment.

How it got to Council

Both ideas came from Council's own January 22, 2024 direction. In support of the Town's application to the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, and "as advised by Minister Fraser", Council told staff to bring forward within 90 days a by-law permitting four units per property as-of-right, which carried 11 to 4, and a by-law permitting four storeys within 800 metres of Sheridan College, which carried 15 to 0. A Town news release the next day said the federal minister had requested the changes in October 2023 and January 2024, and that with other initiatives they would help create more than 1,000 homes and "enable the town to secure up to $36 million in federal funding".

The first public meeting, on March 4, 2024, drew about 20 speakers and two petitions. Council sent staff away with some 20 questions, among them how parking and servicing would work, whether the Province would move to four units itself, who could rent in the Sheridan area and whether the Town intended to expropriate land there.

What Council set up instead

The May 6 motion directed staff to create a Sheridan College Housing Taskforce "to enable, advance, and accommodate the development of residential uses, including student housing, on the Sheridan College campus", and a work program to bring forward any official plan or zoning changes needed to act on its findings.

Where it stands now

No later decision adopting four units as-of-right or the Sheridan College Housing Area appears in the Council and Planning and Development Council minutes published through November 9, 2026. On June 15, 2026, Council passed By-law 2026-088, a town-wide rewrite of residential zoning rules that includes minimum yards for additional residential units.