Oakville adopted Official Plan Amendment 73 in October 2025, pushing its plan's horizon to 2051

What Council decided

On October 20, 2025, Oakville's Planning and Development Council adopted Official Plan Amendment 73 and passed By-law 2025-119 to bring it into the Livable Oakville Plan. The amendment is Town-initiated, applies in all seven wards and carries file number 42.15.67. The motion was moved by Councillor O'Meara and seconded by Councillor Chisholm. The Town called the project a scoped provincial consistency exercise: a targeted rewrite of the parts of the plan that provincial law had overtaken, done ahead of a fuller review.

Why the plan had to change

Since the Town began reviewing its Official Plan in 2015, the Province has rewritten much of the framework the plan was built on. Bill 23 in 2022 removed most planning responsibilities from Halton Region, with July 1, 2024 later set as the effective date, and changed the role of conservation authorities. Bill 185 in 2024 ended mandatory pre-consultation on development applications. The Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 took effect on October 20, 2024, replacing both the Provincial Policy Statement and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The Livable Oakville Plan still referred to all of them.

What changed in the plan

• The planning horizon moves from 2031 to 2051. The plan's town-wide forecast table now runs to 388,000 residents and 191,000 jobs in 2051, and includes North Oakville.
• References to the former Growth Plan, and concepts that came from it such as the built boundary shown on several schedules, are removed.
• Policies on parkland dedication, exemptions for post-secondary institutions, pre-consultation and public notice are updated to current Planning Act requirements.
• References to Halton Region are revised, and the parts of the Region's Official Plan in effect on July 1, 2024 are treated as a Town official plan until Oakville amends or revokes them.
• A new policy anticipates the Province revoking the Parkway Belt West Plan, requiring an Official Plan amendment and a rezoning before those lands change use.

The amendment touches 15 sections of the plan, from urban structure and employment to the Kerr Village, Bronte Village and Downtown Oakville chapters, and six of its schedules.

What Council asked for along the way

The statutory public meeting was on September 22, 2025. One resident spoke, questioning whether planning to 2051 looks too far ahead and whether the densities are justified. Council asked staff to define what counts as significant growth more clearly, to strengthen a sustainability policy so that it commits to reducing the impacts of a changing climate as well as preparing for them, and to review the Parkway Belt criteria with the protection of adjacent residential areas in mind. Council also asked staff to consider different wording for a land acknowledgement that the draft would have added at the front of the plan. The list of changes in the adoption notice no longer includes that addition, and the text of the adopted by-law posted by the Town does not contain one.

Where it stands now

The Town issued its notice of adoption on October 31, 2025, with November 20, 2025 as the last day to appeal. The amendment was exempt from approval by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The Town's consolidated plan, last updated April 28, 2026 and read on November 9, 2026, lists Amendment 73 as in effect on November 21, 2025, and a search of the Ontario Land Tribunal's case-status database on the same day found no appeal. A second amendment dealing with the Parkway Belt lands, Official Plan Amendment 74, followed and is listed as in effect on February 18, 2026. The Town said in October 2025 that it intends to start merging the Livable Oakville Plan, the North Oakville East Secondary Plan and the Halton Region plan into a single document in 2026.