By: Christian Collington, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, TheIFP.ca
Halton Hills is finding it tough to plan for the kind of high density development the province wants around the Acton GO station.
The town is facing the same problem it encountered with the Georgetown GO station, which is further along in its process.
The Georgetown secondary plan, which is a Protected Major Transit Station Area, had its boundary shrunk to a more manageable size.
Town staff confirmed at the Dec. 8 council meeting that the current Major Transit Station Area (MTSA) for Acton, which is originally set by the municipality, is too expansive to support the provincial density target of 150 residents and jobs per hectare.
“With a very large study area that we’re starting with now, there is really no possibility of meeting the provincial targets for an MTSA from a density perspective,” John Linhardt, the town’s planning and development commissioner, said.
Staff explained that spreading the provincial target across such a wide area makes the math impossible.
Their proposed solution was to mirror the strategy used for the Georgetown secondary plan, which is to shrink the official boundary to focus on the immediate station lands.
Staff explained that if they were to shrink the boundary, they would need to ask the province for permission to aim for a lower density than the 150 residents and jobs per hectare target.
While staff’s proposal was intended to make the density math work, council put the brakes on the project over concerns that the study area would be too small and wouldn’t include areas such as the Queen Street corridor.
Coun. Clark Somerville said that excluding the Queen Street corridor and nearby schools from the study could leave the town unprepared for future changes, such as school closures or enrolment shifts.
Coun. Alex Hilson echoed the sentiment.
“The Queen Street corridor should be included in this,” he said.
Linhardt noted that expanding the study to include Queen Street could strain the project’s “tight budget.”
The project also includes a community working group which incorporates elected officials as members of the group.
Coun. Jason Brass sought to exclude elected officials to ensure candid community feedback, stating that the group should not be “influenced by elected officials.”
Mayor Ann Lawlor noted that excluding councillors would be a departure from recent practices in other secondary plans, such as Vision Georgetown and the Mill Street corridor.
Council voted to defer the report for the Acton Downtown Secondary Plan until late January 2026.
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