Hamilton planning staff are urging city councillors to reject a privately-initiated Secondary Plan that would lay out a detailed development framework for the long-contested Elfrida lands, arguing the plan is premature and has “significant deficiencies” related to how a new community of more than 64,000 people would function.
The recommendation comes in a report prepared for the Planning Committee’s Aug. 25 meeting, and centres on an Official Plan Amendment application filed by Bousfields Inc. on behalf of the Elfrida Community Builders Group.
The application seeks to establish the “Elfrida Secondary Plan,” a policy document meant to guide the eventual buildout of roughly 1,200 hectares of farmland and rural property in Wards 9 (Upper Stoney Creek) and 11 (Glanbrook-Binbrook-Mount Hope), bounded roughly by Mud Street, Second Road East, Upper Centennial Parkway and Golf Club Road.
Staff explain that one of the core issues with the application is related to timing.
The Elfrida lands are not currently inside Hamilton’s urban boundary.
A separate application to bring the lands into the urban boundary was denied by Council in June 2025, and the applicant appealed that decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
That appeal remains unresolved, with a hearing scheduled for January 2027.
A Tribunal ruling issued Aug. 17 determined that Hamilton will need to expand its urban boundary by at least 1,600 gross developable hectares, based on provincial population projections.
However, that ruling does not identify which parcels of land should make up that expansion.
That determination will not come until the Tribunal’s Phase Two hearings.
Thus, staff say that the applicant is asking the city to approve a detailed neighbourhood-level plan for land that legally is not yet part of the urban area.
Despite the issue with timing, the applicant has submitted a fully worked-out concept: a mix of low- and medium-density residential, mixed-use corridors, employment lands, parks and a natural heritage system, designed to accommodate approximately 64,000 residents and 6,000 jobs.
Those numbers are scaled back from the original 2024 urban boundary expansion application for the same lands, which proposed a population of about 115,000 residents and 14,600 jobs.
Thirteen technical studies were submitted alongside draft amendments to both the Urban and Rural Hamilton Official Plans.
Beyond the timing issue, staff identified what they called “significant deficiencies” related to water and wastewater capacity, stormwater management, natural heritage protection, land use compatibility, transportation, urban design, and phasing.
In relation to water and wastewater, staff say that there is currently no available capacity in the water supply system to service Elfrida, and that planned trunk infrastructure on Centennial Parkway has already been reallocated to support intensification elsewhere in the city.
For stormwater, staff say that the subwatershed study submitted with the application is too incomplete to determine impacts on the existing drainage system.
For parkland, the plan proposed roughly 36 hectares of community and neighbourhood parkland, well short of the 90 hectares required under the Urban Hamilton Official Plan for a development of this size.
The plan also includes 14 schools (12 elementary and two secondary), while the city’s two school boards say that 16 (14 elementary and two secondary) are needed to serve the projected population.
Staff have laid out three options for Council: approve the plan with conditions requiring revisions, approve it as submitted despite the outstanding concerns, or defer a decision until after the Tribunal’s Phase Two hearing on the underlying urban boundary question, expected in January 2027.
Staff’s formal recommendation is denial, even though the applicant would be able to appeal that decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Any decision by Council to approve the plan, even with conditions, would automatically bring the Elfrida lands into the urban boundary, overriding Council’s previous decisions.
Deferral until after the Phase 2 Ontario Land Tribunal hearing for the Elfrida Urban Boundary Expansion, would mean that Council would not be making a decision within the mandated 120-day timeline required under the Planning Act.
The applicant would then be able to appeal a non-decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
