A letter from the Elfrida Community Builders Group was recently released, in which the group urges the City of Hamilton to support housing development in the Upper Stoney Creek area.
The group, which includes homebuilders and developers, collectively owns the majority of the land within the Elfrida area in Hamilton.
The Elfrida area encompasses lands situated around the intersection of Upper Centennial Parkway and Regional Road 20.
Those lands are not yet part of the city’s urban boundary, as Council previously shut down a proposed urban boundary expansion in 2021.
Council also recently denied an individual application for homes on the Elfrida lands.
The letter was written by Goodmans LLP, which, along with TMA Law, is co-counsel to the Elfrida Community Builders Group.
The document outlines that, in 2006, almost 20 years ago, the City of Hamilton “identified the Elfrida Lands as the City’s preferred growth area for needed housing.”
They say that the lands are “contiguous to Hamilton’s built-up area and are situated along a planned higher-order transit corridor.”
The group’s counsel notes that the city confirmed Elfrida as the city’s “preferred next growth area” in the 2006 Rural Hamilton Official Plan and the 2009 Urban Hamilton Official Plan and that the city has spent “significant resources” to implement the growth in that area.
“As it relates to the extension of services, we understand the city has budgeted $84.2 million for the Upper Centennial Parkway Sanitary Trunk Sewer, $31.2 million for the Dickenson Trunk Sanitary Sewer, and overall, $229 million has been allocated towards various infrastructure projects that would service Elfrida,” continues the letter.
In 2015, the city also reaffirmed Elfrida “as its first priority for residential growth” as part of a settlement involving the Airport Employment Growth District.
However, in 2021, when City of Hamilton staff recommended a 1,310-hectare urban boundary expansion, which would have opened up the Efrida Lands for housing, City Council voted against the move.
The Elfrida Community Builders Group then brought forward an individual urban boundary expansion application to bring the area into the urban boundary, but that too was shut down by Council in 2025.
The letter concludes, “The city’s own Land Needs Assessment Report confirms the city is not facing a choice of supporting intensification or urban boundary expansions. The city needs to support both intensification of its downtown and built-up areas and responsible urban boundary expansion to meet residential growth needs.”
With politicians at the municipal level shutting down the development, the matter is now expected to be heard by the Ontario Land Tribunal, where the province could override the city.
In the meantime, the Elfrida Community Builders Group has created a website promoting housing development in the area.
They say that allowing an urban boundary expansion for the area has the “potential to support housing for over 100,000 people at full build-out and create nearly 14,000 jobs.”
The website can be viewed at www.elfridalands.ca.
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.
