The City of Vaughan is located in York Region, part of the Greater Toronto Area. This area of Ontario is forecast to receive considerable growth in population and employment by 2031. The build-out of the City of Toronto and rapid growth of the surrounding suburbs has had a significant impact on green space and the overall structure of the GTA. In response to this growth, the Province of Ontario issued a number of plans to protect green space and natural features and direct future growth toward more sustainable types of development. As such, municipalities across Ontario are reviewing their Official Plans to ensure that they are in conformity with new provincial policies. For many, this means making significant changes to the way that growth is managed and planned in the city.

The City of Vaughan faces many issues typical of suburban urban structures including auto-dependency, isolated single-purpose uses, sprawl that encroaches on the countryside and multiples centres, but no “downtown” that unifies the city. To address these issues the City developed a Growth Management Strategy to guide future growth and planning in Vaughan in a sustainable, compact and participatory manner. The new Official Plan project was a key component of the Growth Management Strategy. Urban Strategies led a team of consultants in the creation of a new Official Plan for the City of Vaughan. Over three years, we reviewed and consolidated the over 600 amendments of the current Official Plan into a comprehensive document and ensured that the new Official Plan is in conformity with provincial policies. Key to this was the planning of an urban structure that can accommodate the density targets for employment and housing set out by the Province in a sustainable manner. The process involved an extensive and award-winning public consultation process to ensure that this plan was a “made in Vaughan” solution supported by residents of Vaughan.

This video tells the story of a rapidly growing Ontario city in transformation, and the new official plan policies developed by Urban Strategies to help guide growth in healthy, sustainable directions.

Vaughan Official Plan

14 photos