Ontario Land Tribunal decision to expand Hamilton's urban boundary 'quite distressing,' says mayor

Aura Carreño Rosas · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 19, 2026 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 19

Mayor Andrea Horwath says the ruling by the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) that Hamilton needs to expand its urban boundary by 1,600 hectares is "quite distressing."

The decision was released on Aug. 17. It came after developers appealed a 2025 Hamilton council decision to deny their request to expand the boundary in order to develop areas in Upper Stoney Creek and Mount Hope.

"Council has made a clear decision to maintain a firm urban boundary, and this decision basically [overrides] our local decision-making, and that's not very democratic," Horwath said in response to the OLT ruling.

The city blocked two of three developer requests in June 2025 after developers of the White Church Lands near the Hamilton airport proposed building 7,600 homes, while developers of the Elfrida Lands in Upper Stoney Creek looked to build 40,000 homes.

A third proposal for another area in Twenty Road W., north of the airport, was submitted to the city in 2020 and appealed in 2024 for a lack of decision, according to the city's website.

In his tribunal ruling, OLT member Eric Crowe said the expansion is "warranted to accommodate an appropriate range and mix of land uses."

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City has history of expansion debate

Developers argued the expansion was needed to "accommodate residential growth," while the city asked the decision be referred to its municipal planning process, according to the decision.

Horwath said the city has a plan within the current boundary that includes higher density and utilizing current infrastructure, which has been feasible, she said.

According to the decision, developers also argued that Hamilton's current goal of an 80 per cent intensification rate, meaning higher population density, is "aspirational" and "not reasonable," but a local group pointed to a late-2024 report showing the city had already hit and surpassed that goal in 2023.

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In 2025, city staff recommended councillors deny both the White Church Lands and the Elfrida Lands applications because they would encroach on agricultural land and require more infrastructure than the city is able to provide or pay for in the coming years.

In 2021, councillors voted down a controversial plan to expand the city's urban boundary by 1,310 hectares after months of discussion. At the time, the city asked residents for input, which led to over 18,000 responses and the vast majority wanted there to be no expansion.

In 2022, the provincial government ordered Hamilton to expand its urban boundary by 2,200 hectares. It also released plans to remove 7,400 acres in 15 different areas from the province's Greenbelt, including in Hamilton.

Reports from the auditor general and integrity commissioner found that the process to select lands was rushed and favoured certain developers.

Premier Doug Ford reversed course on both matters after heated public outcry. The RCMP continues to investigate the Greenbelt matter.

Tribunal is 'meddling' with local planning, group says

Horwath told CBC Hamilton it's not up to an unelected panel to "determine the future of a municipality."

Horwath spoke over the phone from Ottawa, where she is representing the city at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

She said the decision is "not just about houses and development," but has implications for issues like climate change and infrastructure. She mentioned recent floods in Hamilton and the "hundreds of millions of dollars" invested in the Woodward Treatment Plant.

"What this growth into new areas does is it puts a requirement to add even more infrastructure to our responsibility."

Mark Tadeson, councillor for Ward 11, where the developments are proposed, told CBC Hamilton on Tuesday he disagrees with the adjudicator's saying this represents good land use.

He said while there needs to be more housing built in Hamilton, the developments shouldn't have been lumped together. Tadeson also said he would have considered some development over others, using smaller waves of urban boundary expansions instead of the "tsunami" the city got on Monday.

"I see validity in some areas," he said, but added he does not think prime agricultural lands like in Elfrida, or lands that are too removed from the city like the White Church development, were the right candidates.

As for Twenty Road W., he said the area was set to be developed anyway, and that he'd like to see the neighbourhood grow and become more walkable.

"I want to complete the community out there," he said.

Advocacy organization Environmental Defence called the ruling an "error."

"[The tribunal's decision] would stifle Hamilton’s progress towards building more housing and trigger a decades-long disaster for young families hoping to stay in or move to Hamilton," it said in a statement.

Stop Sprawl HamOnt, a local group that opposes the expansion, said in a post on social media the tribunal is "meddling in democracy and local planning."

"It seems that local councils can vote to approve or deny applications, but the final land use decision-making power has been transferred away from municipalities and placed straight into the arms of hand-picked-by-Ford OLT members and wealthy, connected developers, donors and land speculators close to Ford," the group said in a Facebook post.

OLT members are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, meaning the Lieutenant Governor is acting on the advice of provincial Cabinet.

In his decision, Crowe said not expanding the boundary based on prioritizing "local policy" such as climate change and the preservation of farmland would be "directly inconsistent with the [Provincial Planning Statement of] 2024," referring to the province's land use planning policy framework that came into effect in late 2024.

Tadeson said he "has difficulty understanding how an appointed official has more say over our future land uses in Hamilton than the elected municipal council does."

"It just seems to be like a roundabout way of overriding local authority," he said.