The Ontario Land Tribunal has ordered at least 1,600 hectares added. The province closed this door in 2023 and reopened it in 2024 — and the forecast underneath the whole exercise moved by 50,000 people last year.
Urban Land Group · August 24, 2026
On August 17, 2026 the Ontario Land Tribunal ordered the City of Hamilton to expand its urban boundary by at least 1,600 gross developable hectares to accommodate residential growth to 2051. Member Eric Crowe quashed the City’s intensification target as inconsistent with the 2024 Provincial Planning Statement, finding — in a line that will be quoted for years — that:
“People’s housing needs and preferences cannot and will not be changed by pure force of policy alone.” — as reported from the decision
For anyone holding land on Hamilton’s edge, this is the most consequential Ontario planning decision of the year. It is also the fourth different answer to the same question since 2021.
Four decisions, five years, one question
Figure 1 — Hectares added to Hamilton’s urban boundary, by decision.
The City’s own published chronology sets out the sequence. In November 2021 Council adopted a no-urban-boundary-expansion growth strategy. In November 2022 the Province approved Official Plan Amendment 167 with modifications that added over 2,200 hectares. Through late 2023 the Province reversed itself, removing those 2,200 hectares via Bill 150.
Then the mechanism changed. In April 2024, Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, opened privately initiated urban boundary expansion applications to appeal at the Ontario Land Tribunal. In August 2024 the new Provincial Planning Statement removed the requirement for a Municipal Comprehensive Review before a boundary expansion.
That is the story in one sentence: the Province shut the front door in 2023 and unlocked a side door in 2024. Landowners walked through it. Hamilton refused the White Church application on July 9, 2025; the appeal was filed on July 25, 2025; the Tribunal ruled thirteen months later.
How much, but not yet which
Figure 2 — The lands before the Tribunal, against its ordered minimum.
Three landowner groups are before the Tribunal: Elfrida in upper Stoney Creek, White Church southeast of the airport, and Upper West Side near Twenty Road West. Their combined area is almost exactly the ordered minimum. That arithmetic is convenient, and it is not the same as a decision — the Tribunal set a quantum, and separate secondary-plan hearings running into 2027 will determine which lands actually come in and on what terms.
The number underneath all of this is moving
The Tribunal is allocating land against a 2051 population. That figure is not stable. The Urban Hamilton Official Plan, built on the 2020 Growth Plan, forecast 820,000 residents by 2051. The Ministry of Finance projected 903,270 in 2024, then revised to 853,130 in 2025 — a drop of 50,140 people in a single year, which the City attributes primarily to planned decreases in federal immigration targets.
Figure 3 — Hamilton’s 2051 population on three official bases.
A twenty-five-year forecast that moves five per cent in twelve months is a weak foundation for a permanent line on a map. It is an even weaker foundation for a land price.
| THE ULG VIEW The order is a floor, not a map. It says how much land, not which land — and the answer to “which” is being decided at hearings that run into 2027. Land that trades today on the assumption it is inside the line is being priced on a coin toss with the coin still in the air. Even for the winners, the uplift is staged, and each stage has its own timeline and its own risk: designation, then secondary plan, then servicing capacity, then draft plan approval. Being inside an expansion area is not the same as being serviceable this decade. Underwrite the stage the site is actually at, not the stage it will eventually reach. And note what the demand case rests on. The Tribunal is allocating land to 2051 against a projection that fell by more than fifty thousand people in twelve months. A forecast that unstable is a reason to hold land-price assumptions conservative, not a licence to pay for a 2051 number today. |
| A NOTE ON SOURCING The Tribunal’s written decision had not been posted publicly at the time the reporting relied on here was published. Hectare figures, hearing dates and the population base cited in coverage vary between outlets — the 1,600 ha minimum and the three land areas are consistent, the secondary-plan hearing dates are not. Confirm the decision text and the hearing schedule directly with the Ontario Land Tribunal before acting on any of it. |
What to watch. The secondary-plan hearings for White Church and Elfrida are the next decision points, and reported dates differ between outlets — verify with the Tribunal. Watch also for a judicial review application; the City has said the outcome is unwelcome, and Hamilton’s boundary has been litigated at every previous turn.
Sources
· City of Hamilton — “Hamilton’s Urban Boundary: A Timeline of Growth Management Policy Changes.” https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/2024-11/ube-hamilton-urban-boundary-history.pdf
· City of Hamilton — updated Ministry of Finance population projections to 2051, August 2025. https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/2025-08/comm-update-PED-ministry-finance-city-population-projections-until-2051-appendix-a-Aug2025.pdf
· City of Hamilton — White Church urban boundary expansion application record and OLT appeal. https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/2025-08/comm-update-PED-Elfrida-White-Church-UBE-Application-Appeal-Council-Refusal-appendix4-OLT-Aug2025.pdf
· Ontario Land Tribunal — decisions and hearing schedule. https://olt.gov.on.ca/
· The Public Record (Hamilton) — “Ontario Land Tribunal Orders Hamilton to Expand Urban Boundary by at Least 1,600 Hectares,” August 2026. https://thepublicrecord.ca/2026/08/ontario-land-tribunal-overturns-hamilton-urban-boundary-freeze/
· Connect CRE Canada — “Tribunal Orders Hamilton To Add 1,600 Hectares For Growth.” https://www.connectcre.ca/stories/tribunal-orders-hamilton-to-add-1600-hectares-for-growth/
· CBC Hamilton — reaction to the Tribunal decision. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/urban-boundary-expansion-hamilton-9.7311002
Charts by Urban Land Group from the sources above. General commentary on public policy; not legal, planning or investment advice.