Elfrida Growth Area
Growing Out

NRU
Nov. 29, 2017
Dominik Matusik

Hamilton planners are gearing up for public consultation on the Elfrida growth area study—the next phase of the city’s greenfield development, projected to accommodate at least 25,000 people and jobs by 2031. 

Hamilton planning director Steve Robichaud told NRU that staff must work to ensure that Elfrida’s growth is compatible with the rest of the city. 

“This could be one of the city’s last greenfield communities,” he says. “And one of the challenges is not only how this community gets planned, but also how this community gets planned to fit in and integrate with the balance of the city. You have the Heritage Green neighbourhood, which is the old Stoney Creek area, and then we have the Northwest Glanbrook lands, which abut [Elfrida]. So [it’s about] tying this community into the existing communities as opposed to this being a physically isolated and completely distinct community. That’s one of things we want to hear from the public, about how those pieces fit together.” 

City staff had been eyeing the Elfrida area for urban boundary expansion since 2006, but this was held up for a number of years by OMB appeals to the official plan. In 2014, council adopted a work plan that included a subwatershed study, which is still ongoing, and a secondary plan study. 

Robichaud says that while the lands have been projected to accommodate about 25,000 people and jobs, this is now being re-evaluated following the amendments to the provincial Growth Plan earlier this year. 

“[Elfrida] has got a long history,” he says. “We’ve been at this for 10+ years. This is taking that 2006 decision that ended up being translated into the official plan, which identified a future growth area, almost the way a regional official plan might function. Now we’re doing that local area secondary planning process tied in with the subwatershed study. And that’s the current exercise. We’re looking at growth to 2031 and also looking at a longer-term horizon out to 2041 because of the changes to Places to Grow. So it’s part of that land budgeting, employment land needs, commercial land needs [process]—those are the questions that are being asked. Both to 2031 and 2041.” 

Next month, staff is presenting three different development scenarios to the public and soliciting feedback. 

“In October, 2017, we took forward an existing conditions report that provided a broad assessment of the Elfrida study area and outlined a series of principles,” Robichaud says. “So the scenarios that are being presented at the workshop next week are really [to demonstrate] the different ways of applying those principles. They’re not asking, you have options A, B, or C to choose from. It’s more, when you start applying those principles, given different arrangements of land uses, what do they mean? And that will then help to inform the next step where we can start generating actual land use options and scenarios.” 

The city has scheduled a public information centre on the new Elfrida community for December 6.