Mississauga land use policy revisions - malls reimagined

NRU
March 7, 2018
By Dominik Matusik

In response to changing retail market and land use patterns, planners in the City of Mississauga are undertaking a revised planning framework to guide the longterm development of five existing shopping centres.

Reimagining the Mall is a city initiative focused on five medium-sized shopping malls, designated either a "Community Node" or a "Major Node" in Mississauga's official plan. They are Rockwood Mall, Erin Mills Town Centre, Meadowvale Town Centre, Sheridan Centre, and South Common Centre.

City of Mississauga planner Jordan Lee told NRU that, increasingly, mall owners are redeveloping their lands for residential uses to insulate themselves from the effects of online retailing that result in fewer customers shopping on site.

"Shopping malls in the Greater Toronto area and Canada are evolving with changing demographics and online retailing," he says. "These trends in retail triggered us to look at this. There's a real opportunity with these malls."

Gladki Planning Associates senior planner Andrew Davidge, whose firm was retained by the City of Mississauga along with consultants DTAH and UrbanMetrics, told NRU that the project is unique in its focus on a type of area – namely shopping malls -- instead of one particular geographic area.

"Rather than focusing on one area, we're focusing on a number of areas that share common characteristics," he says. "We're looking at a land use and built form that is particular in terms of these local shopping centres and regional shopping centre [in the case of] Erin Mills—and coming up with a broad framework for how those areas might evolve over time into healthier mixed-use communities.

So it's looking at one type of environment in Mississauga and identifying all those types and thinking about how they might evolve in a comprehensive way, rather than taking one area at a time."

He adds that the goal of the study is not to create a prescriptive planning framework, but rather to establish guidelines and principles.

"We're looking at a planning horizon of twenty years," he says. "And we don't want to be overtly prescriptive. We want to establish principles of things that we want to achieve… There's so many things in the works here that we don't quite know when they're going to play out or how they're going to play out. Retail is changing but it may change in ways that are different from the way we envisage them today. We want to make sure that the framework we create is good for today but also the future."

Mississauga manager of planning strategies Angela Dietrich told NRU that the five malls identified in the proposed planning framework are all aging and the geographic areas in which they are located have the potential to accommodate more density than is permitted as-of-right.

"These are all malls that have been around for a few decades," she says. "They're all evolving and changing and they'll all eventually redevelop. We want to make sure they'll all redevelop in a way that supports healthy, complete communities."

She adds that priorities for these areas include creating a pedestrian-friendly environment, affordable housing, density, and a better mix of uses. She agrees with Davidge that the guidelines should not be too prescriptive, lest they stifle the landowners' creativity.

Public consultation sessions will be held for all five areas throughout March and April following which a proposed official plan amendment will be brought before council.