Dense new hubs of high-rise development will help Oakville grow its prosperity by attracting talented young employees to the community, says Mayor Rob Burton.
Midtown – the 100-hectare area around the Oakville GO Station where the town plans to house 20,000 new residents and jobs over the coming decades – will draw an educated labour force vital to Oakville’s growing telematics and data tech industries.
Young people will be attracted to the high-rise tower lifestyle and the easy opportunity to “jet into Toronto,” said the mayor during a question-and-answer session that followed a breakfast economic update he provided to the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
“That’s why Midtown is not going to have single-family homes; it’s going to have towers,” he said. “And the more of them there are, the more of those very talented people we will have here.”
He added that incoming growth would bring prosperity and other benefits to Oakville.
New residents will help expand the customer base for local businesses, while growth hubs like Midtown will offer all residents “a new and exciting and wonderful place to go.”
Plus, Burton said, focusing Oakville’s growth into high-density nodes and corridors will benefit the town’s existing neighbourhoods.
“If you want the zoning in your neighbourhood and on your street to stay the way it is, then we need to use our power to direct growth to these growth nodes like Midtown and these corridors,” he said.
Mayor’s biggest worry: provincial housing push
While growth offers potential new prosperity, Burton said he is concerned with the promise from Ontario’s new Ford government to build 1.5 million new houses across the province over the coming decade.
Oakville and Halton began planning for the next decade back in 2009, he said, noting that infrastructure has been built to scale.
“To double the number of houses that are built over the next ten years is going to be a fundamental challenge to the infrastructure.”
Burton also pointed to supply chain and labour shortage issues already impacting home construction.
And he reiterated the claim that municipalities have approved more than 250,000 as of yet unbuilt housing units across the province.
“Developers, like diamond merchants, have to keep their prices up, so they leak supply into the market in ways that benefit their businesses,” he said.
‘Economic growth still strong’
The mayor told the audience of about 150 that Oakville’s business community kept moving forward through the pandemic and created 1,000 new jobs in 2021.
“Our economic growth is still strong,” he said, noting that demand for industrial space in Oakville is outpacing supply.
His wide-ranging, pre-election style speech lauded the work the town has done to build strong financial reserves, help Oakville businesses go digital and work with other levels of government.
Oakville survived the pandemic “better than anyone I can think of,” he said.
Burton's full speech can be read here. His address and the subsequent Q&A with the former chamber of commerce chair Tim Caddigan will be broadcast on Cogeco.