Ontario’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

Ontario’s Places To Grow initiative is centered on a major city – Toronto – but the Greater Golden Horseshoe region encompasses more than one hundred municipalities and nearly 8 million residents. The program is distinctive among those discussed here because it exists within a system of governance in which provincial governments are expected to lead in carrying out their constitutional responsibility for land use planning. While the province delegates much of this authority to municipal governments by statute, planning is seen more as a partnership between provincial and municipal agencies than a prerogative of local government.

Pursuant to the province’s Places To Grow Act of 2005, the provincial government leads the regional planning initiative, producing a 25-year Growth Plan to which municipal regulations must conform. The plan institutes an array of rules and procedures to foster redevelopment, compact forms of new development, protection of extensive open spaces, and public and industry support for the plan.

Vital Statistics:

Chapter of the Book: 4

State: Ontario

Year Established: 2005

Geographic  Scale: 8.3 million acres

Mandatory or Voluntary over Local Government: Mandatory

Authorizing Laws: Provincial

Agencies and Organizations:

Places To Grow

Resources:

Places To Grow Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, Chapter 13

Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan Area map (pdf)

Context Map: Location of the Greater Golden Horseshoe within Ontario (pdf)