Meadowvale Neighbourhood Character Study

As the population in Mississauga ages, the City is proactively planning for ageing in place. An age-friendly community is one that provides diverse housing options that can support a range of income and household types at all stages of life. The City’s Making Room for the Middle: A Housing Strategy aims to deliver a range of housing options, including seniors housing, across the City, with a focus on middle-income households.

Through the Meadowvale Neighbourhood Character Study, the City is also exploring how best to plan for a range of housing options through future redevelopment or infill development. Meadowvale has a good mix of existing dwelling unit types, including a diversity of ground-related units such as single-detached (e.g. bungalows), semi-detached and rowhouses, which will continue to be needed. In addition, new policies are proposed to facilitate the construction of affordable housing, including seniors housing, through future development.

When deciding on the boundaries for the Meadowvale Neighbourhood Character Study, careful consideration was given to the purpose of the review. The impetus for the Study included several recent development applications proposing intensification of existing high density (apartment) locations. These applications propose to intensify existing sites by adding apartment buildings either on green areas or surface parking lots, or demolishing medium density buildings or above grade parking structures to make way for additional apartments.  Therefore, the purpose of the study is to develop a policy framework that will guide future growth and compatible development for these types of proposals.  The locations which may have redevelopment potential include existing apartment sites, rental townhouses, retail sites and institutional locations, such as Places of Religious Assembly, which have an abundance of surrounding green area.

The lands west of Winston Churchill Blvd, including the Lisgar neighbourhood, have very few of these potential sites. The vast majority of Lisgar is low density residential including detached, semi-detached and townhouse development. The study area contains all of the area’s apartment sites and rental townhouses and the majority of retail and applicable institutional locations.

Thank you for your inquiry.  Yes there is a plan to maintain rental units, not only in Meadowvale, but on a city-wide basis. In October of 2017 the City approved a Housing Strategy for Mississauga titled Making Room for the Middle.  The Strategy’s goals and resulting action items are shaped by decisions and priorities of Council, one of which is to protect existing rental stock in Mississauga.  The Strategy notes that the “existing rental buildings are a valuable component of the city’s affordable housing stock.  Controlling the conversion of rental buildings to condominium ownership and the demolition of rental units without replacement helps protect this stock”.  Since the approval of the Strategy the City has developed a Rental Housing Protection By-law and Demolition Control By-law.  Both By-laws work to maintain the existing rental housing stock in Mississauga.  Additionally, the Strategy supports the development of new purpose building rental housing and upgrades to existing rental stock.  Should you wish to review the Strategy or By-laws they can be found here:   http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/residents/rental-housing-protection

The reference to "diverse options to support a range of income and household types" generally refers to policies which require or encourage various types of housing; from detached and semi-detached dwellings, to stacked and traditional townhouses, to various types of apartments such as high rise or second units in detached dwellings.  Mississauga also encourages various ownership options such as freehold, condominium, rental and cooperative.  The goal of encouraging these housing options is to enable all types of families, of various incomes, to be able to find housing which meets their unique circumstance and needs.

The goal of Meadowvale Neighbourhood Character Study is to develop a policy framework which will be used to evaluate future development applications when they are submitted to the City by private land owners.  This framework will include Official Plan policies and design guidelines aimed at guiding compatible development and recognizing Meadowvale’s unique characteristic.  The focus of the Character Study was on locations where redevelopment is most likely to occur.  These locations are referred to as “Soft Sites” or “Opportunity Sites”.  When you mention “existing buildings in the documentation” I am assuming that you are referring to these “Soft Sites” or “Opportunity Sites”.  These sites include both rental and condominium buildings and were selected based their potential for redevelopment. For example, townhouse developments under condominium ownership were not included as there is often little space available for infill around existing buildings, in addition, it is difficult to obtain permissions from Condominium Corporations for redevelopment.  Please note that the majority of these study sites will likely not see any change in the foreseeable future, they were selected to provide a framework for the study.