Smart Growth on the Hyde Park Corridor
Build the infrastructure first. Then the houses.
How fast London grows is largely set in Toronto now, under the 2024 Provincial Planning Statement. The order we grow in, which roads, sewers, schools, and transit go in before which subdivision, is set at this council table. That is the part of the job I am running for.
Ward 7 is what happens when that order breaks down. Hyde Park Road was widened twice at a combined cost of around $40 million, intersections along the corridor are already projected to hit capacity, and Sunningdale Road West needs widening again. Council just voted to bring 1,476 hectares of new land inside the urban growth boundary, much of it in the northwest. Water, sewers, schools, parks, and transit all get asked to catch up after the houses are built.
At the August 2025 Sunningdale funding announcement, Mayor Josh Morgan said it plainly: “It would be great if we could build out all the infrastructure first, all across the city, but it would be a very expensive way to do things because we don’t actually have the tax revenue to sustain it yet.” That is an honest diagnosis. It is not a plan.
Other cities do this differently. Pickering’s Seaton community has been building since 2015 under agreements that require developers to pre-fund trunk infrastructure as a condition of phased land release. Markham’s Cornell has used a similar gated-release model since the 1990s. Neither city is widening the same arterial twice in five years to chase growth that already arrived. London needs a growth plan that handles infrastructure proactively, not one that sends the bill to taxpayers after the fact.
An infrastructure readiness test for major development applications.
When significant new density is proposed on the Hyde Park or Sunningdale corridors, staff should publicly confirm that water, sewer, transit, school, and road capacity is aligned with the build-out, or identify which funded upgrades will be in place before occupancy. The goal is to keep growth and the systems that support it on the same timeline, which serves the city, the residents already there, and the developer building the next phase.A growth-phasing plan tied to the urban growth boundary expansion.
The 1,476 hectares should be sequenced. Released in defined phases as servicing capacity is built, not opened all at once.By-right zoning for medium density along corridors where infrastructure is in place.
London has cut residential approval times to 4.6 months on average and ranks third nationally in the CHBA 2024 benchmarking study, with the lowest development fees in Ontario. The same logic should apply to medium-density housing along Hyde Park, Sunningdale, and Wonderland corridors where water, sewer, and transit capacity has actually been built. Builders get certainty, residents get housing supply, and City staff focus on the applications that actually need scrutiny.Protect what makes Ward 7 livable.
Smart density along the Hyde Park commercial corridor and at major nodes, not reactive infill that erodes the character of established neighbourhoods like Sherwood Forest, Oakridge, and Aldersbrook.A real Ward 7 voice in the Official Plan and zoning updates.
Annual public planning meetings in the ward, not just notice-of-application postcards.Protecting the streets behind the corridor.
Growth on the arterials shouldn't mean speeding on the side streets. The Hyde Park Road and Sunningdale widenings add capacity the Northwest needs. But more arterial capacity and more growth also push more traffic, and more speed, onto the residential streets in between. Smart growth means calming those streets at the same time we widen the arterials, with low-cost seasonal measures that slow traffic and still clear for the plow.