At a council meeting last year, during the Bay Street East reconstruction fiasco, one resident shuffled up to the podium. No charts in hand, no binder full of stats—just a plainspoken observation. Looking council straight in the eye, he said: “In this town, we have a problem. We build first and plan later.” The words landed heavier than any engineering report and hung in the room long after they were uttered.
Why did the words linger? Because they rang true. In Craigleith, past councils let homes and condos spring up like mushrooms after the rain, without the parks, sidewalks, or shared spaces that make a place feel like more than just a subdivision. We’re still trying to patch that together after the fact. And last term, Council proposed the Campus of Care at 125 Peel Street: nine buildings, six of them five storeys high, dropped into Thornbury West without a proper plan for how that part of town should grow.
That project is now off the table, but Thornbury West remains a blank space on the map, literally labeled as a “Future Secondary Plan Area.” In plain English, it means: this is land we know we’ll grow into someday, but only after we’ve worked out the details. How the roads should flow. Where the green space should be. How the stormwater should drain. Where the kids will play and the traffic will go. And, just as importantly, how residents will have a real say in shaping it.
Because when planning is skipped, so is public input. The Campus of Care advanced with traffic studies no one could see, designs that didn’t match the character of the neighbourhood, and environmental concerns brushed aside. That’s the danger of building first and planning later: the community’s voice gets drowned out, and so do the very things—trees, charm, heritage—that make this a place worth building in the first place.
And yet, the soundbites keep circling: “growth is coming,” “you can’t stop development,” “change is necessary.” All true, perhaps. But missing is the one word that actually turns growth into community: planning.
Of course, whenever residents raise questions about scale, traffic, or community character, the familiar label gets tossed around: NIMBYism. It’s a handy word if the goal is to shut down debate. But wanting roads that work, trees that stand, and growth that feels like a community rather than a construction site isn’t “not in my backyard.” That’s just planning.
A secondary plan for Thornbury West won’t be quick, and it won’t be flashy. But it’s the step that ensures when change comes, it comes with a design, not as an accident. The Official Plan says we won’t need those lands until 2046. That gives us twenty years to plan first, and build later. Why would we settle for anything less?
If we truly believe growth is inevitable, why wouldn’t we insist on planning it properly? After all, towns aren’t built overnight, but mistakes can last forever.
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