When builders put up new homes in St. Thomas, the City can ask them to hand over land for parks, or to pay cash instead. A proposed new set of rules for how much they owe goes to a public meeting on Tuesday, October 13th.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. It is at City Hall, 545 Talbot Street, and the City’s notice says you can also join by Zoom or send written comments. The notice and both drafts are on the City’s Current Planning Applications page under File No. 3-04-26.
How it works now
Ontario’s Planning Act sets the basic amounts. When land is developed, a city can ask for up to 5% of it for parks. For commercial or industrial projects, the limit is 2%. A City staff report says St. Thomas has traditionally used those standard rates.
The new rules come in two parts: a Parkland Dedication By-law, and changes to the parks section of the City’s Official Plan, its main long-range planning document. Council received drafts of both with a staff report on September 14th.
What would change
The draft by-law keeps the 5% and 2% rates, but adds a second way to count, based on the number of new homes:
- one hectare of land for every 600 new homes, or
- when the City takes cash instead of land, the value of one hectare for every 1,000 new homes.
A hectare is about two and a half acres. When the City uses the new rate, the builder owes whichever amount is larger, the new rate or the standard one.
City staff say the new rates are becoming more important as housing in St. Thomas gets denser, with more infill projects possible in the future. They only help the City when a project is dense, which is why the City wants to be able to choose the standard rate or the new one, project by project.
However, the province caps the new rates. A builder cannot be asked for more than 10% of a site, or its value, if the site is 5 hectares or smaller. For bigger sites, the cap is 15%.
Land that may not count as a park
The draft by-law lets the City turn down land that is mostly wetlands, flood-prone or eroding land, stormwater ponds, utility corridors or contaminated soil. It can also refuse land that is too small or badly shaped or placed to work as a park. The City can still accept such land if it links up parks, trails or other public land and serves the public.
Some projects are exempt. A home rebuilt after a fire or another accident owes nothing, as long as it has no more homes and no more floor space than before. Additional residential units are exempt where provincial law bans a charge. Where the Planning Act requires it, affordable homes are left out of the count.
Where the cash would go
The draft Official Plan changes say cash paid instead of land should go toward buying new parkland, making existing parks bigger or building new ones. Priority should go to the areas creating the need, or to areas the City has flagged as parkland priorities. The changes also set a goal of at least 1.8 hectares of parkland for every 1,000 new residents between 2026 and 2051.
What council said in September
At the September 14th meeting, councillors asked about the cash option and whether a higher percentage was possible. Kevin McClure, the senior planner who wrote the report, told them the 2% and 5% split has always been available to the City through the Planning Act.
One councillor worried that if the City offers cash, builders “will just give you the money rather than to find the green space.” Another said “5% parkland dedication when everything’s denser is not enough.” A councillor also asked for firm numbers on cash payments, saying, “I’ve seen developers negotiate this in the past.”
McClure said the new rates are “going to become more important where we’re seeing these higher density types of developments where the land isn’t available.”
The parkland question is already live in one big project. As LocVox reported in September, the Railway Lands concepts with the most homes show under half the park their growth could require.
Sources: Report PD-57-26, Proposed Parkland Dedication By-law (September 14, 2026) · Draft St. Thomas Parkland Dedication By-law · Notice of Public Meeting, October 13, 2026
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
