FAQs

An Official Plan is a document that shapes the way our city grows and changes and is particularly impactful at the neighbourhood level. Provincial law, specifically the Planning Act, sets out what an Official Plan can do. That includes:   

• guiding growth and change mostly related to how land and buildings are used; 
• guiding decisions on land use, development, transportation, physical and community infrastructure;  
• translating the City’s vision, established through the Strategic Plan, into future uses of land; and
• providing direction for implementing tools like the zoning by-law.

Kitchener’s Official Plan (2014) is now 10 years old and due for an update. Provincial legislation (i.e., the Planning Act) requires that Official Plans be updated every 10 years or sooner. This is to ensure conformity with provincial plans, policies, and legislation.

Kitchener is growing fast and facing city-building challenges like:

• the housing crisis
• pedestrian and cyclist fatalities and injuries
• inequity
• climate change
• social isolation 
• how to pay for aging infrastructure and growing city services

We are also presented with opportunities like:

• a growing desire for urban connection
• new mobility technologies
• a young and highly skilled workforce
• strong neighbourhoods and communities
• a rich and diverse culture

Kitchener 2051 presents an opportunity to tackle these head-on, and ready us for an uncertain future. The new Official Plan should reflect who we are, what we value, and the Kitchener we can become – a thriving city that offers well-being, potential and quality of life, for everyone.

The City’s Official Plan must align with the Regional Official Plan (ROP). An update to the Regional Official Plan (ROPA 6) was approved in May 2024 following lots of technical review and community conversations. It plans for 923,000 people in Waterloo Region by 2051 - 409,200 of whom are planned to live in Kitchener. Key ROP policies which Kitchener’s Official Plan needs to align with include:  

• revised forecasts for how many residents and jobs there will be in 2051
• targets for the number of residents and jobs planned for new development areas
• beginning to plan for the Ottawa Street Regional Intensification Corridor
• policies that protect industrial and business parks as places for good jobs in the long-term
• planning for a wide range of housing types and stronger permissions for missing middle housing city-wide
• minimum target of 30% of new units which must be affordable to low- and moderate-income households
• continuing to plan for complete and walkable neighbourhoods
• drinking water source protection policies