Written By Jan Sims
MIDDLESEX CENTRE - Significant planning changes are in the works, impacting the way housing looks in Middlesex Centre. At its January 28th meeting, Middlesex Centre council paved the way for a bylaw that’s designed to allow for more flexibility in adding to the housing stock in the years ahead.
“The intent of this is to support more dense development. Our community has very much been dominated by single family homes,” said Planning Manager Stephanie Bergman. “Everything in the discussion on housing affordability says we need to move away from that,” added Bergman.
The changes come in tandem with money flowing from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund. Middlesex Centre was granted just over $1 million in 2025, with the remainder adding up to a total of $4.24 million over a four-year period.
In working towards meeting the requirements for continued funding in those four years, Middlesex Centre is required to satisfy several key initiatives. That includes reducing regulatory burdens and amending zoning bylaws. To that end, measures like reducing side yard setbacks from 1.5 meters to .75 meters have been proposed, in keeping with a push towards making it easier to put additional structures like garden suites on a property.
The changes also re-define housing types. “Instead of having a ton of definitions for stacked town(houses), back-to-back town(houses), triplexes - we’ve streamlined that into a multi-unit development,” said Bergman.
Key changes also relate to parking. Currently townhouse developments are required to have 1.5 spaces per unit. That’s been increased to 2 spaces per unit. The changes also impact visitor parking for multi-unit developments. “Anything that has five units or more will be subject to parking requirements,” said Bergman.
There will be some adjustments to the bylaw before it returns to council for the final stage of approval. Some of these could relate to parking. Deputy Mayor, John Brennan, expressed concern about allowing parking on both sides of a street. “If you have parking on both sides of the street, you run into concerns that emergency vehicles can’t get down those streets,” said Brennan.
“This does represent one of the last commitments we have to make,” replied Bergman. “This is one of the last steps,” added Bergman.
“Is the heavy lifting on the bureaucratic part done now. And we’ve got to start building now?” asked Ward 5 councillor Frank Berze. “This does represent one of the last commitments we have to make,” said Bergman. “This is one of the last steps,” added Bergman.
