By Eric Stern
January 11th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
This latest tower on the lake will contain 154 hotel rooms and 50 rental units. The area is zoned for hotel rooms, and there is a shortage of rental units. With lake views, monthly rents will be sky high, but new high-end homes increase the housing supply. As people move into these new homes, their current homes become available. After many iterations, some affordable housing may emerge.
Parking in the downtown core is already a challenge. By approving this building with just 82 parking spots, council is adding to that challenge. The building will have two full-time valet parking attendants whisking cars to and from private parking spots in other areas of the downtown core.
A car-centric suburban city.
Burlington is a car-centric suburban city. As city staffers and our councillors work to change our habits, it remains true that people who live in single-family homes in spread-out communities depend on their cars. The city’s Integrated Mobility Plan states: “There are to be no new road widenings for the sole purpose of adding car capacity.” The mobility plan envisions the increased use of transit, bicycles, and other modes. Mother Nature is not cooperating; perhaps our council can write her a letter. This winter is cold and snowy enough to deter the most ardent cyclist. Adding a cluster of tall buildings, with insufficient parking, in the downtown core will only exacerbate existing traffic and parking problems.
Planning the perfect 15-minute city requires a blank slate. Transitioning a suburban city to a 15-minute city has been done, but not the way Burlington is approaching the problem. Pontevedra, Spain, started its journey in 1999. The downtown core was pedestrianized, and surface parking was replaced with underground parking or peripheral lots. This approach allows people outside the downtown core to easily drive into the downtown, park, and enjoy the restaurants and shopping.
Burlington’s approach appears to involve making the downtown core so congested that no one who lives outside the core will go anywhere near it.
What are some possible outcomes for Burlington as more and more high-rise buildings are constructed?
1 – The city will win, and drive times will increase to the point where it will be faster to ride a bike. Without subways or dedicated transit lanes, transit times will also increase. The end result may well be an unlivable city; some people will be lucky enough to have employment within walking distance, but it’s hard to imagine the majority of us will. Extrapolating from this scenario, housing prices decline as Burlington becomes less desirable.
2 – Technology will save the day. Brampton’s ARGO transit experiment (link to Joe’s article), car-sharing, robotaxis, or flying cars will save Burlington. Burlington’s consideration of starting or encouraging a car-sharing program was discussed at the January 6th council meeting.
Flying cars will still need parking spots.
Flying cars will still need parking spots.
3 – Environmental concerns are a major driver of the war on cars. Electric cars remove this concern. Roads are widened, and people stop buying condos without parking spots.
4 – Your guess is as good as mine.
If Burlington had rejected this proposal, the developer may have appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). In the case of 409 Brant St., the OLT approved the project with .74 spaces per unit. The developer included “mitigations” such as car-share stalls and additional bicycle parking.
At 2076 Old Lakeshore Rd., only 0.41 spaces per unit are being planned. Downtown is no longer designated as an MTSA. Should Burlington have risked spending $400,000 or more taking this project to the OLT? The unelected civil servants in the planning department unanimously approved the project, greatly reducing the city’s chances at the OLT. Before voting councillor Kearns remarked that the risk of approval at the OLT was too high to vote against the project. The planning department’s action raises the question: Does the city belong to the people who live here or to the people who work at City Hall?
Planning to meet some old friends for conversation? If you choose a downtown location, group members may have difficulty finding parking. Fortunately, we have many options, many with free parking, outside the downtown core.
Burlington has approximately $12 million set aside in a reserve fund to build a multi-level parking garage in the downtown core. The cost of a new parking garage is estimated at $50 million. As more and more buildings are constructed in the downtown core without adequate parking, downtown residents and businesses will suffer. Look out, taxpayers, the writing is on the wall; we’ll be ponying up millions to solve this problem.
Related news story:
A transit experiment Burlington should look at
Eric Stern is a Burlington resident and a co-founder of Focus Burlington. He knows the contents of the City Budget book better than many of the people at Finance
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great comments by Mr, Stern.
This is a familiar argument, one I’ve commented on before: that” Burlington has no recourse at the OMB/OLT”.
What continues to be ignored here is how often Council itself laid the groundwork for those losses long before any appeal was filed. The situation persists not because it’s accurate, but because it deflects attention from years of Council-approved exceptions, settlements, and variances that undermined the City’s own planning case.
Years of spot zoning, repeated height and density exceptions, and negotiated settlements approved at City Hall steadily weakened the City’s own Official Plan. Those decisions didn’t just invite appeals — they became the very precedents developers later relied on at the tribunal. By the time a case reached the OMB, Burlington was often left arguing against a planning record it had already compromised. Framing those outcomes as “inevitable” conveniently avoids accountability for the decisions that made them so.
Burlington doesn’t need to accept inevitability at the OMB/OLT; it needs to stop manufacturing it. Until Council takes responsibility for the planning decisions it approves — and the precedents it creates — appeals will continue to be lost, and the same excuses will continue to be recycled.
Calling these planning failures inevitable doesn’t make it true — it just makes it easier to repeat.
We should all be asking ourselves (and each other) ….. “why do we accept this and what are we going to do about it ?”
Oakville showed how you can fight back and keep your historic downtown and warterfront intact.
Caren
Based upon past OLT decisions staff recommended and council accepted. There was no possibility of winning at the the OLT. To contest the application would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and as said with likelihood of not winning. If you have been paying attention you will know the City has only won one case at the OLT and that only due to the intervention of the provincial minister.
Bearing in mind, all the land along the lakefront is privately owned. None is city-owned. You say “the waterfront should have been saved and maintained at all costs for the exclusive use of all Burlington residents and not for developers to build and move on!!”. How do think that was ever achievable? Did you want the city to purchase all that land at property taxpayers expense?
Graham
The administration has not ruined the downtown. The administration fought application at the OLT. The OLT comprised of Doug Ford political appointees Max Doug Ford’s developer friends at every turn. There’s an old saying you cannot fight City Hall. Well the same goes for the provincial government. Municipalities which only exist at the pleasure of the provincial government have no chance of fighting and winning against the provincial government policies.
Ted,
You suggest turfing out the entire city council when elections are held in the fall. Do you have any inside information on who might be running to contest the various wards?
No, I don’t hopefully though some serious qualified candidates step up.
Editor’s note: Good candidates don’t fall off the back of a truck. They have to be looked for and convinced that they will be supported both financially and with feet on the ground that can do the grinding door to door work.
I never implied that the COB should buy up any of these properties, but there were and are bylaws in place that mandates height restrictions, and parking restrictions etc. for all new developments in the downtown core and along the downtown waterfront.
None of these restrictions have been adhered to by the planning department or by council. Which in turn has set precedents for developers to act on and take advantage of.
i.e. the “2076 Old Lakeshore Road property” has a maximum height restriction of 15 stories set by the city and yet a height of 25 stories was approved!
Editor’s note: Official Plans and zoning bylaws are not cast in stone. They are frequently revised to meet new conditions and opportunities. The planners looked at the 2076 Old Lakeshore situation and came to the conclusion that it was good planning to permit a 23 story building. Most of the other buildings in the immediate area were the same height or even higher.
Progress calls for changes. The extension of the Waterfront Trail was a plus. It could well extend east to Port Nelson Park, which was once the location of a wharf that shipped lumber to the US.
” The building will have two full-time valet parking attendants whisking cars to and from private parking spots in other areas of the downtown core.”
I would like to know where these “private parking spots in other areas of the downtown core” are located? They can’t be located too far away from the hotel. Paying guests are not willing to wait long to get their cars. The car valets will need a skateboard to get quickly from one parking location to the hotel.
Am I the only one who thinks that this is absolutely ridiculous.
One would think that the council would like proof of where these will be located before permitting this development to go ahead. Or as some have said “it is a done deal”.
I often think that when it comes to council decisions it is the tail wagging the dog.
Has the role of the city council become irrelevant?
Editor’s note: If people are not prepared to come forward and serve – then, yes, Council become irrelevant.
An excellent analysis and write up by Mr. Stern and Caren is bang on.
We apparently at least lack some qualified City staff and have saddled ourselves with politicians whose only interest is in grabbing a little cash from the Feds under the pretense of creating more “affordable” housing and claiming a win!
This along with pushing their obsession with pushing bicycles and weaponized e-scooters in an arctic country.
What percentage of retirees can afford these units with valet parking?
How many die-hard cyclists do you see on the roads this winter?
Hopefully residents will seize the opportunity this year to completely turnover this Council.
This administration has ruined the Downtown.
More damage is inevitable due to increasing traffic from a congested QEW.One fender bender can cause chaos as frustrated drivers bail out to use our east/west roads to keep moving.
This issue was recognized by the provincial government in the 1980’s and plans were developed for the Mid-Peninsuler Highway .
The Burlington Council joined Halton Region to help kill this project.A huge price will now be paid .
I totally agree with this article.
And yes, the City of Burlington seems to be ruled by unelected City Staff on numerous projects and not by our Burlington City Council who are voted in to represent their residents best interests in everything they do.
It would be interesting to know how many of the city staff who work in planning and development at COB live in Burlington?
And why did city staff approve this development? Many questions remain unanswered on this one?
It appears that our Burlington council sold us out for a very small strip of land to be added to the waterfront trail that stops and ends on the east side of 2076 Old Lakeshore Road at Emmas Back Porch?
Our Burlington waterfront is ruined and continues to get worse! Once this prime waterfront land is deveoped its gone forever.
Very few cities have the luxury of living next to water; and the waterfront should have been saved and maintained at all costs for the exclusive use of all Burlington residents and not for developers to build and move on!!
It is now time, although very late in the game, for our mayor and council to fight back on any and all new or future applications on our Burlington Waterfront and Downtown Burlington..
Inadequate Parking in this building and others downtown plus traffic and congestion should be a huge Red Flag for Burlington City Council.