Sixteen storeys at Georgetown GO. Does Halton Hills stay a small town?

Halton Hills is Georgetown and Acton and the farmland and escarpment between them: about 65,000 people at the top corner of the region, on a GO line, off the 401, and about to be crossed by a new highway.

The town is planning for all three. Around Georgetown GO and the Mill Street corridor it is establishing a protected major transit station area with nine land-use designations, the greatest heights and densities concentrated just north and northeast of the station, and a maximum of sixteen storeys. South of town the Premier Gateway employment lands are being zoned in phases. The Phase 2B zoning bylaw went to a public meeting in June, and council has approved a deal to fund the next phase, while the eastern part of Phase 3 waits to learn how much land the 413 will take. The Vision Georgetown secondary plan for the town’s southwest was settled at the tribunal last year.

Every small town at the edge of this region gets this decade eventually. Halton Hills is getting it now, and the question is whether sixteen storeys is where it stops.

Sources: Halton Hills Today, funding the next phase of Premier Gateway · Metroland, details on the Georgetown GO and Premier Gateway proposals · Let’s Talk Halton Hills, Premier Gateway Phase 2B