Official Plan and Integrated Mobility Plan

You’re invited to join us for an upcoming drop-in public open house on the Integrated Mobility Plan - the new long-term transportation plan for Kingston. This plan is being developed as part of the YG220K initiative and complements the Official Plan. While the Official Plan of focuses on land use, the Integrated Mobility Plan focuses on transportation – how people and goods move throughout the city.

Date: Monday, May 11, 2026

Location: Central Library (in Meeting Room 1)

Time: Drop-in anytime between 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Come share your thoughts on the draft transportation networks for the Integrated Mobility Plan. The draft networks illustrate how Kingston’s streets could function in the future, including corridors for frequent and reliable transit, facilities that support comfortable walking, rolling, and cycling, and key supporting policies that guide how the system works together.

Drop-in to explore interactive displays, speak with the project team, and share your feedback. Your input will help inform key transportation inputs to the draft Official Plan, as well as the next stages of the Integrated Mobility Plan as the networks are refined and implementation planning advances.

Materials will also be made available online next week for review and comment. Please stay tuned for updates.

What we heard

We have published the engagement summary highlighting input received during fall 2025 and early 2026 across a range of engagement activities. This includes an overall engagement summary report, as well as a separate summary of the virtual open house survey results.

Thanks for your ongoing interest and participation.

- Integrated Mobility Plan and YG220K Project Team

The Official Plan will guide the City of Kingston’s growth over the next 25 years. We want to hear from you at every stage of the project so the plan reflects local experiences and needs.

The City of Kingston is confirming a new date for the previously postponed virtual open house. Residents are invited to attend the event from 6 – 8 p.m. on Monday, April 27, to learn more about the second draft of the new Official Plan, ask questions and share feedback.

The virtual open house is an opportunity to hear directly from the project team and learn how the second draft builds on community input received to date. The Official Plan is the City’s long-term policy document that strategically guides land use over the next 25 years, helping to ensure the city remains livable, equitable and prosperous as it grows.

Advance registration for the virtual open house is required, and the meeting will be recorded and made available online following the event. You can register online via Zoom.

To support continued public participation, the deadline for submitting comments on the second draft of the Official Plan has been extended from April 21 to May 3.

Learn more and share your feedback on the Official Plan at GetInvolved.CityofKingston.ca.

The City has released the draft Natural Heritage Study (NHS) together with the Second Draft of the new Official Plan (OP) for public review and comment. These materials will help guide how the community grows and changes to 2051, including decisions related to housing, infrastructure, mobility, climate resilience, and protection of natural areas.

The Second Draft of the OP reflects what the City heard during the first consultation phase, responding to more than 900 public comments received on the First Draft. Supporting materials are being released alongside the Second Draft to help residents review and understand the changes, including the draft mapping, a document showing changes between the First and Second Drafts, and a feedback and response summary showing how input has been considered.

“This is a working draft, and community feedback is a critical part of strengthening it,” said Laura Flaherty, Project Manager, Planning Services. “We appreciate the time residents spent reviewing the First Draft and we look forward to hearing where we still need to refine policies as we start working on a third draft.”

Kingston is projected to grow to as many as 220,000 people by 2051 based on 2023 projections that were reviewed and confirmed in early 2026.

Land needs assessment studies prepared by Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. have shown that the City does not have sufficient land within the existing urban boundary to accommodate the projected population and employment growth. The Second Draft includes a proposed expanded urban boundary to align with the land needs assessment, as part of long-term planning to ensure sufficient land is available to accommodate projected growth to 2051, as required by the Provincial policy.

The City recognizes that urban boundary decisions are significant and that residents will have important views on where growth should occur and how it should be phased. The Second Draft includes draft policies associated with the urban boundary expansion applications the City has received where these applications are supported by staff. These draft policies are intended to provide clarity on expectations and to establish a structured framework for how proposed expansion areas would be planned, evaluated, and sequenced. The draft policies give Council the ability to invest in infrastructure for expansion areas only when it makes sense and it gives the community a direct opportunity to comment on both the geography and the rules that would guide decision-making.

At the same time, the City has published the draft Natural Heritage Study to support informed discussion about how natural features and systems should be identified, mapped, protected and enhanced over the long term. Importantly, the draft NHS presents a number of considerations the City may choose from to guide its approach to protecting and enhancing the natural heritage system.

The draft NHS options have not yet been considered in the context of the Official Plan’s broader growth priorities and guiding principles. That broader evaluation including considering how environmental protection integrates with long-term housing needs, complete communities, infrastructure sequencing, and other growth objectives will be part of the next stage of work. The final direction will be shaped through further review of the considerations included in the draft NHS in the context of the broader municipal and provincial priorities, and public input.

The Second Draft of the OP includes some natural heritage policy direction, informed by work underway through the draft NHS. However, the City expects that additional refinements may be made in the Third Draft, as staff continue to review the study data, policy options and public comments in the context of other requirements of the Official Plan. Both documents are being released at the same time, so the public can review them together, understand how the draft NHS has informed draft policy, and provide feedback.

Residents are encouraged to review the Second Draft of the new Official Plan and the draft Natural Heritage Study and share feedback before the consultation period ends on April 21. Feedback can be submitted online through those project pages, or by email to newofficialplan@cityofkingston.ca. Submissions received during this consultation period will help inform the final Natural Heritage Study and the Third Draft of the new Official Plan.

To participate in the consultation, and to sign up for future project updates or learn more visit Get Involved Kingston.

By the end of the year, the Official Plan and Water and Wastewater Master Plan will reach several major milestones that together will shape how the city grows and how people and goods move through it for decades to come.

The new Official Plan and the Water and Wastewater Master Plans are both scheduled for completion this year, alongside key supporting work such as the Natural Heritage Study and Forest Management Strategy. The Integrated Mobility Plan is advancing in parallel and will deliver its core policy and network recommendations in 2026 to directly support Official Plan decisions, with final plan completion anticipated in early 2027.

With these milestones on the horizon, 2026 will be a busy and important year for the YG220K project and for Kingston as a whole.

For a detailed breakdown and update on all of these projects and how they align, you can read the report that went to the City Council meeting earlier this week. Key highlights are summarized below.

Official Plan

A second draft of the Official Plan is expected in early March. Once again, the community will have a chance to provide thoughts and contribute feedback. This second draft will reflect recommendations from the Natural Heritage Study and will include revisions in response to public feedback on the First Draft. A public meeting is also tentatively planned for March 31. Once that is confirmed, we will share an update with details on how to participate.

A final draft is expected in mid to late May. That will be followed by a statutory public meeting tentatively planned for June 18. The final draft is expected to go before City Council for final consideration on June 30 at a special council meeting.

Integrated Mobility Plan

The Integrated Mobility Plan is being developed alongside the Official Plan to ensure land use and transportation planning are fully aligned.

Engagement in fall 2025 focused on understanding transportation challenges and priorities across Kingston. Including safety, congestion, access, short local trips, transit competitiveness, and goods movement, as well as emerging policy tools like Complete Streets, street typologies, multimodal level of service, curbside management, and preliminary mode share targets.

This work, together with technical analysis, is now informing the evaluation of different approaches to meeting Kingston’s long-term mobility needs. Draft transportation network and policy recommendations that directly support the Official Plan are expected in spring 2026, with the full Integrated Mobility Plan anticipated in early 2027.

Water and Wastewater Master Plan

Utilities Kingston is leading this work, which will ensure critical services like water and wastewater are able to support the City’s growth to supply water and prevent pollution. This project is coordinating closely with the Official Plan

Natural Heritage Study

A second round of consultation on the Natural Heritage Study will occur at the same time as consultation on the second draft of the Official Plan. The Natural Heritage Study consultation will include revised mapping and policy recommendations for implementation. The second draft of the Official Plan will contain draft policies to reflect the policy recommendations of the Natural Heritage Study. Community members will be invited to provide feedback online and to take part in a virtual open house. Look for more details to be shared soon regarding this.

Growth Forecast

In 2023, Watson and Associates Economists Ltd., experts in economics and planning, prepared a growth forecast for the City, which concluded that the City could grow to 220,000 people by 2051. The assumptions and trends identified there have helped direct the goals of the YG220K planning process so far.

However, since that forecast was completed, there have been changes in provincial and federal policies as well as shifts in international relations. Community members have raised questions about whether the growth forecast still holds. As a result, we asked Watson to review recent changes and let us know if their conclusions needed to be re-examined.

The full memo is available in the Council report. The summary finding is that, short-term fluctuations are expected. In the long term though, over 25 years, the trends are anticipated to remain the same. That means the growth assumptions won’t be revisited, but the City will continue to monitor how actual growth tracks to projected growth.

What’s next?

The Natural Heritage Study and Official Plan second draft will be the next major milestones. As we progress towards them, we will keep you informed. For specifics on the Natural Heritage Study, please sign up for updates on the project's Get Involved page.

Thanks for reading, we’re looking forward to an exciting year ahead!

- YG220K Project Team

We’re following up on some events from earlier this month.

Two open house public information centres were held, including one in person on Nov. 12 and one online on Nov. 17. Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to one or both of those events; we shared a lot of information and received a lot of great feedback.

If you weren’t able to make it out, don’t worry, the materials from both those events are now available, including PDF copies of the display boards from the in-person event and PDF copies of the slides from the online one.

We have also made the materials available in an interactive slideshow, which you can review at your own pace while sharing your thoughts throughout. This slide show will be open for responses until Jan. 4, 2026.

If you require an alternate format or have questions, please email MobilityPlan@CityofKingston.ca or call 613-546-0000. Project details including all of the materials shared in this email are available on the YG220K project website.

Thank you for your ongoing interest and participation!

An Open House and Public Information Centre was held on Oct. 22 to present information, answer questions and collect feedback on the new Official Plan and the new Water & Wastewater Master Plans and Pollution Prevention & Control Plan projects. This session will also included updates on the Integrated Mobility Plan, ahead of a dedicated Public Information Centre in November.

Take a short survey on distinct places, closes Nov. 28.

View the zine produced for open house, which is an easy to read summary the Official Plan's current status and state.

Today the City of Kingston published the first draft of a new Official Plan for public review. It’s available to read now, and community members can submit feedback and comments until the end of November.

“This is the most important planning policy document a City can have. It will become the City’s rule book guiding all future development decisions and has the power to transform how the city grows” said Laura Flaherty, Project Manager with Planning Services. “The plan needs to reflect how the community wants to grow and create the policies to support that vision.”

A City must have an Official Plan under Provincial law.

“This first draft of Kingston’s new Official Plan is more than a policy document. It is a reflection of our shared values and long-term vision. Public feedback is essential to ensure this Plan is truly made in Kingston, by Kingstonians, for Kingstonians, past, present, and future” said Paige Agnew, the Commissioner of Growth and Development Services. “By reviewing and responding to this working draft, community members are helping to shape how Kingston will grow and evolve until 2051. We’re not just asking for input, we’re building a dialogue that will inform the policies guiding everything from housing and infrastructure to the environment, heritage and transportation.”

Official Plans are long-range planning documents. The last time the City of Kingston wrote a new Official Plan was 2010. Back then lower Princess Street was being rebuilt, the Isabel Bader Performing Arts Centre had just been constructed, and the Olympic Torch passed through town on its way to Vancouver. Since then, much has changed including that Official Plan, through amendments and a review, as have the needs of the community.

We now find ourselves faced with intersecting challenges including housing, climate, and affordability crises that the current Official Plan does not adequately address. New growth estimates and analysis show that Kingston is expected to grow to as many as 220,000 people by 2051. Creating a new Official Plan is our most powerful tool to address these big issues head-on and we’ve taken an unprecedented approach to coordinate the timing of this project with our new Integrated Mobility Plan project and the Water and Wastewater Master Plan, which will better position us to achieve all of our strategic priorities through well-coordinated land use policies and transportation and infrastructure planning.

This Official Plan will support housing growth, new employment and commercial opportunities, protect the natural environment and ecosystems, help us mitigate and adapt to climate change, and ensure that municipal services and infrastructure can support the growing community.

“Once built, urban landscapes are slow to change and leave a lasting legacy for many generations” said Flaherty. “This plan is not just for residents of today; it is our biggest chance to make sure Kingston grows into a livable city for future generations.”

By their nature Official Plans are often complex, legal documents. This draft tries to make it easier to understand by simplifying how polices are described, defining them first then connecting them to maps. As much as possible plain language has been used to make it easier to read. The introduction section provides critical and helpful information to understand the rest of the plan.

“This is a new kind of process that is centred around consultation through draft documents. We’re sharing our ideas as a working draft so that everyone can see how policies are interconnected, how priorities interact and align with mapping, and help us refine them. Every piece of feedback helps us connect the dots between planning policy, the community’s vision and our most important strategic objectives as a city” said Sukriti Agarwal, Manager of Policy Planning. “We’ve tried to make this draft more accessible, shorter, easier to read, and supported by interactive maps. But to create the best possible final document, we need people to read, challenge and contribute to this first working draft.”

Public Engagement

Since last summer the City has engaged on the Official Plan and it’s supporting studies. With the launch of this first draft we would like to hear from you. Between now the end of November the draft will be open for comment on Get Involved Kingston we welcome your feedback and comments on the content of the plan and the writing of the plan itself.

We will also be hosting public engagement opportunities in the fall. Details are being finalized and will be announced once confirmed.

Once this stage of public engagement is completed, the feedback will be compiled and a second draft will be written. The second draft will be released early next year and will incorporate what we heard during community consultation on the first draft, as well as, what we will learn from yet-to-be completed technical reports like the Natural Heritage Study and the Forest Management Strategy.

About YG220K

The Official Plan is part of the City’s long term planning work currently underway called YG220K. The name references the city's airport code and regional identifier, YGK, and 220K, short for 220,000, which is the population Kingston is expected to hit by 2051.

YG220K encompasses not only the Official Plan, but also the Integrated Mobility Plan, which will guide how the City’s transportation system will develop into the future.

While separate plans, the Official Plan and Integrated Mobility Plan are being completed concurrently because together they will shape how the City grows and moves over the next 25 years. To learn more visit the project webpage and subscribe for updates.