2026: The year we plan for Kingston’s future

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