Planning for the Future of our Strategic Growth Areas

UPDATE: The City is launching a process to develop a city-wide Community Planning Permit System (CPPS), building on the technical work and engagement done to date in planning for the future of our Strategic Growth Areas. Visit the CPPS Engagement page for more information and complete the online survey.

Explore our interactive Storymap! Learn more about how we are planning for growth in Peterborough and the choices we need to make, view maps, and get immersed in example 3D concepts to visualize opportunities to grow in our Strategic Growth Areas.

The City of Peterborough is developing a Secondary Plan and Community Planning Permit System for the City’s Strategic Growth Areas, as identified in the City’s New Official Plan as shown in Figure 1. The City of Peterborough has identified seven (7) key Strategic Growth Areas that will be the focus of the Secondary Plan, which are:

1. Downtown/Central Area
2. Water Street (North) Corridor
3. Chemong Road Corridor
4. Clonsilla Avenue & Charlotte Street Corridor
5. Lansdowne Street West Corridor
6. Armour Road (North) Corridor
7. Lansdowne Street East Corridor

The Strategic Growth Areas (as shown with a red outline in the figure below) were selected for this planning exercise as they are the focus for intensification over the coming years. These are the areas where the City is investing in supporting more housing supply and will need to provide the infrastructure and community facilities to support more people living, working and playing in these neighbourhoods.

Figure 1: Strategic Growth Areas in Peterborough

The Secondary Plan will update the Official Plan policies for the City’s Strategic Growth Areas and will be implemented using a new tool for the City, through a new Community Planning Permit By-law (CPP By-law). The Secondary Plan will establish the long‐term vision, built form, permissions, and priorities for growth. This will provide the foundation needed to implement the vision by establishing development thresholds, criteria, community benefits and conditions that will be implemented through a CPP By‐law. With the two planning tools coming forward together, the City will be able to achieve optimal results ‐ good planning with accelerated implementation and approvals. This project is in support of the overall Official Plan vision and supports the key goals of increasing housing supply and supporting greater connectivity and neighborhood level planning in these strategic areas.

Community Engagement

The CPP By-law is intended to facilitate a positive change in how development approvals are processed in the Strategic Growth Areas, so it is important that the community understands what is changing and has an opportunity to share feedback through this process before the By-law is finalized and implemented. The planned engagement approach is built around five main themes of the project with seven rounds of engagement, each with unique objectives as outlined in Figure 2 and in the Project Timelines section of this page. The engagement stages will directly inform the development of the following key deliverables of the project, which include:

1. A Secondary Plan for the Strategic Growth Areas;
2. Community Planning Permit By-Law; and,
3. Implementation support, including training materials and training for City Staff and developers.

Figure 2: Engagement Process

Community Engagement Opportunities

Link to online survey

The City of Peterborough invites community members to help shape the priorities and related development control measures of the draft Community Planning Permit System through a public survey.

Survey participants will have an opportunity to identify which aspects of development are important to them when it comes to managing low-rise and medium-rise residential development within neighbourhoods and high-rise residential and mixed-use development within the Strategic Growth Areas, such as the City’s downtown, Lansdowne Street corridor and Chemong Road corridor.

Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Time: Drop-in anytime between 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Location: Quaker Foods City Square, 215 Charlotte Street

Drop by our booth at the Farmer's Market to discuss the city-wide Community Planning Permit System (CPPS) project. Residents and other interested parties are invited to drop-in at any time from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM to learn more about the project, ask questions and provide feedback to the project team. Tablets will be available to complete the new online survey.