The Town of Innisfil Official Plan guides planning and zoning decisions for the Town over the next 20 years. All new development applications must follow these guidelines to be approved.

Our Place – Innisfil's Official Plan

We drafted our Official Plan with help from community input and external consultants, which is why we named it “Our Place”. Our Place is more than a land use planning document. It boosts placemaking, community character and social connections while managing growth and development in Innisfil.

Check out our Planning Dictionary and the following videos to learn more.

Our vision

Innisfil will grow and thrive based on the places at the heart of Innisfil – the places where we recreate, shop, eat, gather, interact and most of all build the social and emotional ties that hold the community together. We will manage and plan our growth in a responsible and deliberate way that provides sustainable and timely infrastructure while maintaining the sense of community, rural character, and small-town feel we value. We will be respectful of tradition but not bound by it, as we evolve into a vibrant, active, sustainable, and multicultural community that offers intriguing and unique places and engaging activities.

Our goals

Innisfil's Community Strategic Plan lays out a series of goals in three key areas: Connect, Grow and Sustain. These themes form the framework for Our Place. During consultation for Our Place, community input helped shape specific goals under each of these three areas.

Connect: Connecting our community

Our Place helps create more social spaces and improved access to them. Our Place aims to:

  • Improve mobility for all residents with active transportation connections within neighbourhoods and between communities
  • Celebrate Innisfil's arts, culture and heritage by preserving heritage resources and supporting creative industries
  • Strengthen digital connectivity by encouraging high speed internet service and community Wi-Fi
Watch our Connecting Our Community video

Grow: Keeping our small-town feel

Our Place preserves agricultural lands, limits residential growth to key areas, and keeps businesses local. Our Place aims to:

  • Encourage businesses that support farming and support investment in Innisfil Heights
  • Provide a range of housing choices, commercial services and employment opportunities
  • Phases growth with the supply of infrastructure and community facilities
Watch our Keeping Our Small-Town Feel video

Sustain: Protecting Innisfil's natural beauty

Our Place has policies to protect and enhance our shoreline and agricultural lands. Our Place aims to:

  • Enhance the vitality of the downtown in each settlement area
  • Protect Lake Simcoe and significant natural features while improving public access to the waterfront
  • Enhance existing parks and create new parks and open spaces
Watch our Protecting Innisfil's Natural Beauty video

Background and consultation

Preparing Our Place consisted of three phases:

Phase one

We first worked with external consultants and residents to identify what ideas and goals Our Place should focus on. We held a Community Visioning Day in March 2015 to let residents share what they think makes Innisfil great. We then prepared reports for different areas of focus in Our Place:

Place making and healthy communities

These reports focused on how Our Place can use placemaking to help create an active community:

Growth management

We created reports to address the rapid growth of our Town:

Natural environment

These reports discuss preserving our natural lands and managing environmental hazards:

Countryside

We drafted reports to address agricultural concerns:

Phase two

We took the information gathered in phase one and developed policy options, directions and recommendations to address the various issues. We released these drafts in December 2015 and discussed them with Town Staff, members of the Developers' Liaison Group and residents, producing the Stage Two Community Engagement Feedback Report.

Phase three

Finally, we drafted Our Place using the recommendations from our various consultations and reports.

Adoption and County approval

On January 17, 2018, we adopted Our Place with our Official Plan adoption By-law. On October 9, 2018, Council for the County of Simcoe approved Our Place, after it was approved by the County's Committee of the Whole on September 25, 2018. In the County of Simcoe's Notice of Decision, they placed three non-decisions on:

  • Section 23.1.16
  • Lands that were not designated Agricultural on Schedule B, but that were still identified as part of the provincial Agricultural System on Schedule BB
  • Certain lands surrounding the Settlement Area of Churchill, as identified on Schedule 5 to Item CCW-2018-482

On November 13, 2018, Our Place came into effect, with the exception of the lands and policies that were appealed. 

Town adoption documents

View the documents related to our Official Plan adoption.

County approval documents

View the documents, approvals and communications related to the Official Plan with the County of Simcoe.

Official Plan Amendments

See the following amendments to Innisfil's Official Plan as made by the County of Simcoe:

Appeals

We received seven appeals for Our Place, which are summarized in the chart below. These appeals were forwarded to the Local Planning and Appeal Tribunal (LPAT). A Case Management Conference was held on August 13, 2019 to make decisions on these appeals.

Appeals through the LPAT
AppellantNature of their appealResult
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (“MMAH”) The MMAH appealed all of Schedule B in so far as Schedule B conflicts with the provincial Agricultural System mapping, as well as policies 18.1.9 and 18.1.10. On May 1, 2020, MMAH withdrew their appeal over a large part of Schedule B
Innisfil Mapleview Developments Ltd. (“IMDL”) SW Corner of 25th Sideroad and Mapleview Drive IMDL appealed, on a site-specific basis, certain land use designations and overlays. This appeal has been resolved.
Sugar Meadows Inc. 1159-1265 Lockhart Road Sugar Meadows appealed, on a site-specific basis, certain land use designations. This appeal has been withdrawn.
2025890 Ontario Inc., Nextnine Ltd. and Middlefield Financial Services Ltd. 173, 201 and 225 Big Bay Point Road These 3 appellants appealed, on a site-specific basis, certain land use designations and overlays. Appeal dismissed by Ontario Land Tribunal.
DLR Holdings and 2524445 Ontario Inc.1194 and 1224 Belle Aire Beach Road These appellants appealed, on a site-specific basis, certain land use designations. Appeal dismissed by Ontario Land Tribunal.

On January 10, 2019, the County issued a Notice of Limiting Appeal Period. We then received six appeals of the County's non-decisions, which are summarized in the chart below. These appeals were not forwarded to the LPAT by the County. The County has since made a decision on the Non-Decision over Section 23.1.16 and acknowledged that the Non-Decisions over Schedule B and the Churchill Lands were not valid.

Non-decision appeals
Non-Decision AppellantNature of their appealResult
2367808 Ontario Inc. Section 23.1.16 of Our Place This appeal was withdrawn by the Appellant on April 29, 2020.
1602850 Ontario Inc. Section 23.1.16 of Our Place and Non-Decision over Schedule B This appeal was withdrawn by the Appellant.
IMDL Non-Decision over Schedule B This appeal has been resolved.
Pratt Non-Decision over Schedule B This appeal has been resolved.
Tophill Estates Non-Decision over Churchill Lands This appeal was withdrawn by the Appellant.
Margarita Stepanova Non-Decision over Churchill Lands This appeal was withdrawn by the Appellant.