Consultant on Barrie’s boundary expansion proposal delivers stage three findings, which focus on specific location around Highway 400/11 split

The verdict is in.

One location within the Barrie boundary expansion proposal’s study area stands out for future employment area expansion: land along both sides of Highway 400, starting at the Highway 400/Highway 11 split and extending north toward Forbes Road. 

According to stage three’s initial findings in the joint land-needs analysis and study, prepared by Hemson Consulting and posted to Springwater Township’s website on Wednesday, the location could accommodate Barrie’s 300-hectare employment area land needs through to 2061, contribute to Simcoe County needs for its ‘northern regional market area,’ and address longer-term needs in Springwater. 

According to the stage three initial findings, key advantages of this area include:  


Direct access and visibility from a 400-series highway  
Topographically suitable for industrial development  
Potential for large, contiguous employment blocks  
Minimal land-use conflicts  
Good access to supply chains, markets and labour  
Ability to serve both rural and urban employment needs  
Proximity to the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport  
Limited environmental and existing infrastructure constraints. 

While report authors Stefan Krzeczunowicz, an associate partner at Hemson, and Walid Abi Akar, senior project manager with RV Anderson Associates, say the land was “strategically well located” to meet regional and provincial interests for employment land, “the main drawback of this area is that it represents a new employment area location, with no existing area urban infrastructure, and servicing feasibility requires further study.”

Hemson’s stage three findings have also refined the land needs that were identified in stage two.

Current estimates, according to Hemson, suggest Barrie needs about 500 developable hectares for ‘community area’ and at least 300 developable hectares for ’employment area’ — totalling approximately 800 hectares, which is slightly lower than the 930 hectares identified in Hemson’s report from December 2024.

“The 300-hectare employment area estimate reflects not only Barrie’s 2051 needs, which become constrained before 2051, but also its post-2051 growth,” the report says. “It does not address the broader employment land deficit identified in Simcoe County’s municipal comprehensive review or longer-term needs in Springwater.” 

Hemson developed three scenarios to accommodate the 500-hectare community area land need, but none of them on their own was sufficient to meet the need.

According to Hemson, if the growth were to occur in Midhurst, it would include all of the Midhurst Secondary Plan area and would deliver about 250 hectares. The report notes it would require expansion to the Midhurst Secondary Plan area or a land transfer to Barrie.

If the growth were to occur along the Barrie-Springwater boundary, it would deliver about 470 hectares. If the growth were to occur along the Barrie-Springwater boundary but the land on Bayfield Street North remains in Springwater, it would deliver about 390 hectares.

If growth were to occur on the Barrie-Oro-Medonte boundary, meanwhile, it would deliver about 450 hectares.

The report also looked at the existing water and wastewater treatment systems in Barrie, Springwater and Oro-Medonte. They were analyzed to assess current infrastructure, planned expansions, available capacity and projected future demands. 

Planned capacities were determined using information in the 2020 Midhurst Class Environmental Assessment (EA), communications with the City of Barrie regarding its ongoing water and wastewater master plan update, Barrie’s design criteria and Barrie’s 2019 infrastructure master plans. 

“Oro-Medonte’s infrastructure was excluded from the analysis, as it is located too far from the planned expansion areas to be considered a viable servicing option,” the report says. 

The available and planned capacities in Barrie and Springwater were evaluated against projected demands under each growth scenario. 


Scenario #1: The Midhurst servicing system is expected to have insufficient capacity, even with planned expansion under approved environmental assessments, to meet future water demands and wastewater flows. 
Scenario #2: The Barrie servicing system is expected to have sufficient capacity to meet future water demands and wastewater flows. 
Scenario #3: Under this scenario, the Barrie system is also expected to have sufficient capacity to meet future water demands and wastewater flows. 

The stage three report also considered cross-border servicing options between Barrie and Oro-Medonte, or Barrie and Springwater, with or without municipal boundary adjustments. 

The report says these arrangements could offer mutual benefits for the townships, access to servicing capacity to support growth within existing boundaries — and for Barrie — and opportunities to share infrastructure costs, including new investments, with a neighbouring municipality, as well as maximizing the use of existing capacity for broader regional economic benefit. The provided overall fiscal impacts to the city was deemed positive. 

However, the report noted, there are also potentially significant drawbacks, particularly for Oro-Medonte.

“The township would be managing large-scale urban growth the first time, which can bring financial and operational challenges,” the report says. “New residents in the serviced area are likely to expect the same level of services available to their neighbours in Barrie,” such as transit, full-time fire protection and solid waste management. 

“As such, servicing arrangements may need to extend beyond water and wastewater, even covering soft services like recreation services and libraries,” the report says. 

The report notes that many of the benefits and drawbacks for Springwater are the same as with Oro-Medonte, although Springwater is planning for a significantly greater amount of urban growth than Oro-Medonte.  

From Barrie’s perspective, a partnership could bring long-term servicing obligations and associated risks, the report says. 

“It would be difficult to justify sharing services designed for the city’s own growth without a mechanism to share tax revenues from developed lands,” the report says. “Experience from similar cross-boundary arrangements elsewhere in Ontario suggests success requires willing partners, clear mutual benefits and, typically, provincial support.”

Over the next two months, Hemson will be working on the following tasks:  


Environmental mapping and constraint analysis for potential community and employment area expansion land.  
Servicing requirements and costing, including water, wastewater, transportation, stormwater, as well as electrical, and natural gas. This work will, in particular, consider the option for servicing proposed development along Bayfield Street immediately north of the current Barrie/Springwater boundary.  
Continuing engagement with all municipalities over the coming weeks with a plenary session in September among the four municipalities (Barrie, Springwater, Oro-Medonte and Simcoe County) to establish a framework agreement.
Reporting on the results of the technical work completed by the consulting team. The preliminary findings of this technical work will be available for September’s plenary session.