City of Waterloo council summary April 13, 2026
City of Waterloo council summary
April 13, 2026
** The council summary below provides a snapshot of the major items presented at Monday’s council meeting. The council meeting webcast is available on the City of Waterloo YouTube page. Please refer to the minutes for an official record of the meeting.
Waterloo's draft Urban Forest Management Strategy available for comment
Staff presented the key focus areas of the City's draft Urban Forestry Management Strategy, with the vision to create a healthy, resilient, urban forest supporting a sustainable, equitable, and future ready Waterloo.
The draft strategy is designed to help protect and maintain the City's current urban tree canopy (currently 32.5 per cent) until 2050, and then increase it to 35 per cent by 2070. It highlights 38 actions items for the first 5 years of implementation, including planting 1,250 trees annually on public lands and 3,750 on private lands. Other aspects of the draft strategy include developing a Green Standard for urban centers to ensure adequate soil and space for trees; creating a new Heritage Tree bylaw to protect mature trees; launching a large-scale community-based tree planning initiative; and reintroducing a 5-year tree pruning cycle.
The draft Urban Forestry Management Strategy will be posted on Engage Waterloo (www.engagewr.ca/future-of-trees-waterloo) and circulated to interested and affected parties, agencies and groups for final consultation and feedback. It is expected to return for final Council approval in June 2026.
City of Waterloo enables missing middle housing in Sugarbush South neighbourhood
The Sugarbush South neighbourhood is located north of Columbia Street West and east of Albert Street. It is ideally located for missing middle housing with its proximity to two ION Station Areas, three post-secondary institutions, two minor corridors (Columbia Street West and Albert Street), and many services and amenities.
Council approved the redesignation of the neighbourhood to Medium Rise Residential, allowing for missing middle housing such as townhouses and four to eight storey multi-unit residential buildings. Lands within the minor transportation corridors (Columbia Street West and Albert Street) and the Research and Technology Park Major Transit Station Area (north edge of Cardill Crescent) will be permitted to have a building height of up to eight-storeys. Lands in the interior of the neighbourhood will be permitted for up to six-storeys.
Council also approved the Sugarbush South Urban Design Guidelines, which provide site design objectives tailored to the neighbourhood and include flexible sites for parkettes in the area. As the neighbourhood redevelops, efforts will be made to preserve the existing tree canopy to the extent possible and to maximize opportunities for new trees or other landscaping measures.
This initiative advances Initiative 3: Corridor Expansion Study and Plan of the City's Housing Accelerator Fund Action Plan, which is intended to enable more “missing middle” transit supportive housing options in the Sugarbush South neighbourhood. It also addresses challenges identified in the City's Affordable Housing Strategy: increasing the market and non-market housing supply, while addressing the loss of existing affordable housing and inadequate housing diversity.