Guelph has to grow. It’s the law.
As one of the Places to Grow in the Province of Ontario’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area, Guelph must reach 175,000 residents and 92,000 jobs by 2031. That’s just 15 years from now. In 2012, the province extended growth targets by another 10 years and 16,000 inhabitants – 191,000 by 2041.
The population of the city has been growing steadily in recent years at a roughly 5.9 percent since 2006, when the population was 114,943. By 2011, the population grew to 121,688. The population has now extended just beyond 128,000.
A number of planning measures are in place to manage that growth, including an emphasis on intensification in the downtown core and built up areas. Extending the existing boundaries of the city is currently not an option, and large tracts of vacant land within those existing boundaries have been filling up with sprawling subdivisions at a break-neck pace.
Where once there were fields, now there are single-detached homes, townhouses, condominiums and apartment buildings.
As the hectic construction season gets into full-swing, a great many new homes will be constructed, including in some of the first subdivisions south of Clair Road.
Here is a photographic look at some of what’s coming in Guelph's south end.
