Wilmot Future Toyota Plant Land Assembly | ?m | ?s | Waterloo Region

[Northern Light]

The Waterloo Record and the Narwhal jointly breaking a story on a heretofore quite assembly going on of 770 acres or so just west of K-W for a new Toyota Plant.

Wilmot farmland assembled for future Toyota site | The Narwhal

A controversial land assembly project in Waterloo Region is aimed at attracting new investment from Toyota to support the electric vehicle supply chain

thenarwhal.ca

From the above:

***

There's a lot more in the article, follow the link for the details.

But of note is how controversial this seems to be, at least among area farmers.

****

I have outlined the parcel above on Google Maps:

I included New Hamburg on the left for a sense of scale. The white outline covers ~1.2 miles 2 or about 770 acres.

 

[sixrings]

The Waterloo Record and the Narwhal jointly breaking a story on a heretofore quite assembly going on of 770 acres or so just west of K-W for a new Toyota Plant.

Wilmot farmland assembled for future Toyota site | The Narwhal

A controversial land assembly project in Waterloo Region is aimed at attracting new investment from Toyota to support the electric vehicle supply chain

thenarwhal.ca

From the above:

View attachment 633334

***

View attachment 633335
There's a lot more in the article, follow the link for the details.

But of note is how controversial this seems to be, at least among area farmers.

****

I have outlined the parcel above on Google Maps:

View attachment 633336

I included New Hamburg on the left for a sense of scale. The white outline covers ~1.2 miles 2 or about 770 acres.

Between your left white line and the McDonald’s on the north side of the street. The yellow patch. Was a farm and is now construction for a suburb. On the south side of the street the farmer put up a giant “don’t sell to developers” sign. Doesn’t Stratford have a Toyota parts plant of some sort?

 

[Northern Light]

Between your left white line and the McDonald’s on the north side of the street. The yellow patch. Was a farm and is now construction for a suburb. On the south side of the street the farmer put up a giant “don’t sell to developers” sign. Doesn’t Stratford have a Toyota parts plant of some sort?

The big Toyota plants are Cambridge and Woodstock.

 

[sixrings]

The big Toyota plants are Cambridge and Woodstock.

Aisin Canada

www.aisincanada.com

ACI is the only Aisin plant in Canada, which is located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. ACI supplies both Toyota plants in Canada with various parts. The plants are in Woodstock and Cambridge, Ontario.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

I'm going to cautiously say in today's tariff & trade climate that this is likely a good thing.

 

[ZEBuilder]

This is a project that ever since news broke in the summer has been a political mess and a half for the Region, it got political enough that staff from engineering firms doing field work couldn't go to site individually for a couple of weeks. It did end up settling down but it was a tense environment.

As sixrings pointed out the area to the north of Hwy 7 between the McDonald's and Nafziger Rd is currently being developed for a new industrial subdivision called the Wilmot Employment Lands, those involved just call it WEL, this past summer site grading was in full force with 2 different cut and fill locations, the Google Maps satellite view is from August roughly. Regardless that development has 92 acres zoned for industrial, plus numerous acres for parkland/SWM/roads.

One of the main complaints is how there's a bunch of land on the Breslau (airport) side of KW, it's called the East Side Lands, but the issue with it is you can't get an easy large parcel anymore without having to buy out developers who've known about the East Side Lands for years now. You have 2 large residential subdivisions by Madison, one is known as Madwest which has phase 1 site servicing under way with grading for phase 1 completed this summer, the other is to the north of Middle Block Rd. Everything to the south of Middle Block Rd and west of Fountain is actively being developed, you have the giant iPort project, you also have numerous other warehouse projects and offices that have been completed.

The other issue with the East Side Lands is its scattered with wetland complexs and wood lots which can't be touched so if the region wanted to buy up land in the East Side Lands they should've done it years ago which is how the problem really started.

Another issue that the public didn't like was how far from KW it was and how it would create traffic, now yes it's far relatively speaking from KW but the Region cannot put any development closer since all the farmland between this site and KW is protected farmland. It's the primary recharge area for the cities water supply, the vast majority of the cities water comes from the aquifers below that farmland, this aqufier basically wraps the entire west side of KWC and the south side of Cambridge.

The last really big issue the public absolutely hated was everyone involved had NDAs, the Province, the Region, the engineering firms involved. Which made it complicated for people in the know because it was so front and center for a couple of months.

The public out cry calmed down a bit on social media once various people explained why the site was chosen (what I've said+hwy access and close CN access) and hinted at what it was for but either way it's been a mess for everyone involved.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

...they better get it together though, because we can't rely on anything tied to the US..in the auto sector and elsewhere.

 

[christiesplits]

This is a project that ever since news broke in the summer has been a political mess and a half for the Region, it got political enough that staff from engineering firms doing field work couldn't go to site individually for a couple of weeks. It did end up settling down but it was a tense environment.

As sixrings pointed out the area to the north of Hwy 7 between the McDonald's and Nafziger Rd is currently being developed for a new industrial subdivision called the Wilmot Employment Lands, those involved just call it WEL, this past summer site grading was in full force with 2 different cut and fill locations, the Google Maps satellite view is from August roughly. Regardless that development has 92 acres zoned for industrial, plus numerous acres for parkland/SWM/roads.

One of the main complaints is how there's a bunch of land on the Breslau (airport) side of KW, it's called the East Side Lands, but the issue with it is you can't get an easy large parcel anymore without having to buy out developers who've known about the East Side Lands for years now. You have 2 large residential subdivisions by Madison, one is known as Madwest which has phase 1 site servicing under way with grading for phase 1 completed this summer, the other is to the north of Middle Block Rd. Everything to the south of Middle Block Rd and west of Fountain is actively being developed, you have the giant iPort project, you also have numerous other warehouse projects and offices that have been completed.

The other issue with the East Side Lands is its scattered with wetland complexs and wood lots which can't be touched so if the region wanted to buy up land in the East Side Lands they should've done it years ago which is how the problem really started.

Another issue that the public didn't like was how far from KW it was and how it would create traffic, now yes it's far relatively speaking from KW but the Region cannot put any development closer since all the farmland between this site and KW is protected farmland. It's the primary recharge area for the cities water supply, the vast majority of the cities water comes from the aquifers below that farmland, this aqufier basically wraps the entire west side of KWC and the south side of Cambridge.

The last really big issue the public absolutely hated was everyone involved had NDAs, the Province, the Region, the engineering firms involved. Which made it complicated for people in the know because it was so front and center for a couple of months.

The public out cry calmed down a bit on social media once various people explained why the site was chosen (what I've said+hwy access and close CN access) and hinted at what it was for but either way it's been a mess for everyone involved.

Thanks for the local context. Have there been discussions about Grand River Transit service to the plant?

 

[ZEBuilder]

Thanks for the local context. Have there been discussions about Grand River Transit service to the plant?

From my understanding no since it is very preliminary, GRT does have an existing route that goes to New Hamburg so its certainly a simple change to provide service to a plant but its no where near that point yet it's years away.

The engineering work that's been happening is your preliminary work, things like surveying the hydro corridor through the site, surveying roads, a massive geotechnical investigation, environmental sampling, hydrogeo work.

Another thing is that just because its been leaked as Toyota doesn't mean its close to happening, they've said no, but the leaker also said it's ready for when they want it meaning it's not necessarily all that advanced.

It has been publicly rumored as Toyota for months but this is the first confirmation of any kind, I will say that whoever leaked it is high up in the food chain because the people doing work had no idea what it was for beyond the "Wilmot Mega Site".

 

[innsertnamehere]

These kinds of things take time to align and prepare - the assembly for St Thomas was going for a while in advance as well with questions flying about the purpose before the announcement.

Toyota being the target makes sense, but they won't want to confirm anything until they have all their ducks in a row and are ready to pull the trigger officially. They will deny everything until that point in case they decided to go another direction for whatever reason.

Especially now, I imagine Trumps Tariff's are weighing on them and they are wanting to see resolution of that before locking in.

 

[Sunnyside]

These kinds of things take time to align and prepare - the assembly for St Thomas was going for a while in advance as well with questions flying about the purpose before the announcement.

Toyota being the target makes sense, but they won't want to confirm anything until they have all their ducks in a row and are ready to pull the trigger officially. They will deny everything until that point in case they decided to go another direction for whatever reason.

Especially now, I imagine Trumps Tariff's are weighing on them and they are wanting to see resolution of that before locking in.

Maybe unrelated, but this project seems to emblemize what you’ve said about the Greenbelt before, and how it’s affecting land use patterns- ie the leapfrog effect.

If people have questions or problems with this project and its location, I suggest that this is the inevitable consequence. I personally just find it really jarring that this kind of location actually makes sense. This instance isn’t the worst, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have liked to be closer to the GTA… and the whitebelt is obviously not in the budget for a lot of these new mega plants. Still, I will leave open the question of whether or not this is desirable or a problem.

 

[EBT]

I don't know why the potential construction of a new auto plant would be considered "controversial" but for anyone worried about this they can take solace in the fact that it is unlikely that this or any other new auto plant will be built in Canada in the foreseeable future if ever again. When Trump's 25% tariffs come into effect does anyone really believe that any auto company will be contemplating building new auto plants? We are faced with the prospect of having auto production come to a halt in Canada. Just the threat of tariffs has killed of any new investment in auto plants in Canada.

 

[sixrings]

I don't know why the potential construction of a new auto plant would be considered "controversial" but for anyone worried about this they can take solace in the fact that it is unlikely that this or any other new auto plant will be built in Canada in the foreseeable future if ever again. When Trump's 25% tariffs come into effect does anyone really believe that any auto company will be contemplating building new auto plants? We are faced with the prospect of having auto production come to a halt in Canada. Just the threat of tariffs has killed of any new investment in auto plants in Canada.

I think auto plants are made for more than four years. If if you started construction today it would maybe take two years to construct. The man could very well be dead by then.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Maybe unrelated, but this project seems to emblemize what you’ve said about the Greenbelt before, and how it’s affecting land use patterns- ie the leapfrog effect.

If people have questions or problems with this project and its location, I suggest that this is the inevitable consequence. I personally just find it really jarring that this kind of location actually makes sense. This instance isn’t the worst, but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have liked to be closer to the GTA… and the whitebelt is obviously not in the budget for a lot of these new mega plants. Still, I will leave open the question of whether or not this is desirable or a problem.

"leapfrogging" development is definitely a huge consequence of the Greenbelt (and really more so the Growth Plan) - but I'm not sure this plant is one of them.

Auto plants simply need immense amounts of land, even in the US and europe they are typically built in remote areas where large tracts of land can be purchased affordably. They just aren't urban uses.

Look at Telsa Berlin:

Honda Marysville, OH:

Volvo South Carolina:

Etc. Car plants are simply not urban uses any longer.

Industrial needs are also not easily "built denser" like housing is, so is definitely not where we want to be focusing our "Anti sprawl" efforts. We could look at ways to minimize footprints of employment uses, but most non-white collar employment uses simply need large tracts of land.

 

[lenaitch]

"leapfrogging" development is definitely a huge consequence of the Greenbelt (and really more so the Growth Plan) - but I'm not sure this plant is one of them.

Auto plants simply need immense amounts of land, even in the US and europe they are typically built in remote areas where large tracts of land can be purchased affordably. They just aren't urban uses.

Look at Telsa Berlin:

View attachment 633579

Honda Marysville, OH:

View attachment 633580

Volvo South Carolina:

View attachment 633581

Etc. Car plants are simply not urban uses any longer.

Industrial needs are also not easily "built denser" like housing is, so is definitely not where we want to be focusing our "Anti sprawl" efforts. We could look at ways to minimize footprints of employment uses, but most non-white collar employment uses simply need large tracts of land.

Not to mention Honda Alliston and, much earlier, Ford Talbotville. Ford Oakville has been there for years with the town pretty much growing around it. Regardless of the required footprint, auto assembly plants need direct access to both highway and rail. When Honda was searching around for a site for their engine plant years ago, they initially included Midland as a potential community until the realized the rail line had been abandoned