Millcroft's Golf Course Was Zoned Open Space. That Didn't Stop the Bulldozers.

A real estate agent walking a buyer through a home near the fairway has a reliable line ready: this lot backs onto the golf course, so the view is protected. It sounds like a fact about the land. In Millcroft right now, it is closer to a fact about the calendar.

In May 2025, crews working for the developer of Millcroft Golf Club cleared 425 trees from the course in a single day. The land they cleared was, at the time, zoned Open Space under Burlington's own zoning by-law. The trees came down anyway, because a provincial tribunal had already ruled that the zoning could change.

That gap between what a zoning map says and what actually gets built is not a technicality. For anyone comparing homes in Millcroft, or any western GTA neighbourhood where the pitch includes proximity to a golf course, a ravine, or protected parkland, it is one of the more useful things to understand before writing an offer.

Open Space Is A Planning Designation, Not A Property Right

Burlington's zoning by-law lists the Millcroft Golf Club lands at 2155 Country Club Drive as (O1) Open Space. On paper, that designation limits the site to recreational and open-space uses. In practice, a zoning designation is a policy choice made by council, and policy choices made by council can be appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal, the provincial body that rules on land use disputes across the province.

Burlington council voted unanimously against redeveloping the golf course back in 2022. The developer, Millcroft Greens, appealed that opposition to the OLT. On June 12, 2024, the tribunal sided with the developer, ruling that the proposal for five parcels of the course, labelled Areas A through E, represented good land use planning and was in the public interest. The city's own Official Plan and zoning by-law were amended to match, and the tribunal's final order came down on February 19, 2025.

None of that required the city to agree. It required the tribunal to disagree with the city, which is exactly what happened.

The Timeline A Listing Won't Show You

A buyer touring a home this summer sees a fairway and a tree line. What they are actually looking at is the tail end of a four-year planning fight, with two competing requests still sitting on a minister's desk.

Why The Trees Came Down While The Fight Was Still Going

The OLT's approval covered specific parcels, not the entire course. That distinction mattered less to neighbours than it might on paper. Nicky Marwaha, whose backyard had bordered the golf course for thirteen years, came home in early May 2025 to find the tree line behind her house gone. "It's like you have a paradise that's been ruined," she told CBC News.

The city later opened a by-law investigation into the tree removal and issued a cease-work order tied to unresolved conditions in the developer's servicing agreement. That investigation ran alongside, not instead of, the approved construction. The lesson is not that Millcroft's process was unusually messy. It is that an OLT approval is a green light for construction to begin on the tribunal's schedule, regardless of whether every local objection has been resolved or every neighbour has made peace with it.

Two Requests, One Minister, No Decision Yet

The fight has not ended, and this is not the city's first attempt to head it off. Burlington asked the province for a Ministerial Zoning Order covering the golf course once already, and in August 2024 the Minister said no, noting that overriding the tribunal's own decision would conflict with it.

The city tried again in spring 2026, this time asking for an order covering only the roughly 100 acres the 2024 decision did not touch. The developer filed a competing request for the same land. Millcroft Greens is asking for an order that would allow roughly 138 new housing units on that remaining acreage, paired with a commitment to dedicate about 75 of those acres to the city as open space at no cost. The city is asking for the opposite: an order that would lock in the existing Open Space zoning and prevent any further development there. In making its original 2024 case for protecting the land, the city had pointed to its own projected shortfall of roughly 104 hectares of urban green space against Burlington's population growth targets through 2051.

Public comment on the developer's request closed July 5, 2026, and on the city's request July 22, 2026. Both sit before the same Minister on Ontario's Environmental Registry. As of the most recent City of Burlington staff report on the file, the province had not yet ruled on either one. Whichever way the Minister decides will set the precedent for what "open space" actually protects the next time a golf course, a ravine, or a stretch of parkland anywhere in Halton becomes attractive to a builder.

What To Actually Check Before You Buy Near "Protected" Land

A listing that leans on adjacency to a golf course, a conservation area, or municipal parkland is describing today's view. Before assuming it is tomorrow's view too, the Millcroft story points to a short list of things worth checking:

• Ask for the exact zoning designation on the adjacent land, not the marketing description of it. Open Space, Environmental Protection, and Institutional zones each carry different levels of durability.
• Check the municipality's active development applications list and Ontario's Environmental Registry for any pending Ontario Land Tribunal appeals or Ministerial Zoning Order requests touching the adjacent parcel.
• Remember that a unanimous council vote against development is a position, not an outcome. The OLT can, and in Millcroft's case did, rule the other way.
• If an appeal has already been approved, ask whether every condition in the servicing agreement has been met. An approval and a shovel-ready site are not the same thing.
• Recognize that this pattern shows up anywhere a golf course, ravine, or greenfield sits inside a settlement area with active housing targets. Millcroft is the clearest current example in Halton, but it is not a special case.

None of this means the land behind a given home will be developed. It means the certainty a listing implies and the certainty a zoning map can actually deliver are two different things, and the difference is worth ten minutes of research before it becomes ten years of regret.

If you are weighing a purchase near Millcroft's fairways, or trying to understand what this fight could mean for a home you already own nearby, this is exactly the kind of file our team tracks alongside comparable sales and school catchments. Robertson Kadwell can walk through what is zoned, what is pending, and what it is likely to mean for your specific street. Request your complimentary home valuation and we will bring the planning file to the conversation, not just the comps.