Originally posted on Steve’s Councillor Ward 2 Facebook page, Nov 28, 2024. Updated May 2026 (scroll down)
On November 27, 2024 the County of Brant held two Open House meetings (afternoon and evening sessions) to engage the public on how to best manage future residential and commercial growth in Downtown Paris. This is a very important subject as we want to steer growth and future use of vacant land in a way that adds some much needed residential units – especially rentals, and we want a prosperous commercial/business district but we also want to make sure that we retain the beautiful Heritage charm that we love. There are differing opinions on details of how we increase density in Downtown Paris, and some interesting discussions about how much is too much, particularly related to the height of future proposed buildings.
I attended the evening meeting, and our Planning Staff were there and were very helpful in explaining everything and encouraging input. I snapped some photos of the info boards (and a very clever interactive exhibit where attendees were encouraged to use building blocks to work through the exercise of how and where to add density to Downtown.)
Read through the Downtown Paris Zoning Survey results below:
Update, May 2026: This project was paused by the County in the Spring 2025 in order that it could be coordinated with the new Community Planning Permit System (CPPS – target adoption in late July 2026) and updates to Downtown Paris Master Plan. In April 2026, public engagement began again, with a new proposal for a Rezoning Plan with public meetings on May 12, 2026 and June 9, 2026.
I encourage you to visit the Downtown Paris Zoning page on the Engage Brant website to learn more – you’ll find the full project timeline, links to the Staff reports, survey results, presentation slides, display panels from the public meetings, and details about upcoming public meetings, surveys and more.
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