New major highway preliminary design 90% complete in Ontario

More than 100 properties are no longer earmarked under the Highway 413 project now that design work on the controversial development is nearly complete, the province says.

All of the major structures, interchanges and crossings for the Highway 413 development project have been completed, leaving just 10 per cent of the design work left to go, the province said in a release on Monday.

With the “preferred alignment” of the highway on the books, the province says it has identified 113 full and 57 partial properties not required for the highway. The remaining land will be released beginning in 2025, the province says.

That means the province will release “unneeded land” back to property owners for farming, residential, business and other uses.

“By completing 90 per cent of the design work on Highway 413, we’ve taken a big step towards getting this critical highway project built and are now able to speed up the release of property to owners,” Transportation Minister and Brampton MPP Prabmeet Sarkaria said in a release.

Plans for the 52-kilometre Highway 413 will run west from Highway 400 in Vaughan through Peel Region and southwest to Highway 401 in Milton, west of Toronto.

Early construction contracts are expected to be awarded next year for the Highway 413 project which has seen opposition from environmental groups.

The construction of Highway 413 is expected to contribute $350 million to Ontario’s GDP every year, the province says. The cons say the highway’s construction is expected to create some 3,500 jobs but have not said how much it will cost.

The federal government marked the highway project for a federal review under the Impact Assessment Act, but that review was scrapped after the province took the federal government to court.

The Supreme Court of Canada found parts of that act unconstitutional.

Earlier this year, Sarkaria introduced changes that would streamline construction on “priority highway projects” like the 413, the Bradford Bypass and the Garden City Skyway bridge.

The new tweaks also allow for “around-the-clock, 24/7 construction on priority highway projects,” the province says.

The highway was first launched by the Liberals in 2007 but was paused before killing the project in 2018. Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government then resurrected the project in 2019.