What do a bulldozer and our City Council have in common? They both can be used to clear parkland. “Parkland” is the term used by both Council and City Administration to refer to City-owned lands such as parks, parkettes, greenspaces, and open spaces.
Thunder Bay’s parkland is under attack. What started with a recommendation by Councillor Kasey Etreni, resulted in Council passing a motion in March 2023 directing Administration to bring forward a list of city-owned lands, including parkland, available for surplus and sale. As a result, Thunder Bay’s parkland across the City is now being considered for development.
Yes, we need more housing. The City has spent millions of tax dollars in both the north and south cores, including along Simpson Street, in an effort to “revitalize” those neighbourhoods. Instead of doing the hard work of incentivizing housing in those areas, Council has taken the easy route of selling our parkland. If you offer developers a choice between a pristine greenfield site or a brownfield site on which to build, they will always choose the greenfield site. For a developer, that makes marketing and rentals easier, but it doesn’t make for good urban planning.
City Council wasn’t mandated by the residents of Thunder Bay to surplus, sell, and develop parkland. They didn’t even make an informed decision based on careful consideration of the housing land needs of our City. This was Council moving ahead with an ill-conceived idea based on nothing but a belief that Thunder Bay has too much parkland.
Had this been an informed decision, Council would have waited for the recommendations of the already commissioned, and undoubtedly very costly, Thunder Bay Housing Land Needs Study and Strategy. This Strategy, prepared by Winnipeg & Saskatoon based HTFC Planning & Design, was delivered to Committee of the Whole on June 3, 2024. The accompanying Corporate Report states “The Housing Land Needs Study and Strategy will be used to guide development policy, Zoning By-law and Official Plan Review and staff recommendations for Planning Applications and infrastructure investments”.
Council didn’t consider the 2024 Housing Strategy when they directed Administration to submit the city-owned lands report. They didn’t use it to “guide development policy”. In fact, in 2023, the year before the Housing Strategy was delivered, Council had already decided on what parkland would be made available for surplus, sale, and development.
By June 2024, the City had already spent thousands of tax-payer dollars commissioning outside firms to prepare Scoped Environmental Impact Studies/tree inventories, and Archeological Assessments for Council’s choice of city-owned lands. Those studies and assessments were done to make the chosen lands more appealing to developers. Instead of waiting a month to review the recommendations of the much anticipated 2024 Housing Strategy, the City rushed ahead to commission Stantec to evaluate the parkland at 791 Arundel St, as well as other city-owned lands, for their development potential.
In the case of the parkland at 791 Arundel St, Stantec delivered their planning due diligence memo on October 29, 2024, long before the June 2, 2025 public launch of the City’s “Opportunity Sites – Call for Proposals”. By that time, Council had already determined the fate of our parkland at 791 Arundel St. Any and all steps taken after that date, including the call for proposals process itself, and the City led survey designed for a specific outcome, was merely performative.
In October 2025, without naming the developer, the City chose the proposals for 791 Arundel St, as well as 300 Tokio St, and 144 Fanshaw St. The proposed developments were massive, with Arundel being the largest at 600 units. We call this initial proposal, Version 1. The fact that 600 units contravened the required Urban Mid-rise zoning, didn’t stop the City from presenting it to the public. It will come as no surprise that Version 1 was met with tremendous community backlash. Over 100 residents attended the Current River Ward Meeting on November 5, 2025 and loudly protested the targeting of the Arundel parkland as well as the 600 unit development proposal itself.
Council ignored residents’ concerns and pushed the development process along. At the same time, we learned much more about this development, as well as the players involved, but it wasn’t easy. The City refused to answer many of our questions which forced us to file a Freedom of Information request. It was through that process we learned how Stantec was commissioned by the City well before becoming Terralux’s engineering firm and as such, instrumental in the development process. Although Stantec assured us that neither they nor the City considered this a conflict, we respectfully disagree. The City, and especially our City Council, should ensure complete transparency and fairness when proposing the sale of city-owned lands. Even the perception of a conflict should have been a red flag, but not to our Council. On April 7, 2026, Council sold the parkland to Terralux for $2,159,000.
Since that initial proposal in October 2025, Terralux/Stantec have presented three more versions of the proposed development. The latest, Version 4, was presented at Terralux’s public information session on July 20, 2026. That session, hosted only by Stantec, without the presence of a single Terralux employee, saw over 200 community members attend. The sheer mass and scale of Version 4 with two 7-storey buildings, a total of 360 units and 450 parking spots, was shocking.
Joel DePeuter, the Director of Development Services for the City, was in attendance for a short period of time and was literally encircled by angry City residents. At one point he made sure we knew he was only following orders, implying it was Council who unilaterally made the decision to sell and develop parkland.
Attendees were extremely concerned to see Version 4 included a “future entrance” on the east side of the property, adjacent to even more of the Boulevard Lake Complex parkland. Depending on who you ask, this future entrance will connect to either the realigned Lyon Boulevard or a brand new collector road running between Algoma and Arundel. This was never included in the previous three versions of the development even though Stantec’s Traffic Review Letter clearly includes a picture of both 791 Arundel and 755 Arundel as the “subject lands” to be developed. When was Council going to be transparent about their plan to develop even more of the Boulevard Lake Complex parkland? What else are they not telling the residents of Thunder Bay?
We have only one chance to stop Council from targeting our parkland and that chance is at the Public Meeting scheduled for August 11, 2026 @ 6:30pm at City Hall. Whether you stand up and speak against the development, attend just to show support, or join the protest rally starting at 4p.m., your voice and your presence will make a difference.
Changes to Ontario’s Planning Act by the Doug Ford Conservative government, have eliminated appeal rights for members of the public, even adjacent property owners who are directly and materially affected by a development. Council is now the final authority on this planning decision. There is no independent oversight or a check on the planning process, even if that process was flawed, and even if Council contravened our Official Plan, ignored their own 2024 Housing Strategy, and failed to consider the other planning and development policies and strategies they themselves approved.
On August 11, 2026, we anticipate the Administration asking Council to approve the rezoning and amendment to the Official Plan. This approval is required to allow Terralux to destroy the parkland at 791 Arundel, and build their 360 unit apartment complex. Council’s approval will also pave the way for more development of Boulevard Lake Complex parkland. When that happens, the Boulevard Lake Complex parkland will be irreversibly altered. Biodiversity and wildlife habitat will be destroyed, wildlife displaced. The parkland we value for community, for recreation, for physical and mental well-being, for the resident wildlife, including the endangered Gray Fox, will be lost to us and future generations forever.
City Council is legally required to represent the residents of Thunder Bay. This requires them to listen and heed the will of the people. It’s up to all of us to demand more from our City Council. Demand they listen to the will of the people. Demand City Council park the bulldozer and stop, not only the development on 791 Arundel St, but any and all future development plans on parkland throughout the City. Remember, they won’t stop at 791 Arundel. They’ve already targeted the MS Society Park within Junot Park, and it’s still available for development. Your neighbourhood parkland, whether it’s a park, parkette, or greenspace, might be next. What will you do to protect our parkland?
