About VMC Secondary Plan

The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC), Vaughan’s downtown, is bounded by Highway 407 to the south, Highway 400 to the west, Portage Parkway to the north and Creditstone and Maplecrete roads to the east.

The VMC is experiencing rapid growth, and while the existing VMC Secondary Plan (VMCSP) provides a strong vision and policy foundation to help plan for growth, an update is needed to address provincial and regional policy updates and confirm that the existing planning framework is still relevant. The VMCSP will result in a renewed policy framework that supports the completion of the downtown as a central business district and complete community that is well supported by municipal services and social infrastructure to 2051 and beyond.

The VMCSP will address all the elements needed for the successful growth of Vaughan’s downtown, including new roads; bike paths; pedestrian walkways; new open spaces and parks; land use, height and density permissions; and key infrastructure requirements.

In June 2024, the VMC Sub-committee directed staff to revise the planning framework to develop the VMC as a complete and balanced community with minimum heights and densities, without prescribed maximums. In phase 4, a draft of a new Secondary Plan (PDF) for the VMC had been developed that implements this direction of creating a planning framework without height and density maximums. Currently in phase 5, comments received on the draft new VMCSP are being reviewed and considered in preparation of the final draft of the VMCSP, which will be presented to Council in Fall 2025.

The VMCSP is being coordinated with concurrent City-wide and VMC projects, including:

The findings of these related studies will continue to guide the policy framework and help inform the final recommendations of the VMCSP Update.