ClubLink’s push to replace the Kanata Golf and Country Club with 1,480 housing units has passed another legal challenge.

The proposal has prompted a maelstrom of local opposition for years, including a failed attempt by the City of Ottawa to argue its case before the Supreme Court. 

Some people who live in the hundreds of homes bordering the course have said they worry the area cannot handle this kind of sharp intensification especially when it comes to stormwater management.

The city did win a court challenge in 2021, but an Ontario Superior Court ruling reversed that decision in favour of owner ClubLink, finding the corporation shouldn’t be “saddled with a perpetual obligation” to run a golf course. 

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the city’s appeal of the pro-ClubLink decision.

Central to the debate is a 1981 agreement to protect “open space.”

The pre-amalgamation City of Kanata entered into a series of agreements with former owner Campeau Corporation in the 1980s, which laid out rules to incorporate a golf course to align with rules dictating that 40 per cent remain open space.

ClubLink, which owns and operates about 30 golf clubs across Ontario and Quebec, bought the property in 1997. When it announced the development in 2018, the company said golf courses were struggling to exist in Ottawa’s oversaturated market because of rising maintenance costs.

Its proposal includes a mix of detached and semi-detached homes, townhouses and apartments, plus parks and open space.

Original deal has run out

The City of Ottawa launched the appeal, which was heard in November 2024. The Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition acted as an intervenor.

The city argued the previous judge was wrong and ClubLink must continue operating a golf course there. The coalition argued even if it’s not a golf course, the 40 per cent rule remains valid.

The appeal panel of three judges wrote in its decision that part of the intent of the agreement in 1981 was to “ensure a pathway for the evolution of the use of the golf course lands,” and said precedent dictates the bargain struck back then has run out. The panel declared the 1981 agreement void.

Tuesday’s dismissal points to a 2022 Ontario Land Tribunal decision that found the redevelopment is good land use planing, is compatible with the neighbourhood and will still leave about one-third of the property for open spaces such as parks and woods.