Investing in Downtown

Downtown Oshawa has seen significant growth over the last decade. Recently completed development projects include Trent University Durham GTA and Ontario Tech University spaces, hotel developments, and new flats and condominium. Currently, the growing student population, emerging entrepreneur cluster, and competitive incentive programs highlight why now is the time to invest in Downtown Oshawa. 

Incentives

The City supports the growth, development and beautification of Downtown Oshawa and offers several incentive programs to support private investment and development:

• The City's portion of development charges has been eliminated for downtown development projects.
• The Urban Growth Centre Community Improvement Plan assists downtown property owners with:
  • building façade and accessibility improvements;
  • building and fire code upgrades;
  • converting non-residential units to residential units; and
  • the creation of high-value jobs and economic development.
• Through the 2024 Mayor's Budget, a one-time Graffiti and Vandalism Remediation Fund of $100,000 was established to support the business community in addressing the remediation of graffiti and vandalism acts to properties. This grant provides businesses with funds for eligible commercial or industrial property graffiti and vandalism repairs, or to implement eligible preventative measures.
• Oshawa Economic Development has partnered with Fundica to provide businesses with an easy way to find government funding in Canada. Through its proprietary search tool and intelligent filtering, Fundica helps entrepreneurs and businesses find grants, tax credits and incentives, loans, loan guarantees, equity and accelerators. Access the Business Funding and Support Finder to discover a growing list of resources aimed to address your business needs.

Downtown development process

The City of Oshawa strives to streamline the development approval process and offers the following investment tools:

• Planning and Development
• Licensing and Permits

Downtown strategic plan

View Oshawa's Downtown Strategy in Plan 20Thirty. The strategy is a community driven plan to create a vibrant, attractive and animated downtown where people come together to live, work, shop, meet and engage. This collaborative effort engaged community stakeholders to identify key growth opportunities to revitalize Downtown Oshawa.