Madill Farm: Mississauga's Vanishing Past and Uncertain Future
Mississauga, Ontario, west of Toronto, is known in Canada for urban sprawl, its name almost synonymous with sprawl, and longtime mayor, Hazel McCallion, sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Sprawl". With Mississauga growing so outward so rapidly, building new subdivisions and paving over Canada's highest grade farmland with little hesitation, these developments were sometimes separated by farms.
One such farm lay on the south side of Eglinton Avenue at McLaughlin Road, belonging to Earl Madill (1912–2001). His younger brother, Ben Madill (1915–2013), also owned a farm down the road at McLaughlin Road and Highway 401, which lasted until 2006 before being burned down and eventually replaced by an industrial park. Although Earl Madill died twelve years earlier, his farm lasted longer, until 2008. Even passing by it almost every day, its appearance was always striking, not just because of the vibrant red paint of the barn house and silos, but also for being a kind of oasis in the midst of urban sprawl. I couldn't help but visit it with my new camera and capture it in what could be its final moments.
Another reason the farm was always striking was because the high-rise condominium and office towers always in the background. The land lay directly at the boundary of Mississauga's City Centre district, the city's burgeoning "downtown". If you had gone to the Square One Shopping Centre back then, there was a good chance you would have passed by this farm. Perhaps the sight of skyscrapers next to farmland shows some restraint and foresight on part of the City of Mississauga. However, Eglinton Avenue was originally designated by the City as a "Major Transit Corridor", alongside Hurontario Street and Dundas Street, and the city did not quite fulfill Eglinton's potential in that regard. Even in the midst of a condo boom, when the city extended Confederation Parkway through the property from what the city envisioned to be its future downtown, there was no high-density development built, only the typical detached and semi-detached houses.
As mayor, Hazel McCallion was extremely popular with voters for not raising taxes, developing a reputation for efficient spending. In truth, these property tax freezes (effectively tax cuts, if inflation is taken into account) were made possible due to the massive revenue from development fees as the result of Mississauga's extreme rapid growth. As Mississauga became built-out, and the development slowed, so too did the revenue from development charges, forcing the City of Mississauga to start increasing property taxes.
Perhaps Mississauga's growth was inefficient other ways, and there has been a greater cost that the city is paying for today. Younger generations looking to buy their first home are paying the price too, as Mississauga's population declined by 0.5 percent from 2016 to 2021, even in the face of a major housing shortage. The concern for this and other long-term consequences of sprawl, and the increasing recognition to build cities for the future, was the impetus for the establishment of the Toronto-area greenbelt with the Places to Grow Act in 2006. But for the younger generation looking to buy their first home in Mississauga, the Places to Grow Act came too late.