Newmarket’s award-winning events are one of one
Newmarket continues to create exceptional experiences for the community, and Council celebrated achievements for the Town’s special events including Festival & Events Ontario’s Municipality of the Year and Best Event Series of the Year, and Best Municipal Event in Canada from Canadian Event Awards.
The Town’s Special Events team directly delivers 15 to 20 events annually with more than 100,000 attendees in 2025. This includes beloved events such as Ice Lounge on Main, Tim Hortons Canada Day, Newmarket Music Series presented by TD Bank Group, Summerfest on Main and many more. They also coordinate with community-based organizations to deliver more than 100 events per year, including events like York Pride Festival.
Earlier this year, the Town of Newmarket was recognized by Festivals & Events Ontario (FEO) for the third time in four years as the Municipality of the Year for its special events in the mid-sized municipality category (population of 50,000 to 150,000) once again highlighting the Town’s ongoing commitment to bringing the community together through original experiences. In recognition of the Town’s longstanding fan-favourite Newmarket Music Series presented by TD Bank Group, the Town also received a Best Event Series award.
More recently, the Town was awarded the Best Event for a City or Municipality for Summerfest on Main by Canadian Event Awards. In a highly competitive field, judged by a diverse panel of event professionals from across North America, entries reflected the remarkable creativity, resilience, and innovation that continue to shape the event industry.
To learn more, watch the presentation. Visit Newmarket.ca/Events to see what’s coming up next.
Housing Action Plan
Newmarket is continuing to take important steps to address the Town’s growing housing needs through the Housing Action Plan (HAP). The HAP provides a framework to guide the Town’s response to housing affordability and supply challenges, translating the findings of the 2025 Housing Needs Assessment into actions the Town can advance using its municipal tools, partnerships, and advocacy role.
The HAP is structured around three goals:
- Support residents to live in stable and suitable housing – Focuses on affordability, housing stability, accessibility, aging in place, and protection of rental housing.
- Build homes that reflect the diverse needs of households – Prioritizes increasing rental supply, improving housing mix and unit sizes, supporting family-sized and accessible units, and enabling diverse housing forms through planning tools and incentives.
- Improve the housing system to deliver long-term solutions – Emphasizes partnerships, non-market housing delivery, infrastructure coordination, and long-term system capacity.
These goals are supported by nine strategies and eighteen actions. Implementation will be coordinated across Town departments and aligned with existing planned initiatives including the Official Plan Review.
While the Town doesn’t build housing directly, Newmarket plays an important role through planning, policy, and partnerships, and this Plan brings those tools together.
To learn more, watch the presentation or read the Staff Report.
Newmarket and Shining Hill partner in a binding agreement that will bring heat pumps to more than 1,000 homes
Council approved an updated Agreement with Shining Hill Estates Collection Inc. that will ensure all (over 1,000) homes developed in south-west Newmarket will include environmentally-friendly heat pump systems. When compared with conventional furnaces, heat pumps can significantly reduce emissions, improve energy efficiency, and provide both heating and cooling in one system.
In 2022, The Town of Newmarket reached an agreement with Shining Hill to transfer 80 acres of environmentally sensitive lands into public ownership and to build a sustainable community along Yonge Street. The approved agreement requires the developer to build a community with green and affordable housing options, including low impact development, new trails, a tennis clubhouse with courts (both now open) the planting of 5,000+ trees and more.
The new amendments to the agreement will replace and increase the land to be transferred to the Town for affordable housing and other community features. It enhances the sustainability outcomes with the addition of a heat pump system to be installed in all residences and also includes underground stormwater management infrastructure. The addition of heat pumps is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 30% initially, with the potential for greater emissions reductions as technologies continue to evolve. Future-ready housing infrastructure will help to meet climate action targets and lower the carbon footprint of the community.
Another step forward for Newmarket is the updated Community Energy Plan (CEP) to maintain Newmarket’s leadership in climate action. The CEP inventories total energy use and GHG emissions within the Town and recommends actions to reduce fossil fuel use and electricity demand, establishing clear community and corporate greenhouse has reduction targets up to 2050. The CEP also identifies priority actions to advance energy efficiency, low-carbon heating and municipal retrofits.
To learn more, read the media release or the Staff Report.