Moving to Hamilton

Two levels of government act on an address here, and confusing them is the most common reason a resident’s question goes to the wrong place.

City of Hamilton handles planning and zoning, building permits, local roads and sidewalks, parks and recreation, fire, transit and property-tax billing. It is governed by a mayor and council.

The Province of Ontario sets the planning framework the City works inside, funds and approves school construction, and can override municipal zoning directly with a Minister’s Zoning Order.

Hamilton has 157 schools across Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir and Conseil scolaire Viamonde. The newsroom follows boundary reviews at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.

Which school a child attends depends on the address and the board, not on the City. Each board sets attendance boundaries and changes them through a formal boundary review, a public process with published options and a decision by trustees. In a growing municipality those reviews are frequent.

Before committing to an address, confirm the school assignment with the board directly. Our schools page lists every publicly funded school in Hamilton, by board and level.

Hamilton Street Railway runs 41 routes across 2,350 stops, on the schedule it publishes as open data. The transit pages carry every route, its stops and its timetable.

3 GO stations — Hamilton GO Centre, West Harbour GO and Confederation GO — serve Hamilton for commuter rail and bus, operated by Metrolinx.

Most Hamilton commuters do not stay in town. At the 2021 Census the most common places of work outside Hamilton were Burlington (17,420), Oakville (5,625) and Mississauga (5,065), and 85.4% of commuters drove while 7.4% took public transit. Those figures were collected in May 2021 under pandemic restrictions, so they describe that moment.

The City bills property tax on every home. How the bill is built, the current rate and the instalment dates are set out on the property-tax guide, each figure linked to City of Hamilton’s own page.

The City has 603 projects of significant development on the planning record. The practical difference between areas is what will change around you.

Start with the development record and the pre-construction pipeline, which link each project to City of Hamilton’s own file.