North Oakville is the Town's own name for the lands north of Dundas Street and south of Highway 407, between Ninth Line and Tremaine Road. The Town brands the residential portion the New Communities of Oakville — fourteen neighbourhoods, three urban core areas and employment lands, phased over roughly two decades. If you have been shopping here you will also have seen the area called Rural Oakville or Glenorchy, which are MLS district names, and The Preserve, which is Mattamy's master-planned community between Neyagawa Boulevard and Sixth Line.
This is where most of Oakville's new construction is happening. Homes are 2010s and newer, with varied lot sizes and house types, and the plan puts a neighbourhood centre within a five-minute walk of most homes. Along Dundas Street itself, current policy requires a minimum of six storeys and permits only apartment, mixed-use and commercial forms within fifty metres of the road — so the frontage will keep densifying while the interior stays low-rise.
Highway 407 forms the northern edge, with a Park & Ride at Trafalgar Road served by GO buses. Oakville Transit Route 1 runs Trafalgar Road from the Uptown Core to the 407 carpool lot; Route 5 runs Dundas Street with stops at Ninth Line, Sixth Line, Neyagawa and Bronte Road. Oakville GO and Bronte GO on the Lakeshore West line are both south of the area, and Metrolinx has a Dundas Street bus rapid transit line in planning.
Schools are being built alongside the housing, which is both the appeal and the caveat. On the public side, Dr. David R. Williams Public School on Post Road is open, and Harvest Oak Public School on Wheat Boom Drive opened in September 2025. On the Catholic side, St. Gregory the Great Catholic Elementary School opened in 2016 and St. Cecilia Catholic Elementary School opened in September 2024.
There is no high school north of Dundas yet. Students have been directed to T.A. Blakelock and White Oaks while a new secondary school is planned for Burnhamthorpe Road West; the board paused that redirection in October 2024 and has not announced an opening date. A third Catholic elementary school is funded for Post Road, also without a date. If you are buying here with teenagers, this is the single most important thing to confirm before you commit — and it is exactly the kind of question worth a conversation rather than a website.
Our Oakville Schools Guide has the detail on every school in town, and the boards' locators are the final word on any specific address.
The Sixteen Mile Sports Complex on Neyagawa Boulevard is the area's centrepiece — 79 hectares with a four-pad arena, turf and cricket fields, a skate park, a pump track, a splash pad and trails. Its expanded community centre opened on 30 May 2026: more than 65,000 square feet with pools, a gymnasium and an indoor track, plus an 18,000-square-foot library branch.
Glenorchy Conservation Area covers roughly 400 hectares of the Sixteen Mile Creek gorge — forested slopes and shale bluffs, part of the Greenbelt. Its master plan deliberately keeps trails to the uplands rather than running them down into the valley, so it is protected landscape more than it is a recreation destination. Across the New Communities the plan calls for four community parks, ten neighbourhood parks and a natural heritage system of more than 900 hectares.
RioCentre Oakville at Dundas Street West and Neyagawa Boulevard runs to about 107,000 square feet with Food Basics, Shoppers Drug Mart and Dollarama. Trafalgar Ridge at Trafalgar Road and Dundas Street East is larger at roughly 131,000 square feet across 35 units, with Winners/HomeSense, GoodLife Fitness and Scotiabank. Longo's at Dundas and Trafalgar covers the grocery run on the east side.
These are new communities still filling in, which cuts both ways: the housing stock, schools and recreation facilities are the newest in Oakville, and some of the amenities are still arriving. The plan is unusually deliberate about walkability, with neighbourhood centres and parks built in rather than added later.
What exactly is North Oakville?
It is the Town of Oakville's planning name for the land north of Dundas Street and south of Highway 407, between Ninth Line and Tremaine Road — the area the Town markets as the New Communities of Oakville. Rural Oakville and Glenorchy are MLS district names for parts of it, and The Preserve is a builder's community within it.
Is there a high school in North Oakville?
Not yet. Students have been directed to T.A. Blakelock and White Oaks. A new secondary school is planned for Burnhamthorpe Road West, but the board paused its enrolment redirection in October 2024 and has not published an opening date. Confirm the current arrangement with the HDSB before you buy if this affects you.
What is Glenorchy?
Two things. It is an MLS district name for part of North Oakville, and it is a roughly 400-hectare conservation area in the Sixteen Mile Creek valley, provincially owned and managed by Conservation Halton as part of the Greenbelt.
What is there to do in North Oakville?
The Sixteen Mile Sports Complex on Neyagawa is the main draw — arenas, pools, a gymnasium, an indoor track, a library branch, turf and cricket fields, a skate park and a pump track, with the expanded community centre open since May 2026. Glenorchy Conservation Area offers upland trails through the Sixteen Mile Creek gorge.
Is North Oakville a good place to buy?
It is where you get the newest housing stock in Oakville, with amenities arriving as the communities fill in. The trade-off is that some of it is still arriving — the secondary school in particular. Whether that trade works depends on your timeline and your children's ages, which is worth talking through against what is actually on the market.
