Pickering Airport Lands
The Pickering Airport Lands are parcels of lands owned by the Government of Canada located in York Region and Durham Region in the Canadian province of Ontario. The lands, totaling approximately and located approximately east of Downtown Toronto, were expropriated in 1972 by the federal government intending to build a second international airport to serve the city of Toronto, its metropolitan area, and the surrounding Golden Horseshoe region. Since then, the federal government has leased the lands to private tenants and allocated more than half to form the Rouge National Urban Park. The proposed airport was planned to be set in the city of Pickering, Ontario, about east of Toronto Pearson International Airport. In 2004, the estimated cost of building the airport was approximately $2 billion, and it was anticipated that, by 2032, it would be handling up to 11.9 million passengers annually. The plans for the airport were developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1972 and 1973, the federal government expropriated lands in Pickering, Uxbridge, and Markham townships in York and Durham Regions for airport construction. Nevertheless, opposition to the project was widespread. Preliminary airport construction activity was halted in 1975 when the provincial partner in