Peel police break ground on new police facility as Brampton population continues to grow

A Peel Police shoulder patch is seen in Mississauga, Ont., on Saturday, July 1, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey

Peel police have broken ground on a new operational support facility, slated to open in 2027.

Officials from Peel Region officially launched the construction process on Wednesday morning at the site of the future facility, located at 8100 Mississauga Road in Brampton.

The five-storey building will house Peel Regional Police’s communications centre, records department and IT services. It will replace the building currently located at 7750 Hurontario Street, a building executive advisor Robert Shearer said is “at the end of its life cycle” during Wednesday’s press conference.

Police say the new facility is part of an “organizational transformation” as the police force works to “meet the needs of one of Canada’s most diverse and fastest-growing communities.”

The project is part of the future development of a fifth police division in Brampton, due to the region’s substantial population growth over the past decade. Between 2016 and 2021, the city grew by over 60,000 people, marking population growth of approximately 10.6 per cent. The region is expected to be home to close to one million people by 2051, with an estimated growth of 350,000 people in the next 10 years.

“With a greater population means greater demands to maintain public safety,” Sumeeta Kohli, vice-chair of Peel Regional Police, said during the Wednesday morning news conference. “This operational support will provide much-needed resources and improve service delivery for the residents of Peel.” Kohli added that 911 operations will be moved into the new, state-of-the-art facility and will be equipped to improve responses to what she called “critical incidents.”

“We’re very much looking forward to being a part of this community and expanding our services to support a growing population in the region of Peel,” she concluded.

“We know this community deserves a modern approach to policing,” Shearer said. “There are women and men in the communications centre and frontline, and 80 per cent of the time, they’re responding to calls for service for things like food insecurity, precarious housing, mental health, addictions, youth-related issues, older adults that need support, vulnerable populations. And on top of that, we have some really significant urban pressures in the form of crime. So our desire is to meet those needs in a non-traditional way.”

The new operational support facility is estimated to open in 2027.