City of Kitchener

Kitchener is a vibrant, confident and cosmopolitan community located in the Region of Waterloo. It is located less than one hour from Toronto, Canada’s largest city, and a couple of hours from the American cities of Detroit and Buffalo via Highway 401. Its network of major highways and arterial roads is comprehensive and accessible, providing significant potential for marketing of goods and services. Kitchener businesses are finding new market opportunities based on competitive advantages: location, abundance of resources, availability of skilled workers, and access to information, technology and education resources. These advantages are enabling Kitchener to generate new businesses in a wide range of areas, including: specialized, more technology-intense segments of traditional manufacturing; newer, high-growth industries (advanced materials, software, digital media); education and knowledge creation, biotechnology.

Kitchener’s economy continues to outperform the rest of the country, with leading indicators consistently placing Kitchener at the top of census metropolitan areas. According to the CIBC Metro Monitor, Kitchener leads all CMA’s in the economic activity index.

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Quick Facts

Population (2006)	204,668
Unemployment Rate (2001)	6.1%
Building Permit Fees (2007)	Industrial (finished) $0.70/sq.ft Commercial (finished) $1.73/sq.ft
Property Tax Rates (2006)	Industrial 5.38% Commercial/Office 4.10%
Development Charges (2007)	City $1.18/sq.ft Region $4.37/sq.ft Total $5.55/sq.ft

Doing Business in Kitchener

The City of Kitchener is committed to a development process aimed at ensuring its economic vitality; Kitchener City Council continues to proactively seek healthy and prosperous economic development projects that integrate positive long-term growth and profitability with the community’s best interests.

The City provides financial incentives for downtown property owners to help stimulate redevelopment, renovation and improvements to buildings in the core. For more information about the incentive program, click here

To navigate both industrial and commercial development processes in the City of Kitchener, information such as approval processes, permits, taxes, contact information and more are available in the Development Handbook.

Living in Kitchener

Kitchener’s economic prosperity is matched only by its exceptional quality of life. The City’s diverse and dynamic blend of high-tech, retail, office, institutional, financial and residential enterprises provides a strong and stable economic foundation that helps to support all of the many needs and demands of its residents. This allows the City to offer an exceptional level of community programming for residents. And it helps to confirm Kitchener’s reputation as one of the most livable cities in the country.

The City maintains an intricate network of community trails, parks and green space and offers unique and appealing programming at The Aud, the city’s premier sports and entertainment complex. As well, the City celebrates a long and proud tradition of hosting an urban market in the heart of the city, by operating the Your Kitchener Market, a popular and flourishing destination for residents and visitors alike.

The City of Kitchener is also proud to be a part of, and contribute to, a region whose population is growing at more than twice the national rate. And more impressively, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the province. Kitchener’s economic prosperity is matched only by its exceptional quality of life.

Information about the many services, programs and initiatives offered to the residents of the City of Kitchener can be found here.