Windfields

Windfields is the newest part of north Oshawa: north of Conlin Road, between the west and east branches of the Oshawa Creek, running up to the hydro corridor and Highway 407. Simcoe Street North splits it, with the shared Ontario Tech and Durham College campus at the south end and the Windfields Farm subdivisions spreading east and west of Simcoe along Britannia Avenue and Windfields Farm Drive. The City's Windfields Part II Plan draws roughly the same lines, though the TRREB map may differ at the edges.

Nearly every house in Windfields is a builder home from the mid-2000s or later. Tribute Communities laid out the first phases east of Simcoe Street North around Windfields Farm Drive and Britannia Avenue in the Ontario Colonial Revival style the farm's plan called for: brick and stone fronts, porches, shuttered windows and gabled roofs, on lots of roughly 30 to 60 feet with double garages on the wider ones. Detached houses run from about 1,300 to 4,000 square feet, so one street can hold a starter two-storey and a five-bedroom with a walk-out. Later phases added semi-detached houses, freehold and condominium townhouses, and stacked towns near the campus that rent to students. West of Simcoe, the streets north of Britannia Avenue West climb toward the hydro corridor, and the 115-acre eastern lands that Tribute opened in 2018 are still finishing. Mid-rise condominium buildings cluster along Simcoe near Conlin Road, and RioCan's Windfields site at Simcoe and Winchester Road is slated for more condos, townhomes and retail.

Simcoe Street North is the transit spine. The DRT 901 PULSE runs its length from the North Campus Terminal to Lakeview Park, with late-night trips extended into Windfields, while the 409, 419 and 905 loop through Windfields Farm Drive and Britannia Avenue; the 905 continues along Taunton Road to Whitby GO. The 920 leaves the North Campus Terminal for Scarborough Centre station on weekday middays and the 921 express covers the same trip in the peaks. Highway 407 has its Simcoe Street and Harmony Road interchanges at the north edge; the tolled 407 East opened to Harmony in June 2016 and on to Highway 35/115 in December 2019, and the connecting Highways 412 and 418 dropped their tolls on April 5, 2022. Oshawa GO on Bloor Street West is about a 20-minute drive south. Conlin Road East is being rebuilt with multi-use paths through 2026, and Thornton Road North gets a bike lane and path by 2027.

Durham District School Board children attend Northern Dancer Public School and, for French immersion, the nearby École Jeanne Sauvé, with the newer Maamawi iyaawag Public School serving recent streets. A still-unnamed north Oshawa secondary school had its attendance boundary approved by the board on October 21, 2025 for September 2026, and until then Maxwell Heights Secondary on Coldstream Drive has taken most local teenagers. Durham Catholic families have St. Anne Catholic School at 2465 Bridle Road and Monsignor Paul Dwyer Catholic High School on Stevenson Road North. Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir run French-language elementary schools in Oshawa with city-wide catchments. Both English boards keep redrawing lines as subdivisions fill, so verify the address with them before waiving conditions. Ontario Tech shares the campus at Simcoe and Conlin with Durham College, and Trent University Durham is on Thornton Road South.

Windfields Farm's legacy is walkable. Northern Dancer's grave, where the whole horse lies with ten other thoroughbreds, received Ontario Heritage Act designation on April 16, 2018 inside the campus lands; the Trillium horse cemetery sits in a nearby grove; and the Windfields Stone House at 2370 Simcoe Street North, a Gothic Revival farmhouse remade in 1952, has been designated since July 2014. Council adopted the Honouring the Windfields Farm Legacy program in 2016 to keep those five elements visible. The Part II Plan holds the Oshawa Creek branches as a natural heritage system with walking and cycling links to the parks and stormwater ponds. Camp Samac and Cedar Valley Conservation Area are just south across Conlin Road. Daily shopping means the plazas along Taunton Road and the campus, a 15-minute drive to the Oshawa Centre, and the planned RioCan retail at Winchester Road. Lakeridge Health Oshawa is about 20 minutes south on Simcoe.

Windfields suits families after a newer house with a double garage, a Tarion warranty still running and a school inside the subdivision, and anyone tied to the campus, from professors to nurses commuting down Simcoe to Lakeridge Health. Investors buy the townhouses and condos for student tenants, which also means rental turnover on some streets. It suits 407 commuters better than GO commuters, since the train is a drive away. It does not suit buyers who want mature trees, a century home or a main street within a five-minute walk, and construction traffic continues while the eastern lands and Conlin Road are finished.