The Province of Ontario’s ongoing crusade to cut red tape and build more houses is making life difficult for the Town of Innisfil.
The municipality introduced an amendment to its official plan (OP) during a special meeting of council May 15 that enhances the pre-application consultation process currently on the books, adding a second stage designed to ensure applications are ready to be processed by staff before they are officially submitted.
This was made necessary by some of the provisions included in Bill 109, the More Homes for Everyone Act. That bill put penalties on municipalities that could not turn around planning decisions fast enough, between 60 and 120 days depending on the application type, including the refund of certain application fees.
In response, many municipalities moved to a multi-stage pre-consultation process, to make sure developers were giving municipalities all the information required to make a decision more efficiently — and without the risk of losing valuable capital.
For Innisfil, it was one of the recommendations that came from the fees review study accepted by council late last year.
“(It) also is meant to provide an opportunity to clarify the application process requirements and ultimately help to improve the approval timelines, reducing the amount of circulations and modifications that are required throughout the review of particular development applications,” said planning manager Brandon Correia.
Stage 1, Correia explained, is the status quo, what currently happens with development applications in the town today. Here, a pre-consultation meeting will take place and a follow-up record will be shared with the proponent, outlining the necessary plans and studies required and any initial feedback from town staff and other stakeholders, which could include the County of Simcoe, relevant conservation authority and any others as needed.
This stage is where the town “sets the table” for developers, Correia said. Stage 2 is where the technical materials are reviewed.
“Once they’ve had that Stage 1 meeting, they go back to the drawing board with their consulting team and their planners and come back with the Stage 2 submission, which will be circulated and reviewed,” Corriea said. “We give a bit more formal advice and cursory review of what might be missing, what might be improved before they actually make their application.”
Those conversations are typically happening once an application is submitted, in the current state, in the first or second pass of the documents. It’s hoped the process will eliminate the need for those to be circulated a third, fourth or fifth time before bringing the item forward to council.
Mayor Lynn Dollin acknowledged the contradiction of adding a step in a planning process to save time.
“I know it sounds counterintuitive to add another stage and have it save time, but I really think that’s what will happen if you get more complete applications,” she said, particularly stressing how it will improve the process for non-professional or one-off applicants.
Coun. Alex Waters thought the proposed change was great, particularly because it places the onus on slowed development processes on the parties he feels are most responsible.
“The government makes us — the municipalities and the conversation authorities — look like the villain in terms of slowing up applications, when most of the time its bad applications coming forward,” Waters said. “I really hope Bill 185 doesn’t undermine this because I think it’ll put a lot of pressure on staff to accept bad applications because we’re under time restrictions.”
It’s a real risk for Innisfil and any municipality that has a pre-consultation process.
Introduced in April, Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, makes changes to the refund provisions of Bill 109. However, it also “removes the permission for a council or planning board to pass a bylaw requiring consultation,” the staff report to council noted.
“With or without Bill 185 or Bill 109, staff do feel that an enhanced and upfront pre-consultation process is best not only for staff and agencies but also ultimately for the developer community as a whole,” Correia said.
Dollin wondered if this amendment would be grandfathered if it was passed prior to Bill 185 receiving royal assent. Correia said the language in the Planning Act will prevail, but consultations could still be part of any development process, just as suggestions rather than mandatory.
The amendment was received by council as information and will be brought back for ratification at a later date.
