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The Province of Ontario is reforming the Planning Act and the Development Charges act to improve the development process.
The proposed amendments, which still have to be approved by the legislature, would make several changes to the Planning Act. Municipalities and developers would have to better quantify how they are consulting with the public by including public consultation input in development reports. Public consultation and resident concerns would also be taken into account at OMB hearings. The Province also hopes to reduce the amount of appeals to the OMB through several initiatives, such as making municipal official plans incapable of appeal for the first 2 years of implementation, and making community planning permits incapable of appeal for 5 years. Under the proposed changes, a municipal official plan would have to be reviewed every 10 years instead of the current 5, though municipalities would be encouraged to update them in between full reviews. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ted McMeekin, stressed that there is a full review of the OMB coming up in the near future, and that these changes are not the only issues that the province is looking at in the development system.
Proposed changes to the Development Charges act include allowing municipalities to collect development charges to fund transit expansion and waste diversion services. The proposed legislation would force municipalities to create reports on how they are spending Section 37 funds. Municipalities would have to create explicit plans on what they wish to do with the funds, and adding them to a general slush fund would no longer be allowed. Under the proposed changes, municipalities would also need to create a parks plan to specify which parks they wish to construct and where, so that Section 37 funds can be more clearly and openly directed.
The proposed changes come after an extensive public consultation cycle, where residents and stakeholders voiced concerns over the cost of appeal to the OMB, the need for better accountability for Section 37 funding allocation, and the need for municipalities to collect more of the costs of developments from the developments themselves. It is important to note that details of these plans are still being worked out, as working groups of stakeholders will soon be convened to review and consider the more complex details of these proposed changes.
What are your thoughts on these proposed changes? Feel free to voice your opinions in the comment section provided below.
