Redevelopment is a privilege. It is not a right.
A rezoning is in effect a request to modify the law regarding development permissions on your lands. Thus, it is not a right.
Yes and no. I'm not sure "right versus privilege" is the correct way to conceptualize it. Also, it depends what a landowner is proposing to build.
Redeveloping one's land is not like driving, the latter of which is a privilege. Canadian law recognizes the rights of owners to do as they wish with private property. Those rights are, of course, subject to applicable laws and regulations (including zoning and other land use controls) as
@innsertnamehere correctly points out. In Ontario, the same
stature statute which empowers municipalities to adopt Official Plans and pass zoning by-laws also enables people to apply to amend such instruments, and establishes a process (and appeal rights) for such amendment applications.
So, the right to develop property is certainly subject to controls and constraints
So, a landowner can't simply say "I'm going to build a 40-storey tower, this is a free country". This is what I assume
@maestro is referring to. The landowner needs to apply for the necessary approvals. And the test on a rezoning is whether the proposal represents good planning. But
@Waterloo_Guy is correct when he says it is a process set out by the law. The municipality (or the OMB on appeal) cannot arbitrarily withhold permission and there is an underlying assumption that the landowner can built what it wishes as long as it conforms to applicable policies and does not cause undue adverse impacts.
Important to note that a parcel of land will almost always have as-of-right permissions - the ability of the landowner to build
something as long as it does so safely (i.e. in accordance with the Building Code). Subject to only a few limited exceptions, there is an important principle of law that municipalities cannot use their zoning powers to effectively sterilize land (i.e. if a municipality wants open space, it needs to buy the land - it cannot simply achieve the same result by downzoning the property so that the land has no development permissions). Which is another reason why I think calling development rights "a privilege" is not the correct terminology to be using.