Toronto TeaHouse 501 Yonge Condominiums | 170.98m | 52s | Lanterra | a—A

They most certainly are not. Nearly a decade of planning goes into subdivisions from them being just farmland to people moving in. The first plan for Queensville, north of Newmarket, was created in 1998, with the first residents moving in next summer. Seaton had its lands initially sold by the province (or rather traded for lands in the Oak Ridges Moraine) in the early 2000's, with first residents moving in early 2017. North Oakville has been in planning for many years.

Large subdivisions almost always go through rigorous review, extensive infrastructure demand planning, multiple OMB hearings, etc. before actually getting built. The only reason they seem to "pop up" is because, as you said, there is never any news on them. Most of this planning work is not easily available, and the first easy evidence of them is when construction starts 2 years before the first occupancy.

Essentially, from day of land purchase to the first resident move in for a condo is between 5 and 10 years, a subdivision is between 7 and 15.

edit: Mike in TO beat me to it. I nominate post of the week, thats a great overview of how suburbs get built that many are completely unaware of.

Oh, Lord! Now we are talking about the lengthy approvals process going from farmland/agricultural designation to Official Plan and Secondary Plan status as Residential? Oy Vey.

Yes, you are correct: North Oakville took forever to approve their Secondary Plan to permit tens of thousands of new homes, institutions, and employment lands. I won't argue with you about the length of time it takes for that. That's not a subdivision.

My point was (which you have ALL missed) was that subdivision approvals are almost rubber-stamped because they DO already have OP and Secondary Plan status already in place. And their environmental and water allocations studies done ages ahead of time. I wasn't ever talking about that time. What you are taking about is getting agricultural lands into an OP and Secondary Plan. Yea, that takes awhile. And Seaton? Oy Vey, again. Very poor examples of typical 'suburbs'. A much better example, if you wanted to use Oakville for instance, is south of Dundas, or Mississauga, or Brampton, or Milton. Not talk about time to approve the OP and Secondary Plans.

Smackdown? Hilarious.
 
The point is that subdivisions require those. Secondary plans, including in "normal" areas like Brampton (if there even is such a thing as "normal"), and are often initiated and financed by the developers. It sure as heck isn't the city of Brampton paying to design a subdivision block for a private developer.

Sure, they are rubber stamped if you ignore absolutely everything that goes into them and compare the actual rezoning processes only, but its not a fair comparison. So much work goes into a subdivision at the levels preceding the final approval that by the time comes for the metaphorical stamp, it's barely more than symbolic. For an infill multi family residential development, the entire process is contained within the rezoning and site plan application levels. By the time a suburban development reaches that point, the design concept has been worked out, negotiated heavily, agreements have been made on unit counts, general lotting concepts, locations of commercial areas and the character of them, etc, etc, etc. A city has no knowledge of a multi family development until the rezoning application is filed, while by the time the rezoning application is filed for a subdivision, the developer has been working with the municipality for years already, and it's more of a formality, an exercise to ensure lotting concepts all meet minimum performance standards, not a detailed set of negotiations encompassing everything from servicing to traffic management to density to section 37 benefits.
 
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Almost all gone. Bye bye

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Someone at the Health Department will likely want that last photo for their wall. Goodbye Ali Baba's, giver of foodborne illness, Dinesafe violation champions.
 

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