Thank you for the…

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Environmental Registry of Ontario (“ERO”) postings regarding Bill 97, Helping Homebuyers and Protecting Tenants Act (“the Bill”). Please note that the following comments and recommendations are provided by City of Mississauga staff and have been endorsed by City Council on its May 3, 2023 meeting. The City Council endorsed Corporate Report and Appendix is linked below. In addition, a detailed comment table is attached to this submission.

The following contains a summary of the City of Mississauga's comments on Bill 97 for your consideration:

LEGISLATIVE CHANGES

The proposed amendments under Bill 97 will see some changes to key land use planning legislation, including the Planning Act, Municipal Act, Residential Tenancies Act and the Building Code Act. Key changes are discussed below, and a detailed list of changes is included in the attached Table.

EMPLOYMENT

Changes to permitted uses in employment areas

Employment areas provide land for diverse employment uses to meet current and future needs, and do not permit residential development. In both Bill 97 and the proposed PPS, 2023, the Province is proposing to change how employment areas are defined by narrowing the list of uses in an employment area and removing commercial uses such as office and retail.

The Province proposes a clause in Bill 97 that may preserve existing clusters of business and economic uses in employment areas, but the drafting of this provision is unclear as to whether existing Official Plan policies will suffice or whether municipalities would need to introduce amendments to their Official Plans to keep existing office and retail buildings in employment areas.

Proposals to remove lands designated for commercial uses, could create major issues for retaining and attracting new businesses. For example, office users tend to prefer to cluster next to other offices. The introduction of certain industrial uses (e.g. metal clad building, with 100 dock doors, noise and odour emissions and outdoor storage) in a prestige office node could de-value existing offices. Staff are supportive of certain flexible options in office nodes and are in the process of expanding more life science permissions to office areas. The key point is the existing system worked well as municipalities could tailor the mix of employment uses permitted in each employment area based on the local context.

Commercial lands also provide access to services and amenities that support the wider employment area – e.g. restaurants, print shops, banks, courier services, etc. The proposed policies do not account for the important role that office and retail play within employment areas.
Moreover, where there are commercial uses along the edges of employment lands, they create an important buffer between heavier employment uses such as manufacturing, and nearby residential communities. Through engagement with industrial users, staff have heard how important that buffer function can be to their future success in Mississauga. Allowing sensitive land uses such as residential within these buffers could slowly erode employment areas and surrounding industrial operations and compromise their viability.

• Bill 97 and the PPS should continue to provide municipalities the option of designating for office and retail uses in employment areas.

Proposed changes may impact the economic viability of key commercial uses

The pandemic has undoubtedly had a major impact on the office and retail market, however it is too early to understand how these impacts will play out over the long term. Proposed PPS, 2023, could have long term impacts on land economics that will be difficult to reverse.
Specifically, an employment area designation helps to moderate land values, which can make investments in office and retail uses attractive. The City has found that when land is removed from an employment area and opened for residential development, land values can increase in the order of 5 to 7 times. This increase in land value makes it difficult for office uses to compete.
Mississauga’s tax base relies heavily on commercial uses and it will important that these businesses continue to find lands in Mississauga that meet their requirements.

• Staff will need guidance from the Province on where it considers future offices and retail uses should be built. It seems the long-term land economic and business attraction implications have not been thought out.

ALL DECISIONS GOING FORWARD MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH NEW PPS AND CHANGES IN THE PLANNING ACT

Implementation provisions require that all planning decisions (even for applications submitted under the previous regime) must be consistent with the PPS, 2023, (once it is adopted) even if the Official Plan has not been updated. Furthermore, Bill 97 proposes to allow the Minister to make regulations that could address different transition rules. This lack of clarity would create increased uncertainty in the planning process and in the review of development applications.

• The Province could reconsider the Official Plan review process. If the intent is to be consistent with the proposed PPS, the Province should develop transition provisions that remove the need to conform to the entire Region of Peel Official Plan, approved in November 2022 under the current planning framework. Instead, the transition should indicate that lower-tier municipalities within Regions with no approval authority have to review their official plans to conform to the new changes in the Planning Act and to be consistent with the proposed PPS, without the need to conform to those relevant sections in previously approved upper-tier municipalities' official plans.

• Moreover, more time should be given as reviews of the Mississauga's planning regime as a result of these changes could be significant. The Province should include a transition extending the timeline for the completion of lower-tier official plan reviews to address conformity to the new changes to the Planning Act and to be consistent with a proposed PPS.

INCREASED RIGHTS FOR TENANTS MAY IMPROVE HOUSING CONDITIONS

The Province is proposing various amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, with a large focus on strengthening tenants’ rights. This includes changes to permit tenants to install air conditioners if one has not been provided, as well as strengthening regulations around the termination of tenancy for renovation purposes and/or bad faith evictions (e.g. where a family member has not moved in within a reasonable amount of time).

• Staff are supportive of these proposed changes and anticipate the changes will improve housing conditions and security for tenants in Mississauga and Ontario.

MINISTERIAL POWERS OVER ZONING, OFFICIAL PLANS, BY-LAWS AND MUNICIPAL AGREEMENTS CONTINUE TO BE EXPANDED

A theme common among all the recent planning regime changes has been the shift towards centralizing planning powers with the Minister. This Bill is no exception, and it creates several new tools that the Minister can use to override municipal decisions and policies. These powers are intended to impact the City’s ability to use some key planning tools (e.g. zoning, Official Plans and By-laws) as well as bind it to provincially led agreements.

• If the Province intends to continue to make frequent use of MZOs, and these other tools that more or less act the same way as an MZO, then staff suggest that their use should be limited to situations that have a clear public benefit and supporting rationale.
• Two-way consultation with upper and lower-tier municipalities should be mandatory when using these tools. Moreover, Provincial staff should be responsible for informing the community about any changes resulting from their use.
• The Province should collaborate with municipalities to build up their expertise in preparing municipal planning implementing documents. As well, the Province should work with municipal staff to ensure that provincial decisions do not undermine the City's ability to negotiate for costs.