The following are responses…

The following are responses to discussion questions included in the posting:

1. What is your interest in and/or experience with the implementation of enhanced development standards at the lot level (outside of buildings)?

Municipality – Approval Authority for Land Division and Official Plan Amendments

2. In your experience, are enhanced development standards applied consistently across municipalities? Please provide examples where possible.

We prefer not to apply enhanced development standards, but do in an effort to find common-ground solutions to planning issues.
Enhanced development standards in these contexts can be lower-cost than alternatives of not permitting development (if there is no other way to address the issue) or requiring costly offsite improvements (eg addressing limited servicing capacity)
When identified as necessary, various tools are applied to address context, for example:
• Bicycle parking where a developer proposes fewer car parking spaces to fit more housing on a small lot
• Natural heritage mitigation measures to permit development adjacent to a natural heritage feature where it has been identified as necessary to demonstrate no negative impact to the feature
• Bioswale and other Low Impact Design measures to reduce requirements for on-site stormwater management infrastructure and accommodate more development on a site than would otherwise be permitted

3. What types of standards, should municipalities be allowed to apply outside of buildings and how do these requirements maintain the health and safety of the site if at all?

Health and safety are important and are not the only measures under consideration. Health includes opportunities for people to choose movement and physical activity.
Municipalities should be allowed to use tools that enable intensification or development in areas that, absent these tools, would be unable to address regular development standards or PPS requirements (e.g. hazard mitigation, demonstrate no negative impact to natural heritage features, conserve archaeological resources in situ.) Defining these as standards can provide for more consistency in their application.

4. Do you / your organization have information about the short- and long-term costs of enhanced development standards at the lot level?

Application of these standards can enable development that would not otherwise be permitted, or more development (with higher yield) than would be permitted.

5. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions relating to site plan control or other related subjects?

We strive to maintain a least-intrusive approach to these instruments, applying them only when necessary to address planning issues.
Narrowing the scope of application of site plan control has constrained the tools available to municipalities to address matters under the PPS.
Adding regulations for zoning with conditions may provide municipalities with the capacity to do more through zoning without agreements etc.