Town Considerations: A…

Town Considerations:

A shift to a provincially prescribed, standardized Official Plan structure and land use designations will require a new Town Official Plan, through a future conformity exercise. Significant restructuring will be required, reconsideration of existing policies and land use designations and new mapping. Staff resourcing and the existing Official Plan Review work program will need support and reconsideration. Internal training and procedural updates will be required to ensure consistent interpretation and application of the new framework.

Staff raise concern with the implications of the proposed changes to the longstanding approach of systems planning. The proposed Official Plan framework based on features and areas shifts away from the system-based approach in the Provincial Planning Statement. A systems-based approach is critical to the ecological health, function, economic viability, and long-term protection of these resources. It is unclear how municipalities will be able to ensure development conforms to the Provincial Planning Statement or have regard for the Planning Act which is founded on a systems-based approach to Oakville's and Ontario's ecological, hydrological and agricultural resources.

The proposed removal of municipal authority to require mandatory enhanced development and green building standards through zoning or site plan control will affect the Town’s sustainability and urban design objectives. Existing Town policies and practices related to sustainable design, low impact development beyond health and safety requirements, and green building measures will be undermined and not support the long term health of the municipality. The Town will need to place greater reliance on voluntary programs, incentives, and education, rather than regulatory requirements, to achieve sustainability objectives. This does not align with the Province’s climate change goals.

The proposed Provincially regulated minimum residential lot size will limit the Town’s ability to regulate lot frontage, depth, and area through zoning. This will negatively affect existing policies related to established residential communities and neighbourhood character, as well as the Town’s urban structure and local context-based zoning regulations.

The removal of notice requirements for amendments to or revocations of MZOs reduces municipal involvement in decisions that may impact the Town, and raises concerns of public transparency.

Changes allowing encumbered parkland and privately owned public spaces to count toward parkland dedication with minimum credit requirements, will affect the Town’s parkland acquisition strategy. There will increase administrative and legal complexity related to securing agreements, easements, and public access arrangements.

Bill 98 will have financial and operational implications on the Town, including staff time, training, legal and implementation costs associated with updating policies, procedures and agreements.

Comments to Province:

Streamlining and Standardizing Official Plans

The Town of Oakville supports the Province’s objective to improve clarity, consistency, and efficiency in the planning system; however, the proposed approach to streamlining and standardizing Official Plans raises concerns. Official Plans are intended to reflect local context, growth management strategies, infrastructure capacity, environmental constraints, and community objectives developed through extensive public engagement and technical analysis.

The proposed standardized framework, including the prescribed table of contents for Official Plans, limits a municipality's ability to respond to local conditions, including established community character, servicing constraints, and planned growth patterns. Standardization assumes all municipalities have the same geography, size, resources, land uses, opportunities and challenges. There is great variety in the 444 municipalities across Ontario and a community’s Official Plan should reflect the individual context.

Oakville is an urban municipality with a Council-approved urban structure that places a strong emphasis on strategic intensification, transit supportive development, cultural and built heritage, community design and environmental protection. The Town requires the ability to apply flexible, locally responsive policies to manage redevelopment and intensification that is consistent with Council approved objectives and long term fiscal and infrastructure sustainability.

Additional clarity is requested regarding the following:

The scope of policies intended to be contained within each section, and whether municipalities will retain the ability to address matters that are critical to good planning but may not be expressly identified in the proposed table of contents.

Whether the Province intends to implement consistent designation criteria and, if so, what those will be for each of the proposed designations. Currently the proposal states that the Minister may provide for two or more sub-designations; however, details beyond that are currently lacking. Additional details are required to consider local implications and provide comments to the Province on these aspects.

How existing secondary plans, and site-and area-specific policies will be addressed. Streamlining efforts should be focussed on reducing unnecessary duplication, while preserving the ability of municipalities to tailor Official Plan policies to local circumstances and evolving community needs. Moving site-and area-specific policies and secondary plans to stand-alone documents outside of the Official Plan will add complexity for the policy reader. Without connectivity from a table of content perspective, a reader will not necessarily understand the applicability of these separate plans or policies. There will likely be duplication of policy content required as a result of being a stand-alone document, which will have the opposite effect of the streamlining being sought. More information is needed to understand how these documents would be subject to the same Planning Act processes that apply to Official Plans, without being part of an Official Plan under the Planning Act.

The Provincial Planning Statement clearly requires municipalities to plan for and map a natural heritage system. Additionally, the Planning Act requires that municipalities have regard for matters of Provincial Interest, including the protection of ecological systems. The proposed Official Plan framework does not reflect this requirement, instead referencing Natural Environment and Water Resource areas without recognizing their systemic function. Clear and explicit alignment with the Provincial Planning Statement, Planning Act, and associated guidance on the protection of Natural Heritage and Water Resource systems is required.

Complementary Changes to Support Implementation of Streamlining and Standardizing Official Plans

Meaningful implementation will require strong alignment between Official Plan policies, zoning, and infrastructure planning. The Town encourages the Province to continue engaging with municipalities in the development of regulations and guidance materials to ensure that implementation supports timely development while maintaining good planning outcomes.

The proposal puts forward limitations on the ability of municipalities to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. It is proposed that Official Plans will no longer be required to contain goals, objectives and actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to provide for adaptation to a changing climate. While this removes the requirement for climate change policies in Official Plans, the table of contents doesn’t clearly provide for a section if a municipality were to choose to retain such policies. Removing the importance of climate change policies in Official Plans, particularly in the context of emerging intensive development types and the proposed prohibition on enhanced development standards under site plan, will undermine the role of land use planning as a key mechanism for achieving provincial and local climate objectives. As per the 2025 Report on Progress to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Office of the Auditor General, 54% of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings and transportation. Such policies support compact, transit supportive development, reduce long term infrastructure and servicing costs, and help address climate-related risks such as flooding, extreme heat, and infrastructure vulnerability. Climate change considerations should continue to be required and strengthened through municipal Official Plans rather than removed in the interest of standardization.

Site Plan: Prohibit Mandatory Municipal Enhanced Development Standards and Green Building Standards

The Town of Oakville has significant concerns regarding the proposed prohibition on mandatory municipal enhanced development standards and green building standards through the site plan process. These tools have been critical in enabling municipalities to advance climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, and sustainable building practices in a tangible manner that reflects local priorities and environmental objectives.

Oakville has established sustainability and climate related targets through Council approved plans and policies, and municipal development standards play an important role in implementing those directions. Removing the ability to require such standards risks undermining local climate resilience efforts and result in long term environmental and servicing impacts that extend well beyond individual development applications.

While the Town recognizes the importance of consistency and predictability for the development industry, it encourages the Province to consider a more balanced approach that allows municipalities to apply enhanced standards where supported by local policy, technical justification, and Council direction, particularly in identified growth areas.

The Town has additional significant concerns around the proposed wording under subsection 41(4.1.2) which provides that, "for greater certainty" that "construction standards" which are excluded from site plan control under 41 (4.1) include environmental protection and conservation. This appears to be a broader restriction that would apply and is anticipated to have major implications beyond enhanced development standards. This will limit the Town’s ability to, among other things, require the implementation of mitigation measures in accordance with Environmental Impact Assessments. As proposed, it is not clear under what authority municipalities would have to be able to require standard and basic mitigation measures for environmental protection when construction is proposed adjacent to natural heritage features, such as erosion and sediment control measures and timing windows.

Minimum Lot Sizes

The Town acknowledges that flexibility in minimum lot sizes can support gentle intensification and a broader range of housing options. However, from Oakville’s perspective, minimum lot size requirements must continue to be considered within the context of established neighbourhood character, servicing capacity, and community design objectives.

Oakville is generally supportive of opportunities for context sensitive intensification but cautions that a one size fits all approach to minimum lot sizes may result in unintended impacts on stable residential areas and create challenges related to infrastructure, functional community design, and compatibility. Municipal zoning standards, informed by Official Plan policies and community engagement, remain an important tool for managing incremental change.

The Province must ensure that any changes related to minimum lot sizes retain an appropriate role for municipal implementation and allow municipalities to tailor standards to local conditions and built form contexts. Such changes should be supported by co-ordinated planning for population growth, including adequate schools, community and municipal services, infrastructure, and local commercial uses to support complete communities.

Minister’s Zoning Orders

The Town of Oakville remains concerned with the scope and use of Minister’s Zoning Orders (MZOs), particularly where they bypass local planning processes, Council decision making, and public consultation. MZOs can create uncertainty for municipalities and have the potential to disrupt carefully planned growth strategies, infrastructure co-ordination, and environmental planning efforts.

While the Town recognizes that MZOs may be appropriate in limited circumstances of clear provincial interest, their use should be transparent, justified, and undertaken in collaboration with affected municipalities. The Town continues to advocate for advanced consultation, clear rationale, and consideration of local Official Plans and infrastructure capacity when MZOs are proposed.

Maintaining confidence in the planning system requires that MZOs be used sparingly and in a manner that respects municipal planning authority and accountability.

Encumbered Parkland and Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS)

The Town supports the intent to clarify requirements related to encumbered parkland and Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS); however, care must be taken to ensure that these spaces continue to provide meaningful public benefit. Oakville relies on public parkland and some POPS to meet the recreational and open space needs of our growing and intensifying communities.

Restrictions on municipal discretion to assess encumbrances or to secure appropriate design, access, and long-term maintenance arrangements could reduce the functional and communal value of these spaces. From the Town’s perspective, the ability to evaluate parkland quality, usability, and long-term public benefit is essential to achieving complete communities.

The Town encourages the Province to maintain flexibility for municipalities to negotiate parkland and POPS arrangements that respond to site specific conditions, community needs, and long-term stewardship considerations. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach when discounting encumbered land, as the reasons for discounting the land can vary on a case-by-case basis.

The minimum credit should be reduced to 0.5 with the ability to provide additional credit to ensure that the credit given can more closely match the value being received. This will mitigate the potential impact on the ability of municipal parkland systems to achieve the appropriate mix of part typologies and reduce the volume of appeals to the OLT on this issue. The Town requests that the Province continue to engage with municipalities on appropriate parkland dedication discount rates for encumbered land.