The following is a summary…

The following is a summary of the comments made on behalf of The Governing Council of the University of Toronto (“the University”), please review our attached letter for further details:

• The University is supportive of (i) the Province’s efforts to eliminate development constraints; and (ii) the Government’s motion to reinstate third party appeal right for municipally initiated plans and bylaws and the removal of the two-year prohibition on development applications following adoption and approval of certain municipally-initiated planning instruments.

• While the University is supportive of imposing more stringent requirements on municipalities to ensure development applications are processed in accordance with timelines prescribed by the Planning Act, the University has significant concern that requiring municipalities to refund application fees if a decision is not reached by the prescribed deadline, as adopted by Bill 109, and coming into force on January 1, 2023, will cause mass refusals of applications to avoid having to return application fees, resulting in increased appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal and further delay. The University requests that provisions be added to allow the time periods set out for the refund of application fees to be extended upon the agreement of both the municipality and the owner.