City of Toronto - Approval to amend a municipality’s official plan

A decision was made on June 5, 2019 to approve, with modifications, Official Plan Amendment 406 to the City of Toronto’s Official Plan, as adopted by By-law 1111-2018. Notice of this decision was issued on June 5, 2019.

When the City of Toronto (“City”) adopted OPA 406 it was not aware of provincial policy changes that have now come into effect, nor was the City aware of currently proposed legislative changes – including, but not limited to, those related to the investment made by the province in transit and the Toronto subway infrastructure.

The modifications within this decision are intended to: provide additional flexibility to better facilitate unique or site-specific solutions for employment and institutional uses; to reflect recent and potential changes to the land use planning system in Ontario; and to address the provincial commitment to increase housing supply, particularly near transit.

The proposed modifications to OPA 406 are meant to function within the context of the existing City of Toronto Official Plan and current in-effect legislation, or if passed into law, within the context of proposed planning, transportation and heritage amendments.

To preserve policy cross-references in OPA 406 the modifications maintain the initial policy numbering established by the City. For instance, where an entire policy has been deleted the policy number remains with the words “Not applicable”. Further, some of the new policies added through modification have a number followed by a capital letter, by way of theoretical example new policy 100A could be inserted between existing policies 100 and 101.

For ease of reading and implementation, where modifications were made to a policy the entire policy (or section of policy) is replaced in its entirety as the modification.

Other information

Pursuant to subsections 17 (36.5) and (38.1) of the Planning Act, the decision of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing regarding Official Plan Amendment 406 adopted in accordance with section 17 and 26 is final and not subject to appeal. Accordingly, Official Plan Amendment 406, as approved with modifications by the Minister, came into effect on June 6, 2019.