Please accept the attached…

Please accept the attached report as the Region of Waterloo's comments regarding ERO Posting No. 019-0181. Below is a summary of our key comments:

Proposed transition regulations under the Planning Act

In general, the above transition rules are reasonable and will provide an appropriate period for municipalities and the development industry to adjust to the new planning rules. However, we do have some concerns with the proposed regulation that would expand the grounds for appeal of an official plan/amendment or zoning by-law/amendment decision, or failure to make a decision, where such decision or failure to make a decision has been appealed but no hearing date on the merits of the appeal has been scheduled.

In some cases, appeals already before the LPAT (i.e., on the limited pre-Bill 108 grounds of a failure to be consistent with Provincial policy, or failure to conform with the Growth Plan or an upper-tier official plan), may be at the stage where all parties have filed their appeal and responding records and case synopses and had one or more case management conferences in preparation for a hearing, but no actual hearing date has been set. Allowing appellants to expand the grounds of their appeal at this late stage could result in significant delays by requiring parties to update issues lists, retain additional expert witnesses, and file additional evidence related to the new grounds. This could potentially result in lengthening the hearing time required to resolve the matter. Based on the Tribunal’s current calendar, long hearings are scheduled well into the future because of the challenges of scheduling consecutive hearing dates.

To address this issue, we recommend that a transition to the expanded grounds of appeal should occur for appeals filed after the Bill 108 amendments are proclaimed in force, and a where a case management conference has not yet been scheduled.

Proposed regulations related to additional units in existing houses

We generally support the intent of this regulation to make it easier for homeowners to create residential units above garages, in basements and in lane ways. Most second units are created in established neighbourhoods that are near schools, shopping centres, recreational facilities and other important amenities. They also help provide affordable housing options for those looking to live in lower density areas and, in many cases can be more affordable than apartment rentals.
Despite our broad support for this regulatory change, there are some ongoing challenges to creating additional units on existing properties, such as:

• municipalities with large post-secondary student populations (e.g., City of Waterloo) have circumstances where additional units may not be appropriate based on good land use planning principles;

• the high cost of retrofitting a home or ancillary building to add additional units, including the need to ensure fire and building code compliance; and

• parking-related challenges.

The attached staff report (PDL-CPL-19-32) will be considered by the Region of Waterloo's Planning and Works Committee on August 13, 2019. To meet your commenting deadline, we are submitting this report as placeholder. If there are any changes to the report after it is considered by the Committee, we will send you a follow-up letter outlining the changes.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback into the Province's proposed regulations. Should you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact us.