The comments from the City…

The comments from the City of Kawartha Lakes Heritage Planning staff are as follows:
• Lack of clarity regarding application: The application of the legislative and regulatory amendments is not clear and additional clarification as to when an organization would be eligible to apply through this steam is seriously required. What does it mean for an alteration to be required for religious practice or for attributes to be connected to religious practice? The interpretation of what this means could vary wildly from municipality to municipality or applicant to applicant. It is not clear if these conditions apply solely to liturgical features with specific functions and theological purposes, such as rood screens and alters, or to features which are more loosely connected to religious activities such as pews. The Ministry needs to provide significantly more direction on when and where these new conditions would be applicable. The lack of clarity is a disservice to both applicants and municipalities.
• Revised timelines: The new 30-day timeline is too short to review and approve an application. While there are certainly some straightforward applications which could be reviewed and approved within this timeline, this would not be the case for many applications where there may be complexity to them or where the application should be denied. In the City of Kawartha Lakes, once staff have received and processed applications, the Municipal Heritage Committee reviews applications related to individually designated properties prior to approval. The Committee only meets once per month, meaning that it may be a challenge for the application to go onto a Committee agenda depending on when it is received. Similarly, applications which involve the removal of heritage attributes and would be classified as a demolition or those which staff and the Committee should be denied must be reviewed and approved by Council, as per the regulations of the Act. The steps to approve or deny such as application, including receipt of an application, review by staff, review by the Municipal Heritage Committee and then review by Council is under no circumstances achievable under this new timeline.
• Approvals without conditions: The ability to issue conditional approvals is extremely important in the review and approval of heritage applications and the Committee is very concerned that this ability will be taken away for certain types of applications. Conditional approvals are frequently used to help come to a consensus with the property owner, while still signalling that a project can go ahead but usually with minor modifications. Conditional approvals is a method of working with the property owner to come to a good and collaborative solution that both assists a property owner in undertaking the work they would like to do while still ensuring that heritage attributes are preserved. It is likely that, without conditional approvals, more applications will just be denied which will be a detriment to property owners and create more challenges in getting their applications approved and projects completed.
• Increase in complexity: The new application requirements for applications that fall under the amendments are substantially more complex than the applications requirements under the regular stream. The addition of new information that must be provided by the applicant goes above and beyond what most applicants need to provide and are not necessary to process heritage permit applications. Further, they increase the complexity and time required for staff and the Municipal Heritage Committee to review these applications, increasing delays and creating more opportunities for applications to be declared incomplete.
• Application to Indigenous communities: The addition of Indigenous communities to the amendments and associated regulations feels like an afterthought and additional information is needed on how and under what circumstances these amendments would apply to applications made by Indigenous communities. Kawartha Lakes is committed to reconciliation and working closely with Indigenous groups and communities but does not feel that these amendments adequately address how they apply to Indigenous communities or what benefit would be derived from them. It is extremely important that any amendments to the OHA that impact Indigenous communities are undertaken with fulsome and appropriate consultation and there is no evidence that this has occurred.
Reponses to MCM Questions RE: Regulatory Impact
Question: Is 30 days a sufficient time for municipalities to process applications and determine if they are complete? No. See above.
Question: Are there any further conditions that should be applied to these types of applications? There needs to be additional clarity as to what benefiting an Indigenous community or religious organization actually means. This is extremely subjective and is neither helpful for applicants or municipal approvers.
Questions: Is the list of information and materials required as part of complete application sufficient? Are there any materials or information that is missing or should be removed? In relation to the proposed amendments, the list of information and materials is fine, although it needs to be noted that by creating two application streams, it massively complicates processes for municipal staff and applicants who may not know what stream that can apply through and, by extension, what information to submit.
Questions: For municipalities:
1. How many applications do you receive each year from municipally designated heritage properties that are primarily used for religious practices or Indigenous spiritual or religious practices requesting an alteration to identified heritage attributes connected to those practices? Generally, we would receive one or two of these per year although it is likely to increase given the increase in individual designations due to Bill 23.

2. How long does it typically take to review such an application (in hours)? How long do you believe it would take under the revised process and requirements? Review of these applications include: meeting with the application, receiving and checking an application for completeness, entering the application into CityWorks (our application management software), writing a report for the Municipal Heritage Committee, reviewing it with the Municipal Heritage Committee, speaking to the applicant about any issues, and issuing the permit. Depending on the type of application, it may also require review by Council which would include the writing of a report and discussion by Council. On average, an application such as this may take 4 to 6 hours to process. It is likely that the review time would increase due to the new submission requirements and verifying the documents submitted and the eligibility of the project for the application stream as well as the likelihood that more things would be going to Council to be denied. This may result in 6 to 8 hours of additional work.

3. What level of employee in your organization typically undertakes this work (e.g., administrative staff, management)? Review is undertaken by the City’s heritage planner (non-union mid-level staff position).