Proposed Planning Act, City of Toronto Act, 2006, and Municipal Act, 2001 Changes (Schedules 4, 9, and 12 of Bill 185 - the proposed Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024)

Proposed Planning Act, City of Toronto Act, 2006, and Municipal Act, 2001 changes

Schedule 4, 9, and 12 of Bill 185 proposes a number of amendments to the Planning Act, City of Toronto Act, 2006, and Municipal Act, 2001:

Reduce Parking Minimums

• Provide that there is no minimum parking requirement for lands, buildings or structures within Protected Major Transit Station Areas and Major Transit Station Areas, noting that:
  • This change would not apply to bicycle parking, and
  • Where parking is provided in a new development, requirements to provide accessible parking spaces under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) would apply.

Enhancing Framework for Additional Residential Units (ARUs)

• Enhance Minister’s regulation-making authority to remove other zoning barriers to building small multi-unit residential. This could help create additional residential units, such as basement suites, by eliminating barriers including maximum lot coverage and limits on bedrooms allowed per lot​.

Community Infrastructure and Housing Accelerator (CIHA)

• Remove the Community Infrastructure and Housing Accelerator (CIHA) tool from the Planning Act by repealing s. 34.1 of the Planning Act to avoid unnecessary duplication with a revised and transparent process for requesting and issuing minister’s zoning orders.
• Provide transition rules to permit CIHA orders that have been made to date to continue functioning as municipal zoning by-laws.

 “Use It or Lose It” Tools

• Stalled developments can limit a municipality’s progress in meeting provincial housing targets. For example, seven municipalities have reported that 70,000 units have remained inactive for at least two years. Ontario is proposing a new “use it or lose it” tool to enhance and expand a municipality’s ability to address this obstacle and to support the efficient allocation of housing-enabling infrastructure.

• Changes would:

  • Create a new municipal servicing management tool which would explicitly authorize municipalities to adopt policies by by-law (where they do not already exist) to formalize how water and sewage servicing of an approved development is managed to enable servicing capacity to be allocated / reallocated to other projects if the approved development has not proceeded after a specified timeline and the servicing is needed elsewhere in the service area.
    • Should municipalities adopt such a by-law, the by-law would not be appealable to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
  • Create a Minister’s regulation-making authority to enable the Minister to provide exemptions for individual or classes of approved developments.
  • Enhance lapsing authority for approvals of draft plans of subdivision/condominiums and site plan to facilitate the efficient use of housing-enabling infrastructure and accelerate housing development.
  • Specifically:
    • For subdivision / condominium approvals:
      • Require approval authorities to impose a lapsing condition for all draft subdivision/ condominium approvals; and,
      • Create Minister’s regulation-making authority to set timelines for lapsing provisions and establish exemptions from lapsing provisions.  
    • For site plan control approvals:
      • Enable a municipal “authorized person” to apply a lapsing condition when approving a new site plan control application​.
      • Create Minister’s regulation-making authority to set timelines for lapsing provisions and establish exemptions from lapsing provisions.  

Third Party Appeals

• Limit third-party appeals for official plans, official plan amendments, zoning by-laws, and zoning by-law amendments to help communities get quicker planning approvals for housing projects, reduce building costs, and in some cases reduce project delays by up to 18 months.

Fee Refund Provisions

• Remove the fee refund provisions from the Planning Act and City of Toronto Act, 2006 for zoning by-law amendment and site plan control applications to speed up local decisions that support more housing.

Municipal Pre-Application Process

• Make pre-application consultation voluntary at the discretion of the applicant.
• Allow an applicant to challenge complete application requirements to the OLT at any time, rather than only having a time-limited window once a municipality rejects an application as not being “complete”.

Settlement Area Boundary Expansions

• Allow applicants to appeal a municipality’s refusal or failure to make a decision on a privately requested official plan or zoning by-law amendment that would change the boundary of an "area of settlement“, outside of the Greenbelt Area. 

Facilitating Standardized Housing Designs

• Create regulation-making authority that would enable: 
  • The establishment of criteria to facilitate planning approvals for standardized housing.
  • The proposed changes would only apply on certain specified lands, of a minimum lot size, such as urban residential lands with full municipal servicing outside of the Greenbelt Area.
  • The identification of elements of the Planning Act and/or City of Toronto Act, 2006 that could be overridden and/or certain planning barriers that could be removed if the criteria are met.

 Upper-Tier Planning Responsibilities

• Provide flexibility for bringing the changes to remove planning responsibilities from specified upper-tier municipalities into force separately.
• Identify July 1, 2024 as the effective date of the upper-tier planning changes for Peel Region, Halton Region and York Region.
  • The upper-tier planning changes for the remaining four municipalities (i.e., Waterloo, Durham and Niagara Regions, and Simcoe County) would come into force at a later date(s), upon proclamation. The government intends to move forward with bringing the changes into effect for the remaining upper-tier municipalities by the end of 2024.

Expedited Approval Process for Community Service Facility Projects

• Create regulation-making authority to enable a streamlined approvals pathway for prescribed class(es) of “community service facility” projects (public schools K-12, hospitals and long-term care facilities) that support the creation of complete communities.

Exempt Universities from the Planning Act

Exempt publicly-assisted universities from the Planning Act and planning provisions of the City of Toronto Act, 2006 for university-led student housing projects on- and off-campus.