Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Peter Milczyn’s planning reform bill passes second reading

"These measures will restore the public’s confidence in the planning system, restore accountability to elected officials and potentially save municipalities significant resources that are expended on preparing for and defending against numerous appeals," Milczyn said in the legislature.

Bill 39 passed second reading Nov. 20 by a vote of 34-7, endorsed by the Liberals and NDP and rejected by the Conservatives. It will go before the legislature’s standing committee on general government next spring.

The bill contains amendments to existing legislation that would address three broad themes.

It aims to restore more local decision-making on planning matters back to local governments while balancing the need to maintain a mechanism to appeal poor decisions to the OMB.

The OMB is a politically appointed, quasi-judicial board with the power to overrule municipal governments’ planning decisions in favour of developers, property owners and residents.

The bill would modernize certain aspects of the Planning Act, such as freezing approved Official Plan amendments and zoning bylaws for five years. It also includes some specific amendments to the City of Toronto Act.

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Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Ted McMeekin is currently conducting a review, and is likely to bring forward legislation next year to reform the provincial Planning Act.

Milczyn said his bill would "kick off" that process.

"It will start debate and discussion and put a concrete proposal on the table that is well thought out that Toronto and other municipalities would like to see coming into place," Milczyn said in an interview.

Last year, Milczyn led Toronto’s process to develop a response to the Ontario government’s consultation on Planning Act reforms as chair of Toronto’s planning growth management committee. Milczyn sat on the city committee for 14 years.

Toronto City Council unanimously endorsed a series of positions upon which his bill was built, Milczyn said.

Toronto’s Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat and Kerri Voumvakis, the city’s director of strategic initiatives, policy and analysis, assisted in forming positions that held common ground with other municipalities, Milczyn said in his remarks to the House.

Under the bill, municipally initiated Official Plan Amendments, and zoning bylaws that implement them, and approved site-specific zoning bylaws, once passed, would no longer be subject to appeal to the OMB for a period of five years.

"Often, you get a Secondary Plan or (site-specific) plan that goes through a big public process to approve it, and six months later the developer wants to change it," Milczyn said. "Developers could no longer try to reopen it. If a city says no, then no means no."

It would require the minister on municipal affairs to pass regulations to define the widely, and often controversially, interpreted "minor variance" to a bylaw.

Property owners and developers regularly seek a minor variance from the requirements of a zoning bylaw in their development applications to an appointed local Committee of Adjustment.

"There are four tests of minor variance under the Planning Act, and three of the four tests are subjective and vague," Milczyn said. "Interpretation of minor variance should be done by regulation. The idea is it would cap the percentage of variance from the bylaw. That’s long overdue."

The bill would also give municipalities more tools to manage the impacts of growth and development.

It would give municipalities the right to expect "excellence in design" in development, encourage a sense of place and provide for public spaces that are "high quality, safe, accessible, attractive and vibrant."

The bill would grant municipalities the power to address a chronic shortage of affordable housing by requiring developments with 20 or more new housing units to provide a portion that is affordable, whether that is affordable housing, ownership, rental or not-for-profit, Milczyn said.

The bill would also lengthen the time to file an appeal to the OMB.

Official Plan Amendments (OPA) and concurrent zoning bylaw amendments to an OPA would extend from 180 days to 240, and a zoning bylaw amendment from 120 days to 180 days "to allow municipalities more time to review proposals without the threat of a preemptive appeal to the OMB," Milczyn said.

Milczyn stressed none of the measures would abolish the OMB or the ability for property owners to appeal applications or decisions.

"However, it will limit the ability to frustrate local municipalities’ ability to approve and enforce properly formulated plans or bylaws," he said.