Development in the City

The city's form and functioning is rapidly changing with all of the intensification projects underway. There are many government initiatives taking place that are undermining community conversations on specific development sites. The province's Bill 109/23 are mandating less public say on development, (e.g., tight review timelines), in a move they call streamlining 'red tape', (i.e., getting rid of public consultation that is labelled now by Minister Clark as BANANA - a term beyond NIMBY).

In addition to the Province's direction, the City is also working to 'streamline' development activity to pre-zoning development sites to the maximum permissive levels of activity as provided by the City's Official Plan - this is being done through a new comprehensive zoning by-law. By this approach, development applications involving public input can be done away with the staff processing new projects through site plans/building permits, (i.e., no public input here). As a result existing residents will not be involved in giving 'compability and appropriateness' comments for new development in their neighbourhoods.

In defining neighbourhood dialogue/discussion for new development works as 'red tape', a disservice to promoting equity and inclusion is being created via the City's planning system. This is something that should be carefully considered in the City's new 'Community Engagement Framework'.