Development 101

By Max Allen

Property development in Toronto is a balancing act between preserving good old buildings and public spaces, and encouraging new things that aren’t necessarily identical to the old ones, but don’t wreck them either. Here’s how it works.

To an outsider, the government of Toronto is a black box of mysteries, one inside another. But you can go and see it in action, at least the public part of it.  You won’t learn much by going to a full meeting of City Council, because by the time an issue reaches there most development issues have already been decided.  But here are the five spots where development stuff really happens:

1. the councillor’s office,
2. a group of councillors called the Community Council, which is like a miniature localized version of City Council,
3. the committee of adjustment,
4. the city planning department, and
5. a lot of other interconnected departments like Transportation, and Urban Design, and Municipal Licensing and Standards, and the Toronto Preservation Board. 

Let’s say you’re a developer and you want to build something in Ward 20.  You discuss your project with the ward councillor.  The councillor organizes one or more evening public meetings so neighbours can look at what you’re proposing and tell you what they think of it.  You incorporate some of their ideas, you usually come to a general agreement, and you take your project to the city planning department. So far, so good. The city planners review your development according to the by-law and zoning rules plus some flexible judgments of their own. Maybe they like your plan, maybe not.  But by the time you get to a decision-making body, a lot of people are already on-side.

At least that’s the process in Ward 20.  In other places, the sequence is reversed. You, the developer, take your ideas to the Planning Department first, negotiate sometimes for a long time, and then the neighbours are presented with the result.  Often the neighbours have a fit, there’s a big hassle, something gets approved or turned down, and one side or another starts World War Three by appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board (sort of like the Supreme Court of development issues). There’s another long and expensive hassle there – and the OMB imposes their decision on everybody: the city, the developer, and the neighbours. 

Now, like most developers – or home renovators for that matter – you probably want to do something that’s beyond what the by-laws or zoning regulations allow, which is why you need all these complicated approvals.  If what you want to do is only mildly illegal, early in the process you’ll go to the committee of adjustment which consists of five appointed people (not politicians) and you’ll ask for a minor variance in the rules that will allow you to do what you want. You often get permission.

If you want something really major, like building a 50-storey building where only 4 stories are allowed, you go to Community Council for a zoning amendment. The Community Council that governs Ward 20 consists of all the elected Councillors from the old downtown city of Toronto plus East York. Maybe the planning department or some other city department dislikes your project so much they recommend that Community Council refuse it. Maybe Community Council says OK to your project anyway, and you get the rezoning you want.

Many projects are fine from the beginning. Objections are minor and can be worked out. But occasionally both the Committee of Adjustment and Community Council deal with situations that are real tragedies where everybody has good points but there are irreconcilable differences. The Committee or the Council have a miserable job to do in these cases, trying to be fair and decide among competing interests all of whom are “right.” These cases can be very dramatic, and heartbreaking.

The Committee of Adjustment and the Community Council meetings are open to the public, and anybody can go. The committees hear a wide range of presentations, from big developers to  people who just want to expand their house to fit their expanding family – an expansion, as it happens, that will completely block the sun from their neighbour’s yard. But the committees also listen to the views of any interested person who may either speak or submit their ideas in writing. 

These meetings usually take place monthly – during regular working hours, unfortunately, so if you have a job that you can’t take time off from, you’re out of luck. 

The meeting agendas are online on the city’s website.  In addition, advance notices of what’s coming up specifically around Ward 20 are on the councillor’s website. The meetings I’ve described are absolutely the best free show in town (outside of the occasional murder trial) and if you want to know how the world of city-building works, you should go and watch.

Do ordinary people, or residents’ associations like us, have any significant input into what happens? Yes.

Let me give you an example from April 27, 2010. This involves the new five-storey building that’s proposed for the north-west corner of McCaul and Queen. It will replace the two-storey building that’s been empty for a couple of years.

The developer talked about the proposal at several community meetings and was given some suggestions. He came up with a good building.

The developer went to the Committee of Adjustment, asking for some minor variances and got them. He also showed his ideas to the planning department and to the Toronto Preservation Board, because this section of Queen Street has special rules for the preservation of outstanding old buildings and the design of new ones.

But City Planning and the Preservation Board decided the architect should change the building in various major ways, and they wrote a report saying so to Community Council.

There was a meeting of Community Council where several people spoke in favour of the building. Nobody from the community was opposed. Councillor Vaughan, who had been consulted thoughout the whole process, asked Community Council to approve the architect’s version of the building. And that’s what happened. We hope construction will start soon.