CONTENTS
Wednesday 28 September 1994
Planning and Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act, 1994, Bill 163, Mr Philip / Loi de 1994 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne l'aménagement du territoire et les municipalités,
projet de loi 163, M. Philip
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Iles ND)
*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L) for Mr Murphy
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L) for Mr Chiarelli
Hansen, Ron (Lincoln ND) for Mr Bisson
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Malkowski
Johnson, David (Don Mills PC) for Mr Harnick
McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC) for Mr Tilson
White, Drummond (Durham Centre ND) for Mr Bisson
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND) for Ms Harrington
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ministry of Municipal Affairs:
Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to minister
McKinstry, Philip, acting director, municipal planning policy branch
Perron, Linda, solicitor, corporate resources management
Kennedy, Ron, manager, plans administration branch (north and east)
Boeckner, Pat, manager, plans administration branch
Ross, Elaine, solicitor, corporate resources management
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: Mifsud, Lucinda, legislative counsel
The committee met at 1012 in committee room 2.
PLANNING AND MUNICIPAL STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1994 / LOI DE 1994 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE L'AMÉNAGEMENT DU TERRITOIRE ET DES MUNICIPALITÉS
Consideration of Bill 163, An Act to revise the Ontario Planning and Development Act and the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, to amend the Planning Act and the Municipal Act and to amend other statutes related to planning and municipal matters / Projet de loi 163, Loi révisant la Loi sur la planification et l'aménagement du territoire de l'Ontario, la Loi sur les conflits d'intérêts municipaux, et modifiant la Loi sur l'aménagement du territoire et la Loi sur les municipalités et modifiant d'autres lois touchant des questions relatives à l'aménagement et aux municipalités.
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): We have stood several matters down, but one of the matters that we stood down to be dealt with this morning was a government motion, section 6, subsections 3(6) to (10), and that was to give some members an opportunity to review the changes that were there. You have read that into the record, Mr Hayes, so what we'll do is to get the reaction from the members, if there is one. If not, we'll just deal with it. Any reaction from the members?
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): There's a "deemed consistency" interpretation in subsection 3(8): "An official plan or part of an official plan approved by an approval authority...after this subsection comes into force shall be deemed to be consistent with the applicable policy statements issued under subsection (1)." What is meant by "part of an official plan approved" and "deemed consistency"?
Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): Once the official plan is approved, it can't be challenged in the court.
Mr McLean: So does that also go for part of an official plan? If it has been approved, it cannot be challenged in court either?
Mr Hayes: Right.
Mr David Johnson (Don Mills): We're backtracking here a little bit, Mr Chairman, and so this is back to the section -- and it's an addendum, I guess -- I'm just trying to find it. Can somebody clarify where this comes in again, because this was from yesterday and I guess I'm lost. What page is this?
The Chair: This is section 6 of the bill. It's got a number 16 at the top of the page. That's the one you want to look at.
Mr David Johnson: All right. This is the aspect that's intended that, in addition to the municipalities, local boards, planning boards etc, Ontario Hydro and other boards, agencies and commissions will also have to be consistent with, must be consistent with or shall be consistent with the policies. I was just going over this morning once again, and I think this is germane, AMO's concerns with regard to the "shall be consistent with" policy that applies to Ontario Hydro, to all the boards, agencies and commissions now as a result of this amendment, which I concur with, this aspect of it.
We talked about this a little bit yesterday, but I think we're going to have very little opportunity because we're going to be going by this fairly soon just to discuss this thoroughly. It has to do in AMO's submission with their criticism that extensive studies and reports will be required to satisfy the expectations of the policy statements. To the staff there who look puzzled, this is from AMO's brief. Many of these reports will have to be carried out by municipalities.
Now in this particular amendment we're talking about Ontario Hydro and ministries and boards being consistent, but it's all the same thing. Could you tell us once again what your response to AMO's criticism would be? Their criticism is that to be consistent with the policy statements, extensive studies and reports will be required, and I presume ministries and boards and commissions will have to go through the same process, but particularly for municipalities.
They asked for a cost-benefit analysis to be done by the ministry, but I guess that cost-benefit analysis was not forthcoming. I wonder if that cost-benefit analysis in terms of the cost to the municipalities to go through this process vis-à-vis the benefits, I suppose, that will be accrued -- could the ministry staff comment on why the request for a cost-benefit analysis was not pursued, perhaps through the parliamentary assistant?
Mr Philip McKinstry: The ministry did look at the potential cost and the benefits of these policies to municipalities, and we concluded that in fact municipalities already spend a substantial amount of money on planning and that many of these policies are in fact existing policies, guidelines, things that municipalities now take into account in their planning process. Our conclusion was that there would not be significant additional costs for municipalities in implementing these policy statements.
Mr David Johnson: AMO, though, is obviously not of that opinion. AMO, the organization that represents by far the vast majority of these municipalities, is of the opinion that extensive studies and reports will be required, and I assume by the use of the words "extensive studies and reports" that they're obviously of the opinion that there would be a significant cost to do this. Can you explain why there's a variance in AMO's opinion with the ministry's opinion?
Mr McKinstry: Maybe I could talk a little bit about the process that we're going through now with the development of guidelines. As I mentioned yesterday, there is an advisory task force chaired by the provincial facilitator, Mr Dale Martin, and they are working with AMO, with the development industry and with environmentalists to determine what kinds of studies would be needed, to determine how these would be carried out and to determine how best the policies would be implemented.
We are working with AMO very closely to come up with some best practices and ways in which the policies could potentially be implemented without incurring significant costs.
Mr David Johnson: Can you give me any specifics of how that would be accomplished, how you would do this without incurring costs? The policy statements are here in a booklet, so they're set, and the municipalities must be consistent with these policies. I gather, although it was kind of hard for me to understand what the response was yesterday, that municipalities are expected to revise their official plans to be consistent with these policies. How do you get from A to B without incurring significant costs? Can you give me some specifics of how you intend to reduce these costs?
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Mr McKinstry: Maybe I can use some examples. One example is the wetlands policy statement, which is already in existence and will continue to be in existence, and it is true that the developer who wishes to develop in or near a wetland will have to carry out studies. These studies are already part of the process.
Another example that I can think of is the protection of significant natural areas. What we've done there in the policies is talked to the fact that municipalities will be the ones to define them, so the municipalities will define these areas. Many municipalities are already doing this kind of work, and I can cite, for example, the region of Waterloo and the region of York.
Before our policies have come into effect, there are municipalities that have recognized the value of this kind of activity, and what their development of these natural area definitions means is that they also have some control over the kinds of work that needs to go into protecting the natural areas. So we are giving them some input into that.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I presume we're dealing with section 6, subsection 3(6), the one just stood down. Is that it?
Mr Hayes: Yes.
Mr Curling: Subsection (8), "deemed consistency," says, "An official plan or part of an official plan approved by an approval authority or the municipal board after this subsection comes into force shall be deemed to be consistent with the applicable policy statements issued under subsection (1)."
In other words, if any municipality has an official plan in place, say in two years, something like we were talking about yesterday, once it has an official plan two years or so ago and this comes into effect within the next year or so, you would say that it would be regarded as an official plan and cannot be appealed in any way and it would be considered as consistent with the policy.
Mr McKinstry: If I get you right, what you're saying is, if an official plan is approved after --
Mr Curling: No, it's approved already. They have an approved plan now, which is about two years running, and this new policy comes into effect. You're saying that, regardless of what it is, it is considered consistent.
Mr McKinstry: No. It's for official plans after the new legislation comes into force and the policy statements come into force.
Mr Curling: But the official plan is in place now in a municipality and it's running two years.
Mr McKinstry: It would not be deemed to be consistent with under this.
Mr Hayes: After this comes into force.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): It would have to be amended.
Mr Curling: It's not deemed consistent. But when I read this, this is where the problem is: "Deemed consistency: (8) An official plan or part of an official plan approved by an approval authority or the municipal board after this subsection comes into force shall be deemed to be consistent with the applicable policy statements issued...." You're telling me now it is not considered consistent. If this policy comes into place and the other official plan was in place two years ago, it's deemed consistent?
Mr McKinstry: No, it isn't.
Mr Curling: So we go back then. Who is going to bear the cost of all those amendments of people who are following the rules that government has set down before? Here are these groups who have to then bring themselves into consistency. How would those municipalities deal with that if there is a cost?
Mr McKinstry: First, they have five years to bring them into consistency. Second, as I mentioned before, the planning is an ongoing activity for municipalities, and most municipalities review and update their plans on an ongoing basis. In the government's view, the bringing into consistency with the new policy statements would be part of that ongoing activity, remembering that there are actually very few brand-new policy areas in this package. Most of the areas -- the housing policy statements, the wetlands policy statement -- are policies, or there are existing government guidelines which are being implemented by municipalities.
Mr Curling: I'm kind of a bit lost in this. Help me along. If a plan is only a year in place and a municipality has brought its plan up to date, they have five years, you said, in which to bring it up to date to this new plan.
Mr McKinstry: That is correct.
Mr Curling: However, your policy will be reviewed every five years, therefore, there is a time difference here that they would have started a year and you will be reviewing in five years, so they would have to bring theirs up to date before you review your policy.
Mr McKinstry: They would also have a further five years after any changes to our policy to bring their plans into consistency with the new policy.
Mr Curling: This is to the parliamentary assistant because maybe the government of the day and the political force will say, "We understand the difficulty we have placed the municipality in and any extra cost that it will necessitate in your bringing this plan up to date to be consistent with will be offset by the government." There is some money flow, you know. It costs them to bring it up to date. Will that be forthcoming?
Mr Hayes: I think I answered that question yesterday. I cannot make a commitment. There is the possibility there. We don't know how much of a difficulty, as the member is saying, this may put the municipalities in. I think we have to look at, like I said yesterday, the need, and we also have to look at the circumstances of that particular time when they start to make these changes. Some may be very little, some may have to do a lot. We don't know that at this point.
Mr Curling: Let me tell you then how understanding I am. I understand from the bureaucratic point of view their limitation. I understand from your point of view your limitation that the minister hasn't shared very much with you also. But I want you --
Mr Hayes: It's not so that the minister hasn't shared with me.
Mr Curling: Okay, the minister has shared a lot with you, but you're telling me you can't promise. I want you to understand our limitations too. Most of what we are trying to do here is to bring the law up to date and to be efficient without regulations. Because most of the real meat of it is in regulations and we are speaking without any regulations here now. If you had quite a few of the things in here, instead of having it in regulations, maybe most of these questions I'm asking you would not be there.
You're saying you can't promise me. I don't want you to promise me anything. I just want to say, what would those municipalities have to do if there's a cost involved to bring their plan in consistency with the official plan, with the policy of the government?
Mr Hayes: I guess what a municipality would do is exactly what they would do now if they needed financial assistance for any kind of program, and that is to request it. It's simple.
Mr Curling: Mr Parliamentary Assistant, this is the problem that businesses have too, that they set up their business --
Mr Hayes: Look, look, look.
Mr Curling: No, let me just --
Mr Hayes: No, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you ramble on about if we're going to pay these people. I don't know that.
Mr Curling: So you think it's rambling and rambling. I'm trying to put you --
Mr Hayes: You're trying to put me in a position to say, "Yes, we will come up with financial assistance," and I cannot say that. Okay? Do you understand that? I don't have the authority to sit here and say this government is going to give money to municipalities. I don't have that authority.
Mr Curling: It is the government that put the municipalities in the position of changing policies. It is government that put businesses in the position in a way, that is, you changed the law and they want them to conform. I'm saying to you, the difficulty you place these municipalities in or business people in is what the government is going to do. I'm asking you. I didn't ask the bureaucrats because they all have instructions --
Mr Hayes: Mr Chairman, I gave the same answers yesterday about three times and about three times again today.
Mr Curling: In other words, you refuse to answer.
Mr Hayes: The member has his answer.
The Chair: He has answered, Mr Curling.
Mr Hayes: If the municipality needs financial assistance, the municipality will come to the provincial government and request that. That's normal. There may be grants available at the time.
Mr Curling: I get your answer. You don't care.
Mr Hayes: I cannot say what is going to happen six months or one year or five years from now as far as who is going to pay what.
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Mr McLean: Dealing with the comprehensive set of policy statements, item 7 says: "Nothing in this section affects nor restricts the minister in prescribing any matter to be a matter of provincial interest under section 2."
If you were a developer or if you were a group of citizens and wanted to have some input into a development, there's nobody sure of anything here because the minister can interrupt or change at any time what he deems to be a matter of provincial interest. What guideline is it that's laid down where somebody knows what they can do without the minister coming in and prescribing any matter to be a provincial interest, because this is in this resolution?
Mr McKinstry: This discussion goes back to the one we had yesterday on the function of section 2, the provincial interests that are set out in section 2. As I said yesterday, these are broad, general, good planning principles which decision-makers under the Planning Act should have regard to in making planning decisions, and the reason that the government has suggested that we prescribe additional matters from time to time is to cover any new and emerging issues that may happen. This is not the same as policy statements. Policy statements have a way of being consulted on through the Planning Act and that consultation would take place if there were changes, and the policy statements, of course, decision-makers must be consistent with.
Mr McLean: I guess my final question is, why should the minister have all this power like he's got? He can make anything a provincial interest that he wants. Why should this section be in there?
Mr McKinstry: In fact it's not the minister who could prescribe on his own; it's the Lieutenant Governor in Council. The act would require the Lieutenant Governor in Council to pass this regulation.
Mr McLean: I know how that works too. I mean, if the minister asks for it and it's passed by cabinet, it's an order in council, so the minister still ultimately has all this power that nobody developing a subdivision has any control over. They can stop him at any time. Would that not be correct? Would my observation be right?
Mr McKinstry: I didn't quite catch the question.
Mr McLean: The minister can stop any development at any time that he wants. All he's got to do is deem it a provincial interest.
Mr McKinstry: The minister could pass a regulation deciding on a provincial interest if it went through the normal Lieutenant Governor in Council process. However, this is a matter which decision-makers would have regard to, which is quite different than the policy statements, which are more detailed and which decision-makers must be consistent with.
Mr Grandmaître: The fact is that once this bill is in place, let's say January 1, 1995, this will mean that no municipal official plans will be consistent with Bill 163, because the new guidelines, the new policies, the new regulations of this bill will make all official plans in Ontario inconsistent with Bill 163. Am I right?
Mr McKinstry: In fact, official plans approved recently are likely to be consistent with the policy statements.
Mr Grandmaître: No, no. That's not my question. Let me give you another example.
The Chair: Do you want to finish the answer, Mr McKinstry, or do you want to wait for the question again?
Mr Grandmaître: Sorry.
Mr McKinstry: My understanding is that what you're saying is that all official plans approved before the policy statements come into force would be by nature not consistent with the policy statements --
Mr David Johnson: Be darn lucky if they were.
Mr McKinstry: -- and my answer is that what we've seen in the development of recent official plans and work that's going on now in new official plans is that, first of all, many of the policies are already existing policies or government guidelines, and even with the new policies, many municipalities are taking these new policies into account because the public has demanded that they do so.
So in fact official plans approved recently may be consistent. They do not fall under the provision of the act which deems them consistent, but in fact they're quite likely to be consistent with the new policy statements.
Mr Grandmaître: Let me then, Mr Chair, rephrase my question.
The Chair: Do you want to add something to the point? All right then.
Mr Grandmaître: Let's say that 20% of our municipal official plans at the present time are two or three years old. Let's assume this. Does that mean that 20%, or all of these plans, naturally are inconsistent with Bill 163? Would you agree with me?
Mr McKinstry: No, I wouldn't, because we're not sure that all of those plans would not be consistent. The plans would have to be reviewed on an individual basis after.
Mr Grandmaître: But we're changing the planning process in the province, so these official plans can't be consistent with Bill 163. It's impossible.
The Chair: You're asking the same question again. Mr McKinstry has already --
Mr Grandmaître: Why are we dealing with Bill 163 if those official plans are --
Ms Linda Perron: Perhaps I can add some clarification by saying that there is nowhere in the legislation that says that a plan that is not consistent with the policy statements is invalid or inconsistent in any way, so the validity of the plans is not affected. But you're correct in saying that the content of the plans themselves might not fully reflect the policies that are in place and the standard which must be met of being consistent.
That is a matter that will be resolved as individual applications for plans of subdivision that might require an official plan amendment would be resolved, or when a municipality undertakes a full review of its official plan and determines whether or not it's consistent and then brings it into consistency. It is going to be a long transition, but the validity of the plans is not affected.
Mr Grandmaître: I realize that the validity of the plan is not affected, but again, I'm assuming that 20% of our municipal official plans will be affected by this new bill. It could be 25% or it could be 50%, I really don't know.
My next question is, if those municipalities want to be consistent with Bill 163, and they'll have to consistent with Bill 163, who will have this power to say, "Your amendment will now have to be consistent with the new legislation"? Will the minister have this power or who will have this power?
Ms Perron: Whenever an approval authority will be considering either an official plan or an official plan amendment after the new version of subsection 3(5) is in effect as well as the policy statement, then this is the framework within which they will assess the proposed official plan or official plan amendment.
I think official plans for the most part are rarely up to date or fully reflect policies. It's always an evolving process and the issue ends up being determined a lot of the time when a specific development comes along or a municipality initiates a review. What this is saying is changing the rules of the process once they get into that process, and it could be triggered by different types of events.
Mr Grandmaître: Can you give me an example of different types of events?
Ms Perron: For example, if there's an application for a large plan of subdivision, which would have to be consistent with or would have to conform to the official plan, and which in turn has to be consistent with the policy statements, if the proposed plan of subdivision does not conform with the OP or is not consistent, the developer will have to obtain an official plan amendment and then the amendment itself will have to be consistent with the policy statements. It's a hierarchy of standards and that gets worked out by developments or reviews of official plans.
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Mr Grandmaître: One last question: Again, I'm assuming that municipalities will want to be consistent with the new guidelines of Bill 163. How is the ministry prepared to deal with, let's say, 100 official plans that are sent to the ministry to become consistent with Bill 163? How will your ministry deal with this demand?
Mr McKinstry: There are a few ways. The Planning Act actually assigns a fair amount of powers, for example, to regions to approve lower-tier official plans, so the ministry would not receive those plans. The ministry would receive regional plans and county plans, of course, to approve, and the ministry is quite prepared to do that. There is a five-year period before the municipalities have to actually update their plans. So we do see that there would be a transitional period and we do think we can deal with that at the staff level.
Mr Grandmaître: So right now, again, you're assuming that within the next five years most or all of our municipal official plans will be consistent with Bill 163?
Mr McKinstry: The bill does require that plans be brought into consistency with at the time of the municipal five-year review.
Mr Grandmaître: What if they don't? What if they're not consistent after five years? What will happen to the official plan?
Mr McKinstry: The bill does not set out any consequences for the municipal official plan, so it would not become invalid as an official plan. However, development applications would always, from the date of proclamation, have to be consistent with the policy statements.
Mr David Johnson: My questions are in that same area because I think this is really important, and I hope the parliamentary assistant has a little bit of patience here. I'm not going to ask for money. I realize, with the social contract and the expenditure control program, that actually municipalities have lost probably hundreds of millions of dollars over the last year or so through the social contract and expenditure control program, so I doubt very much that there are going to be moneys available for this, but it is important.
I was talking with Mr Wiseman, who was sitting where Mr White is, yesterday after we adjourned at 5 o'clock. We were talking about the region of Durham, and this is just what he has indicated to me. He said the region of Durham has an official plan that was created about a year ago, so it's very new. I asked when the previous version was created, and he said in 1977. So there's a period of about 16 years, I guess, in between updates to the official plan.
That's his information. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong, but that's what he said.
If Durham now takes another 16 years, and they're one year into it, that would be 15 years from now to update their official plan again, either because it's just a very complicated thing to do, it costs money, they don't have the resources or whatever. How long will the ministry wait or what will the ministry's reaction be as years 5, 6, 7, 8 up to 15 roll by with no amendment to the official plan, and presumably the official plan would not be consistent with in totality the policy statements that are enunciated before us today?
Mr McKinstry: I would first of all say, as I said before, development applications would still be required to be consistent with the policy statements and official plan amendments would be required to be consistent with the policy statements, so there would be a method of making sure that activities that happen on the ground are consistent with the policy statements, even without an update of the official plan.
I guess I choose to take an optimistic view that most people obey the law when it's set out and that most municipalities would attempt to update their official plans in an appropriate time and bring them into consistency with the policy statements.
Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): On a point of information, Mr Chair: The law is not that you have to update the plan; the law is that you review it and may update. I don't think it requires updating, but you must review it. Isn't that a bit of a difference?
Mr McKinstry: There is a government motion in the package that you received that would require municipalities to bring their plans into consistency at the time of the five-year review.
Mr Eddy: Yes, right, the new --
Mr David Johnson: But I think Mr Eddy's point is, and I'm not sure of that myself, is the five-year period a mandatory update or is it simply a review which may or may not lead to an update?
Mr McKinstry: It's a review and part of the review would be the determination of whether it was consistent with the policy statements and, if it is not consistent, then it would be mandatory for the municipality to make it consistent. This is the government motion.
Mr David Johnson: Needless to say, I think your words imply that municipalities that don't update their official plans every five years are disobeying the law. I think those are very strong words and I would have to take issue with those words. I'd ask you to rethink them. Perhaps while you're thinking on that -- I asked this question yesterday and I don't really think I got an answer -- do you have the percentage of municipalities that would have updated their official plans within the last five years?
Mr McKinstry: I don't have that exact figure with me, no.
Mr David Johnson: If I was to ask you to hazard a guess, that would be fruitless, would it? Let me ask you this then: Would you concede that there are a significant number of municipalities that have not updated their official plans in the last five years?
Mr McKinstry: I would certainly think there might be a number of municipalities; however, as I said before --
Mr David Johnson: I can name one, for sure. Sorry, go ahead.
Mr McKinstry: -- many of the policies in the new policy statements are existing policy positions, which are reflected in the official plans.
Mr David Johnson: I think that the central question here is that municipalities are really struggling. They've had the social contract put on them. they've had the expenditure control program put on them, they have lost revenues, they have taxpayers uniformly across Ontario demanding 0% increases. They're trying desperately to make do in a very difficult climate, and the word "downloading" springs to mind very quickly.
When they're talking about downloading, they're talking about the provincial government taking action, for perhaps good reasons or whatever, but the cost is borne by another level of government, in this case the municipalities, and it's being borne at a time when they are very strapped.
I think Mr Grandmaître, I believe it was, yesterday indicated that many of these municipalities would not have full planning status. Many of the smaller ones would have to hire consultants, and it's a costly process and it's not something that would be budgeted on a regular basis.
I think the central question here is how strenuously is the ministry going to insist that municipalities update their official plans within the five-year time frame and incur that sort of cost? I think today you'll find that many municipalities would not be contemplating or would not be able to achieve an official plan update within that five-year time frame. Is there going to be a demand from the ministry that in fact they do that and incur that cost and their citizens, their taxpayers, through property taxes, pick up that cost?
Mr McKinstry: Before I answer that question, I do have a piece of information that might be helpful. The ministry now deals with about 75 official plan updates every year, so of the 830 or 840 or 820 or whatever number of municipalities we have now, that is a fairly significant yearly number that happens every year: 75.
Mr David Johnson: That's about half. To be exact, that's 375 municipalities, out of how many?
Mr McKinstry: Eight hundred and --
Mr McLean: Over five years.
Mr David Johnson: So that's over five years, 375. Not even half would have updated within the five-year period.
Mr McKinstry: My point was that a number of municipalities do this on an ongoing basis. In terms of other municipalities that have not done it and in terms of how we might work with them, I can't predict with any certainty.
My view would be that it is likely that the ministry would decide where things like growth pressures were, where municipalities were under some kind of growth pressure, and the gap between the policy statements and the official plan, before deciding how to work with the municipalities. It is the view in the new planning system that one of the roles of the ministry would be to work with municipalities to give them advice and assistance at a staff level.
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Mr David Johnson: If there are about 800 municipalities and they all have official plans, over a five-year period that would require that about 160 a year be updated, just by dividing five into 800. Is my mathematics correct?
Mr McKinstry: A comment on that is that not all 800 and whatever municipalities have official plans now and some municipalities may never have official plans, and there is no requirement for municipalities to have official plans in the Planning Act.
Mr David Johnson: Right. My guess is that the majority would either have official plans or as a result of this bill would be required to have official plans.
Mr McKinstry: I don't think that is absolutely correct. The counties and the regions and the separated cities and the planning boards would be required to have official plans under this bill. Local municipalities would not be required to have official plans.
Mr David Johnson: It would be interesting to work the mathematics out some time. At any rate, my guess is from the statistics you've given us, a significant number do not have official plans within the last five years, and I hope through your negotiations with them that you bear in mind the financial struggle that they're going through.
Secondly, somebody asked the question previously, you may have to increase staff in Municipal Affairs to deal with them all if in fact you actually do force them to have their official plan updates. If you're dealing with 75 a year right now, I suspect you would have to increase that considerably to meet the average per year so everybody did it within a five-year period, even if they were evenly distributed, which they may not be.
Mr McKinstry: One comment, Mr Chair, and that is that as the ministry gets more and more out of the review of development applications and municipalities do more and more of that, we would be able to move our staff from reviewing development applications into working with municipalities on official plans.
The Chair: There are questions? Mr White.
Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): My question was answered, thank you very much. I'm sorry, there's a point of information. The official plan in Durham was in 1990. It took a couple of years for the approval to come from the ministry, so the time frame is not quite that long. Thank you.
Mr David Johnson: I thought it was 1977.
Mr White: Yes, but the most recent was 1991.
The Chair: Okay, we have a government motion. All in favour? Opposed? That carries.
All in favour of section 6 as amended? Opposed? That carries.
Now we'll move on to the previous section that we were dealing with yesterday, that's section 9, and we are at a government amendment: section 9, section 16.
Mr Hayes: I move that section 16 of the Planning Act, as set out in section 9 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsections:
"Restrictions for residential units
"(2) No official plan may contain any provision that,
"(a) has the effect of prohibiting the erecting, locating or use of two residential units in a detached house, semidetached house or row house situated in an area where residential use is permitted by bylaw and is not ancillary to other uses permitted by bylaw; or
"(b) sets out requirements, standards or prohibitions that conflict with the requirements, standards or prohibitions prescribed with respect to a house described in clause (a), residential units contained in it or the land on which it is situated.
"Provision of no effect
"(3) A provision in an official plan is of no effect to the extent that it contravenes clause (2)(a).
"Regulation prevails
"(4) A provision in an official plan that contravenes the restriction described in clause (2)(b) has effect only as if it set out the requirements, standards or prohibitions prescribed by the regulations for the purposes of that clause."
This really is a technical housekeeping amendment to the bill. That's really what it is.
Mr Eddy: I really don't see it as a housekeeping clause at all, unless it's enforcing or incorporating the accessory apartments bill into this bill. That's what I read. Is that really the case? A further question would be, does this mean that no municipality will in future, and indeed as soon as the bill is passed, maintain any single-family zoning in any part of the municipality which the OP serves? That's what I'm reading into it. Am I off base or right on?
Mr Hayes: What's needed is a --
The Chair: There's a comment here, and Ms Mifsud.
Ms Lucinda Mifsud: Perhaps I could help you. This bill was contemporaneously introduced in the House when the residential housing bill was in the House and we have inadvertently struck out what they have put in. So we are just putting it back to exactly what the state of the law is right this moment.
Mr Eddy: That's the residential housing bill, did you say? Is this the accessory apartments?
Ms Mifsud: That's right. There was absolutely no change in the law. Because of the timing of it, we didn't know which bill was going to proceed at which time and we inadvertently struck out what they had just passed.
Mr Eddy: So that's why you say it's housekeeping of a technical nature.
Ms Mifsud: That's why it's housekeeping. There's absolutely no change effectively.
Mr Eddy: I still have some serious concerns about it, because I think another question then needs to be answered in that case. Does this mean, because of the restrictions and the residential housing bill, that no municipality can legally have a dwelling for single-family housing in any area of any municipality? Because we've been told that.
I think we had one or two presentations on that from municipalities that pointed that out to us, that because of the new restrictions it does mean that. So now, let's see. There isn't a policy on that, so it's the other bill that has to be followed. Did I answer my own question? If so, it wasn't satisfactory.
Mr Curling: It falls very short of a complete answer.
Mr Eddy: It falls short of a complete answer. Thank you, Mr Curling. I can rely on you. But I think we need to deal with that particular matter even though it's the other bill, because you've triggered it with this.
Mr Curling: It's in this bill now. They've put it in this bill now. Let's talk about it.
The Chair: Mr Hayes, you have a further comment?
Mr Hayes: I don't know. Was there a question there?
Mr Eddy: Yes, sir. Is a municipality that reviews and updates its official plan and proceeds to have an official plan, if it has not had one, prevented by the residential housing bill -- and it's triggered by this amendment -- is it no longer legally possible to have single-family zoning in a municipality? Because that's what has been stated by someone and I needed --
Mr Curling: As dictated by the minister.
Mr Eddy: Yes, the minister --
Mr Curling: The Minister of Housing will dictate that.
Mr McKinstry: This provision simply, as the legislative counsel indicated, puts into the Planning Act the existing state of law in Ontario now.
Mr Eddy: Right. I'm clear on that.
Mr McKinstry: This part of it is simply to say that official plans cannot contain provisions which prohibit two residential units in certain types of dwellings.
Mr Grandmaître: So residential -- I'm sorry, Ron.
Mr Eddy: No, no. I need help.
Mr Grandmaître: Residential zoning is prohibited then. Single dwellings.
Mr McKinstry: Residential zoning is still permitted in municipalities.
Mr Eddy: Residential zoning, but we're talking about single-family residential zoning.
Mr McKinstry: It's not clear to me what the legal definition of single-family zoning is, but the effect, I understand, of this is to do with official plans. There is already a provision in the Planning Act that says that municipalities may not zone to prohibit two units in certain types of dwelling units.
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Mr Eddy: Let me rephrase the question then. In official plans that come before the ministry for approval, you will not allow, I think, single-family zoning in any part of any municipality, as I said, where the official plan comes to the ministry for approval. You have the authority to approve, the responsibility indeed to approve official plans of many municipalities where there isn't an upper-tier plan, where it's a single municipality not in a two-tier system, and there are hundreds of those in the province of Ontario of course.
Mr McKinstry: Is there a question you wanted me to answer?
Mr Eddy: Yes. The question is, will you, in approving official plans for those municipalities that you will continue to have responsibility for approving, no longer allow zoning for single-family dwellings because of these? I mean, you can't and obey the law would be my point.
Mr McKinstry: The provisions in this bill and in Bill 120 would state that municipalities cannot prohibit two units in certain types of dwelling units. That is the state of the law now, yes.
Mr Eddy: So in certain types of units, but one type of units is single-family dwellings.
Mr McKinstry: The units, I believe, that are addressed are detached dwellings, semidetached dwellings and row houses.
Mr Eddy: What else would there be for single family other than apartment buildings? I think it covers it. Is this something you'd like to come back to?
Mr Hayes: No, I don't think so.
Mr Eddy: All I want to --
Mr Hayes: We're not going to sit here and really seriously --
Interjection.
Mr Hayes: No. We're not going to sit here and debate Bill 120, first of all.
Mr Eddy: I'm not debating; I have a simple question.
Mr Hayes: But there's nowhere in there --
Mr Eddy: Are the people who come --
Mr Hayes: No, no, let me finish, please.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, you asked him whether or not we should --
Mr Hayes: There is nowhere in there where it prohibits a single-family dwelling. I don't know where you're coming from on that. You're saying, "I think or I assume" --
Mr Eddy: Absolutely I'm right. I know I'm right.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair --
The Chair: Okay. I've got a list. Hold on. Mr McLean.
Mr Eddy: Oh, did you finish with me?
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, as a follow-up --
The Chair: You asked a question, but if you still want to go on with other questions, please do.
Mr Eddy: The question is to the staff then, through the parliamentary assistant of course. Will the ministry, in reviewing the official plans in municipalities for which it is responsible under the new system -- and there will be many of these -- approve official plans that contain zoning for single-family residential units? That's really the gist of it.
Mr McKinstry: My view would be that the government would not approve official plans which restrict -- how should I say this? -- two units in certain types of dwelling units, namely, detached, semidetached or row houses. However, I should add a rider to that, which is that the ministry will not be approving all official plans; other authorities will. The way the law is stated is that those provisions in official plans which do restrict two residential units in a dwelling would be of no force and effect at all.
Mr Eddy: Then if approving authority does in fact approve of an official plan containing zoning for single-family dwellings in certain areas, the ministry would be required almost because of the law to appeal those if it knew about them.
Mr McKinstry: It would not be required by the law.
Mr Eddy: But I think the residential housing act -- what's that bill?
Mr Curling: Bill 120, the famous one.
Mr Eddy: Bill 120 is a law of the province of Ontario. Of course, so is the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act a law of the province and we've seen that shunted.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, Mr McKinstry was trying to answer what's here on this section -- I understand that -- and he was asking a question that has to do with housing of course. I'm not sure whether we're providing that particular answer. Is there someone from Housing who can provide that answer so that we can move on?
Mr Eddy: Well, it really did deal with Municipal Affairs because they approve of official plans, and because at least, I think, two of the deputants during the course of the hearings brought this matter up, I thought it should be followed through and answered. I've got an answer that, yes, in reviewing the official plans for those municipalities which the ministry will continue to be responsible for they will indeed not approve of zoning for single-family dwellings, and I think municipalities need to know that.
The Chair: Is that the answer we've given?
Mr Hayes: It's not --
Mr Eddy: Because in reviewing their plans, they're going to spend a lot of money incorporating those and then find you can't do that. I mean that's fine. Thank you.
The Chair: Okay, a concern.
Mr Grandmaître: When the regulations are introduced, will we have a definition of what a single-family dwelling is, because, if I'm not mistaken, you told us that you didn't have a definition of a single-family dwelling.
Mr McKinstry: I was referring to the fact that in our bill there is a definition of "residential unit." "Single-family dwelling" is a common usage term. What Bill 120 talked about was a little more precise in saying that two residential units could not be prohibited in a detached dwelling, semidetached dwelling or row house.
Mr Grandmaître: Could I get the definition of this, please?
The Chair: Mr Grandmaître, are you done? Okay. Mr Johnson.
Mr David Johnson: I think why we're going around in circles here is because the ministry has its own little dictionary and in its dictionary it has terms like "detached" and "semidetached" and "row housing," but nowhere in there is "single-family residential." Municipalities, though, when they do their zoning, use that phraseology, if not in the official plans at least in discussions. R1, for example, is a very common phrase and not only a slang phrase but a --
Mr Gary Wilson (Kingston and The Islands): A point of order, Mr Chair: I'm just not sure, Mr Johnson, where these definitions are occurring or which bill --
Mr David Johnson: They're right here before us. I'm looking at the amendment.
Mr Gary Wilson: Okay, I just wondered what it is.
Mr David Johnson: It says, "detached house, semi-detached house or row house." I could provide you with a copy if you'd like.
Mr Gary Wilson: I'm not sure what it has to do with this amendment that has been clearly said is just housekeeping to put it in line with Bill 120. I think Mr McKinstry answered the question very clearly.
Mr David Johnson: Okay. The problem here --
The Chair: He's establishing a connection, Mr Wilson.
Mr David Johnson: Yes, and I started very clearly with stating detached house, semidetached house, row house, and that's what this is all about. But in reality, municipalities do use the term "R1" and do use the term "single-family" and the answer to Mr Eddy's question is, very clearly, that municipalities will not be able to put in effect in their zone what they have construed as a single-family house. It has to be able to have an accessory apartment in it, except where there's a septic system, I guess. There are a few exceptions in the country, but other than that, then they will not be able to do it.
What I'm still not quite understanding is, as the staff have said, this is the legislation, so would somebody explain again why we need it here, given that this is legislation in the province of Ontario?
Ms Mifsud: It's rather difficult to explain, but Bill 120 did not have royal assent when this bill got introduced, so we didn't know whether it was going to go through. It was still in the process. The two bills were in the House contemporaneously and neither bill adjusted for the other. So we have inadvertently taken out what they put in, because it was passed after this was introduced. It was just the timing. They were in the House at the same time.
Mr David Johnson: Well, Bill 120 now is proclaimed.
Ms Mifsud: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: So it is the law as we sit here today.
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Ms Mifsud: Yes, but if this bill passed we would cancel out that, yes, without this amendment.
Mr David Johnson: So this bill would take precedence over Bill 120 somehow? Is that what you're saying?
Ms Mifsud: It revokes the amendments made by Bill 120, yes. Some of them; not all of them obviously.
Mr David Johnson: I still don't quite understand. I would assume that if Bill 120 is the law, the law is the law. Is there someplace in here where it revokes Bill 120 that you can point to that I can understand?
Ms Mifsud: We've remade section 16 in this act, in the Planning Act, in this bill. We're going to remake 16 and these amendments were included in the bill and we are inadvertently revoking it, because it's now a part of 16. So we're cancelling out what we did. It's just because of timing.
Mr David Johnson: All right. I sort of vaguely understand what you're saying, I think. Then here again it says after the title "Restrictions for residential units," "No official plan may contain any provision that has the effect of prohibiting the erecting...of two residential units in a detached house, semidetached house or row house."
Probably 90% of the official plans in the province of Ontario would contain a prohibition, R1 zoning, for example, at the present time. I'm trying to link together the previous rationale that I have, but just focusing on this. Once this becomes law, what happens to all those official plans, certainly most of them here in Metropolitan Toronto at any rate? I'm not 100% sure of the city of Toronto, but the East York official plan would have R1 zoning. I'm sure North York would, Scarborough, you name it. What happens to those official plans when this is proclaimed?
Mr McKinstry: This deals with official plans, so official plan provisions which contain restrictions on more than one and less than three, if you like, in other words, two, residential units in certain types of dwelling units would have no force and effect. But I should also point out that the zoning section is not being changed and that therefore the law as it stands now, which is not affected by this bill, says that municipalities could not have zoning bylaws that restricted two residential units in a dwelling.
Mr David Johnson: I'm sorry, yes, I muddled them together too. So the official plans could designate residential areas but not be specific in terms of the density. Then the zoning bylaws may specify R1 or R2, or maybe R3 might be apartments, that sort of thing. You mean to tell me that would not be in violation, that would not be contrary to this bill or to Bill 120?
Mr McKinstry: I believe what the legislative counsel explained was that this is a housekeeping amendment to one part of the bill and another part of the old Bill 120 is not affected. This is simply a housekeeping amendment to bring one part of our bill into compliance with the former Bill 120.
Mr David Johnson: I guess what you're saying is technically then, it's fairly likely that most official plans would not be as specific as saying R1 versus R2 so, technically speaking, most of them wouldn't be in violation of this. It would be something else later on, where the zoning would come in where they'd be in violation.
Mr McKinstry: Yes, that's likely. That may happen.
Mr Curling: Let me start with the housekeeping. It seemed to me that the big broom and the whole vacuum cleaner and all sorts of stuff was used in this housekeeping. In this one here, when you were doing 120, it seems to me that certain things would have slipped through if you didn't have this in place. So what you've done is, if the official Planning Act was coming in at the same time, it wouldn't necessitate you putting it in 120. In my understanding, it was placed in 120 in case there was any slippage and as soon as we got 120 in, if we could put it back in the official plan as housekeeping, then we would take it out of 120. The question I'm asking is, is this part of it in 120 now?
Ms Mifsud: Yes, it is.
Mr Curling: Okay, so you've cornered those folks and said, "You may not do that," because we're going to do a quasi-official plan by putting it in 120. Once we get it there, when we're doing 163, what we'll do is put in here and call it housekeeping, because -- guess what? -- it really belongs in the official plan.
The Chair: Mr Curling, if you don't mind, we should go through an explanation of how it all entered into.
Mr Curling: I'm just asking if she can answer it and she's doing very, very well. The legal counsel did very well and started telling me, "Yes, it is in 120," you said.
Ms Mifsud: Yes.
Mr Curling: Yes, you want to put it in 163 now and call it -- it is really housekeeping, but you want to take it out of 120.
Ms Mifsud: Perhaps I haven't explained it well. In fact it's very difficult to explain. It is in the Planning Act now. It's an amendment to the Planning Act. It's in the Planning Act because it was an amendment to add it to the Planning Act that passed. It is part of the Planning Act, but because of timing issues, we didn't know which bill was going through first, we have inadvertently struck it out of the Planning Act by this bill. All we're trying to do is nullify what we inadvertently did in this bill because we couldn't handle it any other way at the time.
Mr Curling: Yes, and let me just --
Ms Mifsud: That's why it's housekeeping, because there's no change in the law; it is right in there in the Planning Act at this point.
Mr Curling: Yes, and to the Chair, let me just say to you that trying to hurry me is the same process that caused all of this slippage to happen. So let me go through it slowly as to why all of these things are happening.
The Chair: Take your time.
Mr Curling: I'm taking my time because the fact is that these inadvertent things that are happening is because we're trying to rush these bills through so we can corner certain situations. It is up for debate here now, not housekeeping, it's really up for debate. The parliamentary assistant doesn't like debates; he likes questions. But it seems to me, I want to understand it fully, no single-dwelling residential unit will be accepted if anyone puts it in the official plan and says, "In my official plan, there will be single residential units as part of the official plan." It will be stated that it will not be acceptable.
Interjection.
Mr Curling: The parliamentary assistant says no. Let me just ask the bureaucrats here then, who I think will answer me directly. If a single residential unit, R1 as they call it, is placed in an official plan, it will not be accepted as part of the official plan. Is that what I'm understanding? "No official plan may contain any provision that has the effect of prohibiting, erecting, locating or use of two residential units," and all that. They have a single unit for a single family.
Mr McKinstry: If I can clarify what I said before, official plans will not, by this provision and by the current provisions of the Planning Act, be permitted to have policies which say that municipalities can prohibit two units in any detached, semidetached or town house. So it is unlikely that approval authority would approve such policies. If such policies were approved or if they're in effect now, by the current provisions of the Planning Act they would not have any force and effect.
Mr Curling: What I'm understanding from this, and I won't be long on this one either, is that the empowering of municipalities -- I'll ask this to the parliamentary assistant -- to plan their own communities will be restricted. This is a restrictive law. Is this the intent of it? To restrict the community from doing planning in that direction?
Mr Hayes: My understanding is that this is already part of the Planning Act. Am I correct in saying that?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Curling: So the question is, yes it is.
Mr Hayes: It's already there.
The Chair: It's passed already.
Mr Hayes: We're not deciding whether this is a good bill or not. We're not debating whether this is a good bill or a bad bill, this particular amendment, because it's already there. It's already passed and we're just putting it in the proper place is what is happening here.
Mr Curling: It's already passed where?
Mr Hayes: It's in the Planning Act. Correct?
The Chair: As Ms Mifsud has explained, this has already been proclaimed. In the existing document here in this bill, they have inadvertently repealed this section. It has been repealed. If we don't put it back in because of the mistake that has been made, this section which has been already proclaimed, passed through Bill 120, will have been repealed. So we're trying to put it in where it belongs to correct a mistake that has been made.
Mr Curling: It's wonderfully explained that, to say that it's already law, but we've got to put it back in because it's going to be repealed. It's not really because you have to make sure that --
Mr Hayes: I'm sorry we can't be perfect like you and do everything, you know, the right way every time.
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Mr Curling: What would be the consequence if this is not passed now? Suppose this is voted against now, what would happen?
Mr Grandmaître: It will be passed.
Mr Hayes: The more you understand it, the more you'll support it. We know that.
Mr Curling: What would happen if it is not passed? Your members may vote against it.
Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): We know it's going to pass.
Mr Curling: Oh, you have instructions.
The Chair: Can we move on, Mr Curling? I think we're ready for the vote on this section. All in favour of the government motion? Opposed? That carries.
We have a Liberal motion.
Mr Curling: This is section 9 of the bill, section 16.1 of the act?
The Chair: Yes. Section 9 of the bill, section 16.1.
Mr Curling: I move that section 16.1 of the Planning Act, as set out in section 9 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsection:
"(2) An approval of an official plan or amendment by the approval authority that has followed the prescribed processes shall be deemed to have met the requirements of subsequent processes under the Environmental Assessment Act."
As it is stated there, provided that they have followed the Environmental Assessment Act, it should be really deemed that they have followed the prescribed process. I feel it's unnecessary for any other rules to be followed. This is quite adequate.
Mr Eddy: I support the amendment. As you will recall, several deputants during the hearings stressed the importance of integrating the requirements of the Environmental Assessment Act with the new Planning Act. Is that what this does? Does that meet those concerns and requests that representatives had on several occasions? I recall it was one of the items I listed that we should look at. Maybe the parliamentary assistant can deal with my question.
Mr Hayes: On this particular amendment the plan is that the government will develop regulation to allow municipalities to adopt an optional planning process. The determination of whether this process meets the EA act should be decided on a case-by-case basis after the municipality has adopted the process. What you're saying here is that they would automatically meet the requirements, and we don't know for sure whether they would.
Mr Eddy: I believe this would meet the request of several representatives who pointed out the importance of doing it. It is indeed a recommendation of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which represents over 600 municipalities of all types across the province. I think it will go a long way to speeding up the planning process in municipalities, something we're all concerned about I believe, provided the proper rules are followed. Therefore, I would recommend it and request that government members support it.
Mr McLean: In order to get an official plan approved, don't you have to go through the process of having the health units, the environmental assessments, approved in order to have the minister approve that official plan?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, we do.
Mr McLean: Then why do you need this extra in there in order to have the environmental assessment with respect to any requirement that it must meet under that act? It's already been met. Once the official plan has been approved, it's already been met.
Mr Ron Kennedy: This also is a rather complicated issue. What we're dealing with here are official plans that deal fundamentally with the principle of where development may or may not happen in the future and the policy for that development. Generally municipalities are a long way from doing the environmental assessment type work that's required on the infrastructure to support that development.
The application of the Environmental Assessment Act to municipalities applies to the sewer, water and roads works that they're doing. What seems to be common practice in Ontario now is that municipalities, as a first step, will define where land uses should occur and then, as a subsequent step, go through the very detailed environmental assessment work under the class environmental assessments to work out sewage, water and roads infrastructure to support that development.
That's the way it's working. We should be clear that official plans and amendments are not subject to environmental assessment approval now and never have been.
Mr McLean: We've had delegations that came before us from the Ontario planning association that made presentations to us. What communications have you had with them or with AMO before these amendments were drafted? Any?
Mr McKinstry: Yes. We had extensive discussions with AMO before the resolutions were drafted, as well as with many of the other large stakeholder groups such as the OPPI, the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.
Mr McLean: So far to date, all the resolutions that we've had have been AMO's and up to this moment not one of them has passed. Obviously, you didn't listen very well or you didn't feel that they were doing a very good job of presenting their points of view.
Mr Hayes: Your opinion.
Mr McKinstry: We have in fact, through government motions, adopted a number of AMO's requests.
Mr McLean: So we haven't got to them yet?
Mr McKinstry: No. Some of them have already passed, for example, adding the recognition of municipalities in the purposes of planning.
Mr David Johnson: I think the request by AMO, as I understand it, is that in the environmental process there are several steps. Am I right on that? If you're talking about infrastructure, for example, roads, sewers, whatever, how many steps are we talking about, three steps, something like that?
Mr Kennedy: The current class environmental assessment -- actually there are two of these documents, one for municipal roads projects and one for municipal water and waste water projects -- for the projects that have to go through the full class environmental assessment process, it's a five-step process.
Mr David Johnson: Five-step. Now, you've been going through an official plan process. Would they normally go through some of these steps, the first step or the first two steps of that process pertaining to infrastructure? Would that be a normal situation?
Mr Kennedy: Normally in Ontario, it's not so far. That's one of the reasons that we have the class environmental assessments.
Mr David Johnson: All right. I presume that during those steps there are defined objectives or defined procedures, standards, I don't know what the word is exactly, but there is a process that has to be undertaken.
Mr Kennedy: It's a very specific process.
Mr David Johnson: Very specific process. If a municipality in going through the official plan process followed the environmental assessment process, the very specific process that you've outlined -- and I think this is what they're saying -- then why at some future time should they have to go back and redo it?
Mr Kennedy: One of the reasons that that would be cumbersome, in my opinion, for municipalities is that the class environmental assessment process applies to specific individual pieces of infrastructure: specific road widening, specific sewer lines, specific water lines, those kinds of things.
At the time the conceptual planning is done, at the official plan stage, it's a little early to start doing the level of detailed analysis that would be required for each individual piece of infrastructure in the municipality over a 10- to 20-year planning term of the official plan. That's a practical difficulty that I think most municipalities would have.
Mr David Johnson: How do you interpret the motion that's put forward here today? It has been put forward by both the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party, but essentially it's word for word from what AMO put forward in their brief. What it says is:
"An approval of an official plan or amendment by the approval authority" -- now here are the key words -- "that has followed the prescribed processes shall be deemed to have met the requirements of subsequent processes under the Environmental Assessment Act."
When they say "that has followed the prescribed processes," how do you interpret those words?
Mr Kennedy: I interpret those words to be the prescribed process that would be defined by regulation under the Planning Act.
Mr David Johnson: You don't interpret them as processes under the environmental assessment?
Mr Kennedy: No, I don't. No.
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Mr David Johnson: Had you interpreted them as being prescribed processes under environmental assessment, then would you have any objection to this amendment? I don't see how but --
Mr Kennedy: As a matter of fact I would, Mr Johnson. It's really a practical matter, the amount of analysis and the amount of work that the class environmental assessments require to be done for individual pieces of infrastructure and whether it's appropriate at the time municipalities do all the work they do under official plans to get into that level of detail on specific pieces of infrastructure to support development that may not happen for 10, 15, 20 years.
Mr David Johnson: That would be their choice.
Mr Kennedy: It could be.
Mr David Johnson: I guess it would depend on how far away the development was. It may not be 10 years away; it may be in the near future. But at any rate, what you're say is you would fear for the financial feasibility of them doing it. But if they did it, then you can hardly argue that they turn around and redo it, could you?
Mr Kennedy: Except that over time environmental conditions change and to do an analysis now about what the environmental effects might be of a piece of infrastructure that might not actually occur for 10 or 15 years time, it might be premature to do that.
What I believe the intent of AMO's position and the motion to be, if I could be so presumptuous, is that if municipalities were to do some comprehensive planning for both land use and infrastructure and that were to be put in the official plan, that there be some credit given for that work in the environmental assessment process, and I think the value of the distinction is that there be some credit rather than go all the way to the end of the environmental assessment process.
Mr David Johnson: Could I read you a sentence from the brief of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. I don't know if you have their brief. It's on page 27 of their brief. It says:
"One possible solution is to amend 16.1 of the Planning Act to indicate that the approval of an official plan or amendment by the approval authority that has followed the prescribed processes means that the steps required under the Environmental Assessment Act will not have to be repeated."
It seems to me that it links prescribed processes and the steps under the Environmental Assessment Act. It sort of implies to me that the steps that they're intending to follow would be the same as those under the Environmental Assessment Act.
Mr Kennedy: It's certainly possible to do that, but I still come back to the very practical difficulty of doing planning for land use that may happen over a long period of time with the very detailed planning that the class environmental assessments require for very specific pieces of infrastructure, and whether it's appropriate or feasible even at the time a municipality is planning for development that might not happen in 15 or 20 years time to right now do the very detailed planning for the infrastructure that's going to be that far out.
Mr David Johnson: Just to be 100% sure, when we're talking about five phases of the Environmental Assessment Act, you're talking about phases 1 and 2. Phases 1 and 2 are that specific, are they? I mean, it would seem to me that when you get into an environmental process, and actually AMO talks about phase 1 and 2 specifically, but they say that the first two phases of an environmental assessment process are a self-assessment process subject to objection and the bump-up of approvals are given. Anyway, they call it a self-assessment process. It doesn't sound to me that they feel that the first two phases are quite as specific as you've outlined.
Mr Kennedy: If I may, Mr Johnson, these are the five phases of the environmental planning process.
Mr David Johnson: I see phase 1 over here. What does phase 1 say?
Mr Kennedy: Phase 1 is the identification of the problem and discretionary public consultation.
Mr David Johnson: Well, that doesn't sound very specific.
Mr Kennedy: So far it's not.
Mr David Johnson: Well, now there you go. So why couldn't at least phase 1 not have to be --
Mr Kennedy: We'd like to go beyond that, Mr Johnson, actually. Phase 2 is to identify alternative solutions to the problem, the environmental impacts of those alternatives along with public consultation and the selection of a preferred solution.
Mr David Johnson: I don't know if that's specific or not.
Mr Kennedy: It would be very specific. It would be looking at major alternatives to the problems.
Mr David Johnson: Wouldn't you agree at least phase 1 --
Mr Kennedy: I'd go further than that, Mr Johnson. I'd agree with phase 1 and 2.
Mr David Johnson: You want to link phase 1 and 2 together. Is that what you're saying? You don't want to separate them.
Mr Kennedy: That's right, so that if a municipality in doing its work in developing an official plan were to do the analysis under the class environmental assessment process for phases 1 and 2 to the point that they know what the preferred solution for infrastructure is, that that be given credit under the environmental assessment processes.
Phases 3, 4 and 5 under the environmental assessment process are starting with the preferred solution and then looking at the detailed design alternatives to that, leading to the ability of a municipality to issue a tender for construction of a piece of infrastructure. What we're hearing is that credit be given to phases 1 and 2, and that if that were done under this process, municipalities could pick up the ball at that point and start to do the detailed design work on the infrastructure, whether it's a road widening or a new sewage treatment plant or whatever.
Mr David Johnson: Could you be more descriptive in what you mean by the word "credit," that credit be given? What does that mean?
Mr Kennedy: Exactly how we'd implement that would have to be subject to further discussion with the Ministry of Environment and Energy. In my opinion, what we would do would be to assume that this was in place. That would then be implemented by amendments to the class environmental assessment process that would have the effect of saying that where an official plan or an amendment that was developed and approved under this particular provision of the Planning Act had been done, the infrastructure shown or associated with that official plan or amendment would not be subject to phases 1 and 2. Now there'd be some detailed wording, but the concept would be that where this Planning Act approval was given, when municipalities started to do the detailed planning on the infrastructure, that they start at phase 3 under the existing class environmental assessment process.
Mr David Johnson: Wouldn't it be just as easy to state that and put it in? Isn't that essentially what they're saying, that under certain prescribed conditions they would not have to go back through 1 and 2?
Mr Kennedy: The way I read the recommended amendment from AMO would be that municipalities would not be subject to the environmental assessment process at all.
Mr David Johnson: Well, under prescribed conditions. Make it clear that they would have to have followed prescribed processes, and I guess it depends on the definition of prescribed processes. But you're saying under certain conditions you agree that they shouldn't have to go back and approve steps 1 and 2.
Mr Kennedy: I'd agree that's where we're trying to get to, but as a first step I think if we can get to the credit being given for the first part of the process, which is looking at the big alternatives and the analysis of all of that, if you start with the preferred solutions it can follow through from there.
Mr David Johnson: I guess we're going around in circles here now, but at least you would agree with the direction that AMO is headed, and I guess the motivation is that the environmental assessment process is so long and time-consuming and costly for municipalities. It's not that they're trying to be environmentally insensitive, but taxpayers have to pick up the bill for it and it quite often involves a time delay as well. We're trying to do that in this bill, I think, cut through the red tape and speed things up. You would agree those are good motives?
Mr Kennedy: I'd agree that they're good motives. I'm not so sure that I'd agree with all of the cost implications. Certainly the idea of doing planning for land use and infrastructure together rather than separately, which is what's done now, is a worthwhile objective and we are moving in that direction.
Mr David Johnson: I think if you ask just about any municipality in Ontario what is the most costly process today, now they may be thinking more in terms of landfill sites, but the environmental process, the Environmental Assessment Act, I presume, would come up as number one on that list in most cases. Is that any surprise?
Mr Kennedy: It wouldn't surprise me, no.
Mr David Johnson: No. Okay. So you will be discussing this with the municipalities. Is that part of this process?
Mr Kennedy: Yes, as well as with the Ministry of Environment and Energy of course, because we're talking about their legislation as well.
Mr David Johnson: I assume from the look on the parliamentary assistant's face that this will lose today, but I really think that this is a huge problem that municipalities are facing, the environmental process in general. There needs to be in place a process that yes, protects the environment, ensures that people have their say. But it has to be workable, and today it's very cumbersome, time-consuming, costly and, in the case of some landfill sites, it's unending. I guess the poor old Interim Waste Authority is finding that out and is about to find that out again this fall -- megabucks.
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Mr Curling: I think after listening to the discussion, and it is consistent with what AMO is saying in regard to getting the time frame and getting the thing speeded up, it would be important, I feel, that the government, if they would like to do this, would revisit that section, realizing the fact, as you said, that if they have gone through a certain process and having to go through the environmental assessment process again -- from what I'm understanding, they have to go through five stages -- if the government revisit this area and realize that, after the first prescribed process they have been through, they deem that they go through phase 1 and phase 2 and speed up the process.
I'm just wondering if the parliamentary assistant could give us reassurance that they could revisit that, look at what AMO is saying and maybe looking at phase 1 and the environmental assessment, say that if they have done all that, it should be deemed that have gone through that process and it would save a lot of time.
Mr Hayes: We would certainly like to do that. Also the plan is that we will address that situation through regulation. There will be something there so that hopefully we can work it out where it will speed up the process.
Mr Curling: There are two things you're saying then. One, you're saying that -- I don't want to really put you on the spot -- you know you're not looking at it, but you feel confident that regulation will address this.
Mr Hayes: Yes.
The Chair: Anything further? Seeing none, all in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? Defeated.
PC amendment.
Mr McLean: In the interest of time, I'll withdraw that amendment. Moving right along.
The Chair: Thank you. All in favour of section 9 as amended? Opposed? That carries.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(2) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding after "Durham" in the sixth line "the regional municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk."
This change is requested by the regional municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk. The change would better reflect the existing situation of the region whereby it may direct the lower tiers to declare official plans, and assignment of power to the region to approve lower-tier plans would take place if it directs the lower tiers to prepare a plan.
Mr McLean: The question I have is, why have you not added in the counties of Bruce, Grey, Hastings, Huron, Lambton, Oxford, Prince Edward and Victoria and Wellington in that same resolution? Why haven't you added them in?
Mr Hayes: There is a motion to deal with that later on. That's why it's not here.
Mr McLean: Well, it's not a very good answer.
Mr Eddy: A clarification is requested. You're adding the regional municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk, which is not included. Haldimand-Norfolk has a regional official plan, one-tier but with district plans, as I understand it. Could you just explain that for me?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, after we had drafted the bill we discovered a provision in the Haldimand-Norfolk act that says the region may direct the local municipalities to prepare official plans. If they so direct, Haldimand-Norfolk then becomes a two-tier. Until they direct, it's a one-tier and they would not have this power. If they direct the locals to prepare an official plan, then they would have the power to approve those local official plans.
Mr Eddy: Thank you. I support the amendment.
The Chair: All in favour of the amendment? Opposed? That carries.
The Liberal amendment.
Mr Eddy: I move that subsection 17(2) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding after "Muskoka" in the second-to-last line "and the counties of Bruce, Grey, Hastings, Huron, Lambton, Oxford, Prince Edward, Victoria and Wellington."
These are the counties, I understand -- Oxford, of course, being a restructured county, perhaps that designation should be there, I have no problem with that -- that have approved official plans, being land use plans, as I understand it, and should be included.
Mr McLean: I agree with that. I find that is an excellent proposal. We have an amendment which is identical and it's recommended by AMO also, so I see no reason not to approve it.
Mr David Johnson: Could we have the parliamentary assistant to enlighten us on the government's position on this matter?
Mr Hayes: Actually the government intends to delegate authority to approve local official plans to counties when they have up-to-date official plans and the appropriate staff resources. The government believes that individual needs of counties would be better recognized by assessing each county on a case-by-case basis and delegating authority where appropriate.
Mr David Johnson: We're not talking about a great long list here. We're talking about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine counties. I wonder then, since the parliamentary assistant has indicated "should look on a case-by-case basis," those counties that have official plans at the present time -- I presume the government has done that in these nine cases; it wouldn't take a great deal of effort -- could they tell us which ones of the nine meet the government's criteria at this point?
Mr Hayes: I think they all meet them.
Ms Pat Boeckner: I am Pat Boeckner and I'm with the operations division of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the branch that deals with official plans. None of the county plans at this time have sufficient policy context to enable them to provide enough direction for the approval of official plan amendments.
Mr David Johnson: Could you be more definite? When you say, "sufficient policy context," it sounds like a ministry buzzword.
Ms Boeckner: Yes, what I'm basing that on is the existing policy statements, and those are floodplain, wetland, mineral aggregate, housing, growth of settlement and food land. Those are the existing set, not the comprehensive set, of policy statements.
Mr David Johnson: This sounds like déjà vu all over again. It sounds like a discussion we had earlier this morning. What you're really saying then is, none of these nine have official plans that would be consistent with the policy statements of the province of Ontario?
Ms Boeckner: I would clarify that in saying that none of the county official plans have either maps or policies that deal with most of those policy statements.
Mr David Johnson: Now they all do have official plans?
Ms Boeckner: The ones mentioned have official plans; however, I would not go so far as to call them land use plans.
Mr David Johnson: Can you tell me roughly how up to date they are? I don't know if you have a few examples. For example, Bruce, is it fairly recent?
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Ms Boeckner: I can give you Bruce. Bruce county actually has two county level official plans, one for the north and one for the south. The south was approved in 1982 and the north was approved in 1985.
Mr David Johnson: North in 1985. Who else can you give us there?
Ms Boeckner: Actually I can give you them all, if you like.
Mr David Johnson: If it's quick. Grey?
Ms Boeckner: I have a chart with quite a bit of that kind of information, if that would be useful.
Mr David Johnson: Can you pass it out? Just eyeballing the chart, would they be mostly about that same time frame, in the 1980s?
Ms Boeckner: The earliest one was 1973 --
Mr David Johnson: Who was that?
Ms Boeckner: That would be Huron. The most recent would be Wellington in 1992.
Mr David Johnson: But there's 1984, 1982. It sort of proves my point about official plans not necessarily being up to date in the last five years, I guess.
Ms Boeckner: Yes. The average is about 10 years old in the county plans.
Mr David Johnson: Yes, I'm not surprised. I'm not the least bit surprised.
Ms Boeckner: I should say there are quite a number of official plans at the county level that are under review at the ministry now or are in the process of being brought up to date. There's been quite a lot of activity in the last couple of years.
Mr David Johnson: I hate to be -- what's the word? -- combative here, but what you're really saying is, "Until you counties tow the line with our policy statements, then you will not be designated this authority," this authority being to --
Mr McLean: I can answer that. Yes.
Ms Boeckner: Bill 163 is based on a policy-led system, in other words, having the provincial policies and the local and regional policies set out in the official plans. I guess what we're saying here is that the county plans, by and large, with some exceptions, do not carry forward the provincial policy statement into a county policy context.
Mr David Johnson: There is a list in the bill of all the other regions here, the regional municipality of Halton, Hamilton-Wentworth, Niagara, Ottawa-Carleton, Waterloo. Have all their official plans been investigated and can you tell us without reservation that they meet the criteria today that you're saying that these counties do not meet?
Ms Boeckner: The regional plans have, by and large, been kept up to date in a better fashion than the county plans. Most of the regional plans are up to date with these policy statements with the exception of the wetlands one. Most of the regions are working on their wetlands policy statements.
Mr David Johnson: All right. What you've indicated is that, in particular with the wetlands statement, some of them are not up to date. In that case, why did you not reject them as you rejected the counties?
Ms Boeckner: As I said, the county plans are, by and large, up to date and the wetlands policy statement has been in effect since 1992. Many of the regions are still working along with the Ministry of Natural Resources on the actual mapping of the wetlands. Some of them have come forward with amendments dealing with wetlands. Approximately five or six regional plans are in the process of coming in for adoption at the regional level and they will contain updated policies.
Mr McLean: Could I just have a clarification on that? Why are they in here if they don't meet the qualifications now, which the counties don't? Obviously the regions don't. Why are they named and the counties not?
Ms Boeckner: I think what we're saying is that, by and large, they do meet it. Certainly it's not reasonable when a policy statement comes in to expect that an official plan will automatically come into effect. It takes time to do the research and mapping and to take policy through public consultation.
Mr David Johnson: I think the counties may feel like second-class citizens with the regions being played favourites here. The regions are given the benefit of the doubt and counties aren't. Have you discussed this matter directly with some of these counties?
Ms Boeckner: Absolutely.
Mr David Johnson: We have AMO's resolution. I presume that the counties are in support of AMO's resolution.
Ms Boeckner: We are working directly with many of the counties in the preparation of their updates or their first official plan. As I say, many of those programs are well along the way. For instance, we have a new county plan in from Prince Edward county and we're working with Victoria county. I think we have a Peterborough county plan in very recently. Bruce and Grey counties are well along the way and they both have draft county official plans that are going under public scrutiny.
Mr David Johnson: If they're well along the way, why would you not say, "Yes, we agree with their inclusion in here"? You've said that with the regions. You've said some of the regions do not comply but they're close. Now you're saying that some of the counties do not comply but they're well along the way. So why not take the same attitude to the counties as you've taken to the regions?
Ms Boeckner: I think there is a huge gap between the regions and the counties in terms of their policy and in terms of their basic content. When I say they're well along the way, the public still has not seen the final official plan and the county has not adopted.
Mr David Johnson: Is it reasonable to apply the same yardstick to the counties as to the regions? Many of the regions represent very urbanized and dense populations whereas the counties may have a different situation, maybe different communities. Do you think it's fair to use exactly the same yardstick against both?
Ms Boeckner: I think it definitely is fair. Many of the counties also contain urbanized areas. Many of the regions contain vast areas of farmland such as Haldimand-Norfolk, for instance, or Halton.
Mr David Johnson: I'll just say then, and somebody else may want to pick up, but it seems to me that there's a danger here that the counties are not being treated in the same vein as the regions. I sense that that's their opinion and that may be AMO's opinion as well. It certainly shows that it's difficult for municipalities every five years to update an official plan, and that's been my contention all along. I think that's a guideline that sounds good but in a practical world it's very difficult to achieve.
I think there's a possibility that this bill is going to be used as a stick to club the counties and to bring them into submission with the policies or else they won't get this approval authority that the regions are getting through the same bill. That's a concern to me, and I don't know if the government wants to make a comment or not, but that seems to be kind of the core of the concern I think that AMO has. It's certainly my concern.
Ms Boeckner: I think we would like to get to a position where the regions and counties could be treated in the same way and I hope that there is enough incentive in the bill and also enough incentive with the ministry working with the counties to get them up to that level. But I would have to point out to you that, as the chart shows, there is very limited policy context to guide growth and to guide development in the counties.
I don't mean to paint them all the same way. Some of the counties, as you can see, have either satisfactory or indeed very strong food land policies, for instance, or mineral aggregate policies, but many of the counties do not have county planning departments at all. Some of them have county planning departments that perhaps consist of a director and that's all.
Their research and policy development capacities are not as high as the regions' are. Most of the regions have very large departments and are able to carry out research and policy development. There are certain indications that the counties are developing that way, but they're not there yet.
Mr McLean: Could I have a clarification then? How many staff do you think that a county should have before they would qualify to do the work that you think they should do in order to have the approval process? I mean, you've got a planner. He's professional. He can have a secretary or whatever he needs. Now you're telling me that they don't have the big staff that the region's got. How many staff would they have to have in order to carry out a proper planning procedure in a county?
Ms Boeckner: I certainly see the point that the member's making, and we don't have a number. We've never had a number, and I don't think that anyone could say that there is a number. Certainly a county might choose to have a planning director and then to have its research carried out, for instance, by consultants. There's nothing wrong with that.
Mr McLean: Well then, is there anything wrong with that? I know the county of Simcoe has a planning director. They have consultants who do work for them, and you're telling us that unless they have the amount of staff on staff, it would not be feasible to have an official plan approval done.
Ms Boeckner: I think I was pointing out the differences between the counties and the regions. I agree, if Simcoe county has a planning director and they have some restructuring in place there, they will be moving towards a setup of a larger planning department, but that's going to be a phased-in process. I understand the director has assembled all of the planners from the local townships under a technical committee to guide the terms of reference for the new Simcoe county plan, so they are using some creative staffing resource in that situation.
The Chair: Are we ready for the vote?
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, I indicated that I wished to speak on the matter. I had my hand up.
The Chair: Yes, that's fine.
Mr Eddy: After adjournment is all right.
The Chair: We can come back after recess and complete the questioning on this matter. We'll recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
The committee recessed from 1201 to 1407.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, you were on the list to speak to the Liberal amendment.
Mr Eddy: Yes. We had some concerns about the whole matter, because indeed the regional municipalities are being treated differently from the counties, and we have to realize that one of the counties is indeed a region. It's the restructured country of Oxford, which meets all the criteria for a regional municipality, so it's rather odd that it has been left out.
One region of course is left out completely, Metropolitan Toronto, and I'd like some comment at some time -- that can be later -- about the rationale for that. I note that the region of Waterloo has a policy official plan rather than a land use plan. However, I'm willing to proceed with the vote as you called it, knowing that the ministry is opposed. I'm prepared to vote for the amendment. I support the amendment and I will vote for it.
The Chair: Mr Wiseman is about --
Mr Jim Wiseman (Durham West): We have no comment on this.
The Chair: Mr Wiseman, what do you want to do? Are you ready for the vote?
Interjection.
The Chair: Very well. All in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? That's defeated.
Moving on, PC, same motion.
Mr McLean: Same vote. I'll withdraw because I don't think I have the chance of --
The Chair: Same vote. It's withdrawn. Otherwise, I would have to rule it out of order.
Okay, a Liberal amendment.
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, I did ask, because of the importance of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto -- and it is considered, I believe, with the category of regions, realizing one region is a district and one region is a restructured county, the variation in names -- could we have the rationale about Metropolitan Toronto? Is that possible now or at some time?
Mr Hayes: We can't, not now. It's not in the amendment, so we'll deal with that at a later time.
Mr Eddy: Oh, when the government presents an amendment.
The Chair: Let's do that, Mr Eddy, when we get to it. We have a Liberal amendment, subsection 17(3). Do we have a Liberal member presenting this?
Mr Eddy: I move that subsection 17(3) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:
"(3) Despite subsection (1), on the day that the minister approves all or part of an official plan of the regional municipality of Peel, the regional municipality of York, the county of Peterborough or any other county, the regional council or the county council, as the case may be, is the approval authority in respect of the approval of an official plan of a local municipality in the regional municipality or the county."
This, it seems to me, will bring some important change to the way the counties are treated, and indeed Peel and York. Although that's been included in the act, I think this is improved wording, and we would like the other municipalities to be included along with those regional municipalities that have been selected.
What it means is that those counties that have proceeded to do the necessary work to have an approved official plan -- and we've heard that many counties are not up to par in planning. Of course, it's not very long ago that counties could not be designated municipalities under the previous act; indeed, it was a late amendment of just a very few years ago. I think they've done extremely well.
Counties vary the same as regions. Some have one-tier planning and some have two-tier planning. I think we need this change for the county governments, those that have proceeded and progressed in the planning field, to be acknowledged and treated as upper-tier municipalities sophisticated in the planning process, to recognize that.
The Chair: Mr Johnson.
Mr David Johnson: I thought we were still on the previous one. I got caught.
The Chair: That's all right.
Mr David Johnson: I think that went through but maybe, looking at this one, I can still speak to the same issue. I think Mr Curling had a conversation about this a few moments ago as well.
Mr Curling: Yes.
Mr David Johnson: I don't know if he's introduced it yet, but I have been contacted and Mr Curling has been contacted by the planning commissioner of Metropolitan Toronto.
Naturally, as you can see from the list that's before us, Metropolitan Toronto is not included in the list of regional municipalities that will have authority to give approval to local plans. I wasn't on the list of committee members when either the region or the planning commissioners made their deputation, but as I understand it, the regional chair and the regional planning commissioner --
The Chair: Mr Johnson, do you think what you're saying pertains to this particular motion?
Mr David Johnson: It does contain words in it such as "official plan of the regional municipality of Peel." We're on 35, aren't we?
The Chair: Yes, we are.
Mr David Johnson: It's talking about the regional municipality of Peel, the regional municipality of York, and it says, "authority in respect of the approval of an official plan of a local municipality," so it seems to me, and the clerk agrees, that it's close enough. It's the general issue, Mr Chair, and this is maybe a spot to raise it, notwithstanding the staff are shaking their heads in total disagreement over there. This is a quagmire, I realize, and I've been there myself, so I guess all I'm asking --
Mr Hayes: You used to be mayor, didn't you?
Mr David Johnson: Yes, and I know that had I still been mayor I would be representing the opposite view at this point in time. But as information and as a point of discussion, could the parliamentary assistant and/or the staff put forward the rationale for excluding the largest region in the province of Ontario --
Mr Eddy: I would say it is.
Mr David Johnson: -- it's got to be, populationwise -- a region that would have perhaps the most sophisticated official plan, or near it, I would think, in the province of Ontario. Why is it excluded from approving the plans of the local municipalities?
Mr Hayes: Why are they not in the amendment here?
Mr David Johnson: Yes. Well, why are they are not --
Mr Hayes: It's a Liberal amendment.
Mr David Johnson: Why are they not included in the bill? I think you know, Parliamentary Assistant --
Mr Hayes: Oh, I see.
Mr David Johnson: Good point there.
Mr Hayes: I think this is an issue that we discussed during the hearings, and at this time it was felt by the provincial government that we do not automatically include them mainly because they themselves are reviewing their own governance at the present time. For us to make decisions would probably be premature on our part.
Mr David Johnson: Is the provincial government doing or contemplating any sort of review within Metropolitan Toronto?
Mr Hayes: Not at the present time we aren't.
Mr David Johnson: So when you allude to the fact that they are doing their own review, could you be more specific as to what you're referring to?
Mr Hayes: They are reviewing their own governance is what they're doing. Exact details --
Mr David Johnson: Who is "they?"
Mr Hayes: Metro, the one you're talking about.
Mr Grandmaître: Metro or Toronto?
Mr Hayes: Metro.
Mr David Johnson: So it's your opinion that Metro has a study that's under way to review. There may or not be certain questions on the ballot this fall. I'm not even sure where that stands.
Mr Hayes: Mr Chair, I don't want to cut anybody off from speaking, but for us to get into the issue of talking about a municipality, it doesn't relate to this amendment. It's not in here.
Mr David Johnson: It could be included.
Mr Hayes: Why don't you put it in then?
Mr David Johnson: I guess it could be included. It could be included, and I'm just interested in knowing the rationale --
The Chair: If I could, Mr Johnson, and the Liberal member might correct us, the particular motion speaks specifically to certain communities, does it not?
Mr Curling: It does, but --
Mr Hayes: No, no. No "but."
The Chair: Yes or no? Who moved that? Mr Eddy, did you move that? Mr Eddy, can I just ask you, it speaks to particular communities, does it not?
Mr Eddy: Well, it's rather open because it does say "or any other upper tier."
Mr David Johnson: You weren't supposed to say that.
The Chair: Go ahead, Mr Johnson.
Mr David Johnson: Parliamentary Assistant, you'll be delighted to know that the local municipalities in Metropolitan Toronto would support your position. But just for the record then, it's your view that because Metropolitan Toronto is undergoing some sort of review itself --
Mr Hayes: Yes.
Mr Eddy: So is London. Greater London is also under review.
Mr David Johnson: -- the government is not prepared to include Metro with all the other regions in terms of approving local official plans.
Mr Hayes: Not at this time.
The Chair: Other questions? Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: I just wanted to say too that while we can't do all the job for the government and while we attempt in some respects with these amendments to say things that are left out, we hope the members here will see to it that they support this amendment because we found another deficiency in the government bill.
Further to that, we have heard, all of us who were present at the time Metro came before us and made their case -- and we know they are a legitimate group, organization, region, whatever category you put them under -- where they cite also that there are other people who are similar to them and got approval authority under this act and they found themselves left out.
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So I'm saying to you, as you try to explain it -- I'm not quite sure if I got the proper explanation -- they were excluded from yours, and now you want to say they're excluded from our amendments. However, there were provisions made in our amendments for any other county that you may see would be included in this. Should Toronto be placed in this, would you also approve this and look at it and come up with a better amendment than what we have done now, inclusive of Metro Toronto?
Mr Hayes: I'm sure that we could, but we don't see it's necessary to do so.
Mr Curling: So you don't see it's necessary because you don't think they have the authority. Why would you feel it would not be necessary to have placed Toronto in this one?
Mr Hayes: We are back in the same situation again, Mr Speaker, where we have to continually answer the same question. It's the same question Mr Johnson asked, and I did say that they were reviewing their own governance at this time and we felt it was better to wait and see what they decided they wanted, not what we decide they should have.
Mr Curling: It's my understanding too that there are other regions that are reviewing internally their structure but still were given authority. What would make a difference then? Are there any other regions that are reviewing? My colleague here made mention of -- is it London that is --
Mr Eddy: Greater London.
Mr Curling: Greater London is reviewing.
Mr Eddy: The new London.
Mr Curling: Yes. Why would they, who are reviewing internally, be given authority, if they are, and Metro will not be considered?
Mr Hayes: I think when you talk about London and you talk about the structure that's set up in Metropolitan Toronto, you're not talking about the same kind of system.
Mr McLean: It's a one-tier region; the difference between one-tier and two-tier.
Mr Curling: Did they ask then, because they are reviewing their structure, that they would like to be excluded from being given the authority now and that is the reason why you did not give --
Mr Grandmaître: Metro asked to be excluded.
Mr Hayes: I think you members were here when -- who was the mayor there?
Mr Curling: Lots of them.
Mr Hayes: Mel Lastman, I think it was, a few weeks ago.
Mr Curling: Mr Lastman and Mrs Trimmer and --
Mr Hayes: I think they were of one opinion and others were of a different opinion.
Mr Curling: Yes, but the minister, what was his opinion on this matter? Because we even showed you where AMO sometimes agrees on certain things and you ignore it. We know that some of the mayors --
Mr Hayes: I think Mr Lastman's opinion was that he didn't want it, if you can recall.
Mr Curling: Yes. Mr Lastman didn't want it; we know that. I'm saying Mr Tonks wanted it. Now, the arbitrator in all of this would be the minister and yourself. I'm speaking to the minister through you. Did he decide then that he did not want Metro in this one?
Mr Hayes: For the reasons that I gave you several times, yes.
Mr Curling: In other words, no. The minister decided --
Mr Hayes: They're doing an internal thing, so we're not going to stick our nose into it at the present time.
Mr Curling: I hear what the parliamentary assistant said. He doesn't want to stick his nose into any of the internal business. Bill 163 is a sticking-the-nose business. It goes into every one of the municipalities and tells them, "This is the comprehensive policy and this is how you should operate and your official plan must be consistent with...," sticking their nose into it and saying, "You get in line, or else." Now I'm hearing from the parliamentary assistant that --
Interjections.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, I would just like to know how many meetings are going on.
The Chair: We have your attention, Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: I can see that.
The Chair: Just move right on. Take your time.
Mr Curling: I am. You are saying the minister decided that he did not want to stick his nose into Metro, so he excluded them out of this process, so therefore they did not get any authority. I just want to understand that.
Mr Hayes: What I'm saying to you is that they are reviewing their governance and when they decide or if they can come to some sort of an agreement, then of course this government will look at the situation.
Mr Curling: Could I ask one last question, then, my last question? Does this government, the NDP government of Ontario, recognize Metro Toronto as a legitimate government organization, institution?
Mr Hayes: Certainly they are. Everybody knows they are.
Mr Grandmaître: Again to the parliamentary assistant, the fact that Metro is doing an internal review didn't prevent you or the minister or the ministry from giving the five, let's say, remaining municipalities, excluding Toronto, that approval power, right? You excluded, really, Toronto, because Mr Pomeroy, who chairs the regional chairpersons in this province, told us that he was the spokesperson for all chairs, including Metro, and he was asking that Metro be recognized. Metro didn't ask to be excluded from this bill. Am I right or wrong?
Mr Hayes: I didn't say they were.
Mr Grandmaître: No, I'm asking you --
Mr Hayes: Some of the lower-tier ones had indicated to this committee that they did not want Metro to have the authority.
Mr Grandmaître: But when Mr Pomeroy came before us, he was talking for or representing Metro, or Metro's chair, and he said, "For God's sake, give Metro that power." Now I want to find out if they excluded themselves because they were having some kind of an internal review. Who chose to exclude Metro?
Mr Hayes: This government has not excluded them; we're letting them proceed --
Mr Grandmaître: You are excluding Metro.
Mr Hayes: No, no. We're letting them proceed with their review. That's what we are doing. That's where we're at. I don't know how many more --
Mr Grandmaître: So for the time being, you are excluding Metro.
Mr Hayes: For the time being, we are not going to give Metro that authority.
Mr Grandmaître: My question is a very simple one: Who decided to exclude Metro?
Interjection.
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Eddy, but I'm going to read everybody the motion and then I'm going to rule this discussion out of order as it relates to this issue, okay? I don't mind having some discussion, but when it drags on and it doesn't relate to the motion, I think we need to deal with it. It says:
"Despite subsection (1), on the day that the minister approves all or part of an official plan of the regional municipality of Peel, the regional municipality of York, the county of Peterborough or any other county, the regional council or the county council, as the case may be, is the approval authority in respect of the approval of an official plan of a local municipality in the regional municipality or the county."
Whatever you have been discussing does not pertain to this motion. I ask you either to speak to the motion or we move on and we call the question on this matter. All right?
Mr Eddy: I understand that the main reason for including the municipalities, of course, whether they be regions, counties, whatever, is the delegation of approval. The upper tiers that are named will have the delegation of approval where there are lower-tier municipalities with official plans. What happens to those upper tiers that are not named that do have area municipalities with official plans?
The point I'm getting at is the cost of approving official plans. I'm saying you're doing this because I think it will reduce -- it's to expedite, and I think it will hurry things along in some instances, perhaps. I'm hopeful of that. But there will be an additional cost, it seems to me, to the upper-tier municipalities named that are granted approving authority. What about those that are not? Will the province continue to be responsible for reviewing and examining? If so, that seems to me a cost that is not passed down, whereas in the other upper tiers it is a cost that is passed down.
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Ms Boeckner: For those areas that will receive the assigned or the delegated authority, in our opinion, there will be no extra costs involved because those approval authorities are probably doing all of the work now in that counties or regions review official plan amendments from the local tier now. They do a circulation in their own area -- they might circulate to conservation authorities or local health units and so on -- and then provide comments to the province. In our opinion, they're basically doing a lot of that function now, so the costs would be quite minimal.
Mr Eddy: Yes, but the other part is those upper-tier municipalities that have area municipalities with official plans and are not delegated the authority do review.
Ms Boeckner: The question is?
Mr Eddy: It seems to me the province will continue that function and therefore that's a cost that the province will be bearing, that will be borne by the people in upper tiers who are doing it at the upper-tier level, whereas in -- I can't mention Metro -- a very large region, the largest region of all, it will be done by the province. What I'm saying is the cost. You're passing the work down. You say it isn't a cost, but you're passing the authority down to the upper tiers, from the province to the upper tiers, for the locals. What happens here in Metro? You'll continue to do that?
Ms Boeckner: The status quo would continue.
Mr Eddy: Or are you going to treat the constituent municipalities of Metro as single-tier municipalities, perhaps, and delegate --
Ms Boeckner: No, their official plans and official plan amendments would continue to come to the province. It's the status quo.
Mr Eddy: That's where I see the difference in the cost.
The Chair: All right, I think we're ready for the vote on this matter.
Mr David Johnson: Mr Eddy has twigged some thoughts on this thing. Today, the regions comment on official plans of local municipalities but they do not approve.
Ms Boeckner: No, that's correct. Most of the regions have official plan approval authority now. They have been delegated it by the ministry over the years.
Mr David Johnson: So Metro is an exception in that regard?
Ms Boeckner: York and Peel, of course, do not have that. Muskoka doesn't have it either.
Mr David Johnson: So you're saying that most of the regional municipalities even today have approval authority on local municipal plans?
Ms Boeckner: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: In a sense, then, what's being delegated here primarily is -- you're sure of that?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, in fact that is the case. We want to make sure that rather than the minister being accountable for the decisions, the region is accountable. That's the difference between delegating, where the minister remains accountable, and assigning. The act actually gives the power to a different level of government.
Mr David Johnson: So who is the benefit for? You want the region to be accountable. Presumably, there's some benefit at the regional level for that accountability, or there's some benefit to somebody for the region being accountable.
Ms Boeckner: We feel the benefits are in the streamlining, that you take out a level of approval, being the province, and put that down to the region so that the over-the-counter service is at the region, and hopefully that streamlines the process.
Mr David Johnson: Conversely, when the region doesn't have that approval level, the process is not streamlined, I presume. That's just the opposite of what you said.
Ms Boeckner: We would hope to put some streamlining measures in there, such as reducing the duplication of applications and concurrent circulations, one-window approval at the province.
Mr David Johnson: Are you saying that for those regions and counties that do not get the approval authority for local official plans you would be putting in place other procedures that would streamline the process?
Ms Boeckner: Yes, that's right. We're moving towards those now. You might have heard about some of the Dale Martin task force initiatives, such as the one-window approval at the provincial level, where we don't do as much circulation as we did before. We provide a one-window service at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and front-end commenting, which we are doing in a number of other counties. The complete application is another pilot project. These are all serving to streamline the process.
Mr David Johnson: I think beyond streamlining the other benefit that might perhaps be put forward would be, for example, transportation issues. Transportation issues may transcend local boundaries. Transportation planning on a broad basis, in a regional or county basis, may be important. If you have local official plans that don't jibe with a region's view, let's say, on transportation, it may be difficult for the region to plan efficient transportation. Consequently, by having the region have the approval authority of local plans, the region is better positioned to ensure that there's a uniform approach to broader issues such as transportation. There may be public transit, there may be other aspects as well. Would you agree with that?
Ms Boeckner: I would agree completely, yes.
Mr David Johnson: All right. You would also agree that a region that doesn't have that authority would lose out to some degree or would lack those same benefits?
Ms Boeckner: Presuming that you're referring to Metro, I think that in that case --
Mr David Johnson: I can't refer to Metro, but since you've raised it, yes.
Ms Boeckner: It would be the only one that would not have the authority. Then I think we have to put in other mechanisms to take the place, such as using the office of the greater Toronto area and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
The Chair: All in favour of this amendment? Opposed? That is defeated.
There's a PC amendment and it's identical, so we might encourage you to withdraw it.
Mr David Johnson: In the interests of time -- is that correct, the essence of time?
The Chair: Sure. Withdrawn.
Mr David Johnson: I don't know what that expression means exactly. We withdraw it.
The Chair: Not moved. Liberal amendment, subsection 17(3.1).
Mr Curling: I move that section 17 of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsection:
"(3.1) Any official plan, official plan amendment, bylaw, subdivision, consent, site plan or minor variance approved in accordance with this act and any municipality to which they relate shall be conclusively deemed to be in compliance with the policy statements issued under section 3 upon approval."
Mr David Johnson: Could we have a comment from the parliamentary assistant?
The Chair: Mr Hayes, do you want to comment?
Mr Curling: Yes, how does the parliamentary assistant feel about this?
Mr McKinstry: I draw the committee's attention to a previous motion, and I don't have the number of it, which actually stated something quite similar and which passed the committee earlier today to say that official plans will be deemed conclusively to be consistent with policy statements once they've been approved. In the government's view, that is the appropriate step to take as opposed to this motion.
Mr Eddy: That leaves the question why? Because official plan amendment is part of the official plan. It would seem to me at the very least that if you're going to allow it to be deemed under an official plan to be consistent, then why wouldn't an approved amendment and the other things that are mentioned, which are all part of the planning process and would seem to me to be very important? I guess the question is simply why? I didn't want to make it that short, of course.
Mr McKinstry: In fact, an amendment is part of the government motion, so official plans and amendments. The other Planning Act instruments are not. The view of the government is that the official plan sets a broad, general framework for the municipality and it's a critical document for the municipality. We wanted to give the municipality the certainty that the official plan itself was deemed to be consistent. The other documents are far more detailed and they should make reference
directly to the policy statements.
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Mr Eddy: Did you state that the government motion will deem official plan amendments as well? Did you say that? I think you said that.
Mr McKinstry: Yes.
Mr Eddy: And amendments thereto?
Mr McKinstry: What it says is, "An official plan or part of an official plan approved by an approval authority."
Mr Eddy: That would include an amendment, of course?
Mr McKinstry: Yes.
Mr David Johnson: Just a further elaboration: "An official plan or an official plan amendment" -- would you tell me once again why subdivisions wouldn't be considered in the same light as official plans or official plan amendments?
Mr McKinstry: As I mentioned to Mr Eddy, the subdivisions zoning bylaws are very specific documents and the view of the government was that they should make reference directly to the policy statements as opposed to only having to conform to the official plan, that the subdivisions zoning bylaws, consents, should make reference directly to the policy statements because they're often much more detailed documents than the official plan.
The Chair: All in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? Defeated.
The identical --
Mr David Johnson: I'll withdraw it.
The Chair: Government amendment.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(9) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:
"(9) The council shall ensure that in the course of the preparation of the plan adequate information, including a copy of the current proposed plan, is made available to the public and, for this purpose, shall ensure that at least one public meeting is held, notice of which shall be given in the manner and to the persons and public bodies and containing the information prescribed."
This technical amendment clarifies that the plan is a proposed plan, so that it is clear, and that the plan may be subject to revisions as a result of public input without requiring a further meeting. It's all part of the streamlining process.
Mr Grandmaître: When I look at the bill and the amendment -- the parliamentary assistant said it's housekeeping and I'm trying to decipher how much housekeeping has been done with this section.
Mr McKinstry: One of the things we've been told during our committee hearings and in our meetings with other folks is that in fact it wasn't absolutely clear in the legislation that at the time of a public meeting the plan that is presented there could be subject to revisions before being adopted. Some councils were concerned that they would be stuck adopting the identical plan that they had adopted at a public meeting without the chance to change it as a result of the public meeting. This is a clarification to make sure everybody understands. This is what we intended from the beginning.
Mr David Johnson: The other aspect that's changed is that in the original wording the public meeting was to be held by the council. In the revised wording it says simply that, "The council...shall ensure that at least one public meeting is held," but the implication there is that it doesn't necessarily have to be the council that would hold such a meeting. Who would you contemplate would hold such a meeting?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, you're exactly right. The other concern that was raised in that section was council saying to us, "We don't hold public meetings necessarily ourselves," or the regional council saying, "We don't hold public meetings necessarily ourselves, but we want to be able to have the ability to have our staff hold them or to have the lower tier hold them." Really, it's a way of saying it's council's responsibility to make sure the public meeting is held, but they don't themselves have to hold it.
Mr David Johnson: Are we talking about official plan meetings dealing with official plans?
Mr McKinstry: Official plans and amendments.
Mr David Johnson: Amendments could well be delegated, I guess. In terms of the official plan meetings, that's a serious topic to be delegating to staff in particular.
Mr McKinstry: The view of the government was that, in line with empowering municipalities, it felt they would be able to make that decision. We would assume that with a very important matter council would want to deal with it itself.
Mr Curling: Do I understand you to say that it is the council that will be holding the public meeting? The council will ensure that a public meeting is held?
Mr McKinstry: That's correct, Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: So the council will say to the staff, "Hold a public meeting." I was wondering. Council is the people who are elected, and they are accountable to the public. I felt that basically they would have organized a public meeting. But just any of the staff could go and organize a public meeting. There would be a guideline of what would be required in a public meeting?
Mr McKinstry: Yes. Currently, councils in fact often will delegate the holding of public meetings. So what we were doing was reflecting existing practice. But it's council's responsibility to make sure that a public meeting is held, and it's council's responsibility to think about the comments that are made. But they do have staff, and the staff can actually hold a public meeting if council wishes.
Mr Curling: There is no description of what would be defined as a public meeting?
Mr McKinstry: No. It's up to the council. It has to be open to the public and it has to be accessible and all those things, but we have no regulations on that issue.
Mr Curling: I'm just trying to understand.
Mr Wiseman: With respect to the public meeting and the content of the information that is made available for the public meeting, what provisions are there that if, for example, the public meeting is held and then the plan comes back to regional council to vote on and at that meeting a whole bunch of new changes are made to the plan, land is added that was not discussed with the public at the public meeting, what protection is there and what do we have that would say, "If you are now voting on something that you have not consulted on in its entirety, you have to go back out and hold another public meeting"?
Mr McKinstry: The way the act is worded now, it says that it "shall ensure that...at least one public meeting, notice of which shall be given in the manner and to the persons and public bodies and containing the information prescribed." Before that, it talks about the fact that "adequate information, including a copy of the plan, is made available to the public." So the interpretation of that legislation would be that if there were such fundamental changes to the plan, that would not be adequate information for people to make a decision on their feelings about it, and therefore there would probably have to be yet another public meeting.
Mr Wiseman: Who would determine and tell the regional council that it should have another public meeting? Where does that come from?
Mr McKinstry: This will be the responsibility of council.
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Mr Wiseman: Whoa. Let's hold back on this one, then. History would indicate to me that this isn't going to happen. Where's the redress for the local citizenry? For example, let's take this hypothetical place in Durham and talk about its official plan that was altered by at least adding somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7,000 acres of prime agricultural land to its plan after the public meeting had been held, and this was done on the floor of council. Where's the safeguard? This is a meaningless resolution unless we put some teeth into it to say that councils have to go back and reconsult.
Mr McKinstry: I have a couple of answers to this; one is that the council does have a statutory obligation, so people could challenge it in the courts on the basis of that. The statutory obligation, then, is to hold a public meeting and to make sure that adequate information is available. So their statutory obligation would extend to a judgement about whether they need a public meeting again. The other thing is that notice has to be given of the decision to approve, and there is the chance to appeal to the board. So there is still that chance to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board.
So if a lower-tier council, for example, were adopting a plan, or let's say if it's your example, if it's an upper-tier council, it would go to the approval authority. The approval authority would then be able to review it.
Mr Wiseman: The approval authority for a municipal --
Mr McKinstry: For a region, it would be the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the minister.
Mr Wiseman: Would they have the power, then, to tell the region: "Sorry, go back and consult with your public. This was not part of the original consultation"?
Mr McKinstry: The public would have the chance to make an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. That, in the view of the government, is the safeguard in the system. There is the right to get to the board on this.
Mr Wiseman: It's pretty costly. Mr Eddy was saying it looks like we're building a catch-22 in here that says nobody is directly responsible for telling the region it violated the spirit of the act other than some poor citizen who's going to take it to the municipal board. Why shouldn't the approval authority be able to say to the region, "Go back and talk to your people, because this is not what you talked to them about in the first place"?
Mr McKinstry: What we've done here is simply reflect the existing provision of the act.
Mr Wiseman: Well, yes, I know that. That's the problem. If we're going to change it, let's change it so that it has --
Mr Grandmaître: You're not streamlining.
Mr Wiseman: Well, I have some difficulty with this, I have to say. I would like to see some teeth put in here, to have an amendment to this amendment to say that if there are significant changes to the act that has been consulted on, that it must be returned to the public to be consulted on again.
Mr McKinstry: As I said before, there is a statutory obligation on council to hold a public meeting, and then there would be a statutory obligation to make sure that adequate information was available. That's the law.
Mr Wiseman: If this isn't changing fundamentally what is there now --
Mr Hayes: It's housekeeping.
Mr Wiseman: -- then this is missing an opportunity to do something that would allow ratepayers and people who have entered into the process in good faith, gone to the first public meeting to make comments, to be able to make comments on a plan that has fundamentally changed from what they were asked to comment on in the first place.
Mr McKinstry: There is also the provision that separates the public meeting and the adoption of the plan to make sure that people have a chance to have an impact on the decision.
Mr White: On a point of order, Mr Chair: I'm wondering if it might be possible to stand this section down for a brief time so that Mr Wiseman can confer on this.
The Chair: It's not a point of order. If you want to raise it as a matter to stand down, we'll see whether there's unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent to do so?
Interjection: Sure.
The Chair: We'll stand this matter down.
A government amendment.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(12) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding after "person" in the eighth line "or public body."
This is also a technical housekeeping amendment to the bill.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, "after `person' in the eighth line `or public body,'" is this parallel to what we did this morning or the day before with the first nations, to include these people?
Mr McKinstry: This reflects the decision of the government to add public bodies to those people who can be dismissed if they don't get involved early. So what we're saying here is that in order to allow them to be dismissed they must be notified.
Mr David Johnson: Do I take it that this is simply -- it's entitled "Information," the heading in the left-hand column. So this is just a notice? Is this just a notice procedure? It's a little difficult to read through the terminology. Is that what this is?
Mr McKinstry: My understanding is that it is a notice procedure.
Mr David Johnson: So if an individual's referral to the Ontario Municipal Board or, now through this amendment, a public body's referral to the Ontario Municipal Board is being refused, then they would be so notified? Is that what this does? I had to read through this.
Ms Elaine Ross: Perhaps I can clarify. I'm Elaine Ross, counsel with Municipal Affairs. All this section does is it says that at the public meeting there are certain things that council has to tell people, and one of the things it has to tell people is about the fact that they can be dismissed later if they don't tell people what their objections are now. So we've simply added public bodies to the list so they have to tell them that both persons and public bodies could be dismissed at a later time.
Mr David Johnson: Is this absolutely essential?
Ms Ross: Somebody could argue that "persons" doesn't include public bodies. So it's a technical amendment.
The Chair: Anything else?
Mr Curling: I wonder if it could be read including exactly what's following, because I'm trying to really place "persons" and place "public body" in it.
The Chair: Ms Ross or Mr McKinstry, could you read it with the additions in place? Is that it?
Ms Ross: "At a meeting under subsection (9), the council shall ensure that information is made available to the public regarding the power of the approval authority to refuse to refer a proposed decision under subsection (29) and the power of the municipal board to dismiss an appeal or a referral request under subsection (38) if a person or public body requesting a referral or an appellant has not provided the council with oral submissions at a public meeting or written submissions before a plan is adopted."
The Chair: Okay?
Mr Curling: Good. It's very helpful.
The Chair: All right. I think we're ready for the vote on this matter. All in favour of the government amendment? Opposed? That carries.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(16) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by striking out "30" at the beginning of each of clauses (a) and (b) and substituting "14" in each case."
The bill currently requires a 30-day separation between the public meeting and the adoption of an official plan or amendment. This is designed to allow the public an opportunity to consider the proposal and the municipality to resolve any objections. In order to help streamline the system, this time frame will be reduced to 14 days.
As the members know, that was a concern, about shortening the time period and making municipalities go through a process over again, and we felt that this certainly would assist, give them time and also the public time and also shorten up the process, streamline.
Mr Eddy: I'd like to congratulate the government on going halfway, anyway, from 30 to zero.
Mr Hayes: More than halfway; we cut out 16 days.
Mr Eddy: More than half; a little more than half. It is streamlining it to a degree, but I think we had several presenters state that it could be almost forthwith were there no objections and it would streamline and speed up the process even further. I thought it was a good point that they were making, to get on with it, and I realize you're doing it halfway.
I notice we have an amendment. The PCs have an amendment with the same wording as we have, and you've gone most of the way. So that's a two-thirds majority. Let's get it out of there and strike it out.
Mr Hayes: We think a lot alike sometimes.
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The Chair: Okay, anything further? Mr Johnson.
Mr David Johnson: So this would click in if a plan -- we're talking about official plans and official plan amendments here again, to start with.
Interjection: Yes.
Mr David Johnson: Is my understanding correct that if there are no objectors at the public meeting, then there couldn't be objectors after the public meeting? Is that the new process? No?
Mr McKinstry: No. Objections could be raised right up to the date of adoption.
Mr David Johnson: By anybody?
Mr McKinstry: Yes. But remember that is only adoption; it's not approval. An adopted plan goes on to an approval authority to be approved.
Mr David Johnson: All right, you've lost me there. But if the meeting is held, whichever one is referred to in section 16, who could object after that public meeting? Any ratepayer, any citizen of Ontario?
Mr McKinstry: Anyone could object.
Mr David Johnson: Whether or not they made a presentation at the meeting at all?
Mr McKinstry: That's right. You may be confusing this with the ability of the approval authority or the board to dismiss objections where people did not have early involvement. But that early involvement really should take place before adoption. The reason for the amendment in the first place, the reason for the separation between the public meeting and adoption, was first of all to make sure that people who may not be able to make it to the public meeting can have some chance to review it, and second of all to allow council and the people who object some time to work out their differences. It's been called the cooling-off period. The government still believes it is important to have that period but agrees that it can be much shorter.
Mr David Johnson: Okay.
Mr Curling: I'm not as generous and willing to congratulate the government for reducing that time; of course it is partway. After a public meeting is held, the public would have an opportunity to hear and to ask a lot of questions. Maybe if they had even done it for seven days, to say within seven days or so; 30 days, which they have considered to be extremely long and now have reduced to 14, I still feel that it's a long time for one to wait again.
I think that after a public meeting, within seven days -- as a matter of fact, it could be struck out completely, because they would have an opportunity -- but again, leaving a bit of room for digestion after the meeting, maybe the government should consider looking at reducing it even further, maybe within seven days. Those planners or developers who want to proceed with their project would then find that the time is shortened. Time is money, and that's costing a lot of people.
Did the government look at it to see what impact it would have if they had shortened it down to seven days? Would that be more beneficial, or did you just decide arbitrarily that it's 14 days we'll go for this time, halfway? Did you look at maybe striking it out completely or seven days?
Mr Hayes: We did look at that.
Mr Curling: And?
Mr Hayes: We felt that reducing it by 16 days was quite reasonable. Then you're still not excluding the public from being able to participate in the process. You're still giving them that time. So we felt that reducing it by 16 days was a considerable amount and quite reasonable.
Mr Curling: It was. I agree. That's 50% of the time. But did you look further to say that seven would be even better?
Mr Hayes: We're not sure whether it would be better. You still have to allow people --
Mr Curling: So you just arbitrarily picked a day and said it's that day?
Mr Hayes: We just tried to be reasonable, that's where we are.
Mr Curling: It's an attempt, but not a great attempt. That's okay.
The Chair: Any additional speakers? Seeing none, all in favour of this amendment? Opposed? That carries.
A Liberal amendment. It's rather different, if they want to move it actually.
Mr Curling: Let me read it into the record.
The Chair: You want to read it into the record to debate?
Mr Curling: No.
The Chair: Because that's what would happen.
Mr Curling: Can we just talk on it then if you don't read it into the record?
The Chair: No, because then there would be nothing in front of us. If you want to move it, have it passed or defeated, that would be all right.
Mr Curling: I feel that for streamlining the process I would read it and then tell you -- section 10 of the bill. Let me move, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: All right.
Mr Curling: Section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(16) of the Planning Act:
I move that subsection 17(16) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out.
The Chair: Okay. Speaking to them, Mr Curling?
Mr Curling: The arguments I put forward -- I hope the parliamentary assistant heard -- that eliminating the time would make it much more efficient, from my understanding, and I will anticipate his comment that he had looked at it, reduced it down to 50% and felt that was reasonable. I just wondered again, just for the record, you will not consider at all striking this out, would you?
Mr Hayes: We would not consider striking this out?
Mr Curling: This section out?
Mr Hayes: No, we wouldn't, Mr Chair. We have looked at it and studied it very hard and come to the conclusion that we are able to reduce it by 16 days.
Mr Curling: Is it? Not 14.
Mr Grandmaître: Eliminate 16.
Mr Curling: Oh, I see.
The Chair: All right. Speakers to this? No? Then we move to a vote then.
All in favour of this amendment? Opposed? That's defeated. Mr Johnson.
Interjections.
The Chair: It's a similar vote here. It's the same vote, the same thing.
Mr David Johnson: Withdraw.
The Chair: Okay. Very well, moving on. Government motion.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(19) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding after "refuse to" in the first line "accept or".
The bill allows the approval authority to refuse further consideration of an application if it is incomplete. It should be clarified that the approval authority also has the authority to refuse to accept an incomplete application, and the refusal to consider is contingent on the prescribed information, not additional information which the municipality may ask for.
Mr David Johnson: May I ask a question on that? Would that then mean that if, for example, the property owner had a proposal which required an official plan amendment to build on a property, and the municipality determined that the information was not complete, the municipality could refuse to accept the amendment on the first instance?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, that is true. This is a clarification and I guess some people would interpret that the way the bill is worded now, they could refuse to accept incomplete applications. I should be specific that there will be regulations that set out exactly what a complete application is, so that the approval authority and the applicant will know exactly what the information is. The reason this was done was to give some logic and some upfront information to everybody in the process, so everybody knew what would be required in an application.
One of the reasons we need to do this is because the new planning system works on the basis of time frames, so it's very important to determine when the time starts so that the applicant knows when he or she can go on to the board.
Mr David Johnson: What recourse would a builder have, let's say, if he disagreed. I'm heartened to hear you say that this will be specifically laid out as to what is required and, consequently, in a perfect world there won't be any contention over what is required and everybody will agree that it's complete or incomplete, but we live in an imperfect world and it'll only be a matter of time before there's a difference of opinion as to whether the material is present or not.
Having sort of been there myself, I know that happens reasonably frequently, actually. What recourse is there for such a person who feels that he or she has given all the information, and the municipality says, "No, it's not complete"? There may be a suspicion that the municipality just doesn't want to deal with it, so the clock won't start. What recourse does a person have in that case?
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Mr McKinstry: I'd suggest, first of all, that right now the municipality has no regulation, no guidelines on complete applications and so may, if it chooses, not deal with an application. Furthermore, there are no time frames, so there's no way that, if they don't accept it, the applicant could move on, unless they operate under section 22.
In the new system, with time frames, the application will be very much specified, but if there is a disagreement, if there is absolutely no way the municipality and the applicant could agree, there is still recourse to the courts. My suggestion is that in fact this system will be better because it will be clear what the application should contain, as opposed to now, where it isn't clear what it can contain.
Mr David Johnson: If there's a difference of opinion -- it may be better, it may not be; I guess we'll have to see -- the applicant would have to take the municipality to court. I don't know how long a process that would be but I suspect it could well be years rather than months.
Mr McKinstry: I would agree that the courts are not the ideal solution. Our thoughts on the regulation on the complete application would be that it would be fairly bare bones, if you want. It would not contain a lot of extraneous detail. Furthermore, the municipality would not be able to require additional information over and above the regulation. They may ask for it but it won't form part of that complete application.
Mr David Johnson: In my experience at the municipal level, I was not aware that the municipality didn't accept any proposals, but those that were not as fully researched, I guess, or maybe the material wasn't as complete as others, took longer to go through the process. Consequently, if you wanted to submit a proposal -- I can think of a few in my mind where they certainly weren't as detailed as we would like to have seen them. They just took a whole lot longer to go through because ultimately that kind of material had to come. So the developer and the builder, I guess, took his or her own fate by submitting a proposal. If they want to submit a proposal that's incomplete, then they suffer the consequences. But the municipality dealt with it in the fullness of time, it just took longer to go through the system.
I guess the system you've set up is different from that. You sort of reject that kind of approach, I suppose. I don't know what the question is, but do you have any comments on that sort of approach?
The Chair: Is there a follow-up? Would you want to add to this question?
Mr David Johnson: Let him respond.
Mr McKinstry: In the interests of streamlining, we put time frames in. Once the thing gets to the approval authority, for example, they've got 180 days to make a decision. So you need to have some point when that time starts. What could happen, if you don't have a complete application, is the applicant simply writes a letter and says, "We want to apply to redesignate a parcel somewhere in the northeast portion of Scarborough and we want to change it from residential to commercial."
The municipality won't be able to make any determination on that and therefore the 180 days would start ticking and therefore it's likely to end up before the board still without any information. Our attempt here is to get things clear and concise at the beginning of the process, get all the activities happening at the beginning of the process. So we see that this complete application is really an essential part of the process.
Mr David Johnson: It may work, it may have some problems. It's just when I see it phrased this way, one problem may be that the municipality, aware that the clock is ticking, will be very picky about making sure that all of the information plus is sort of there before it accepts it, because once it accepts it, the clock is starting to tick.
It's fine if you're a municipality only dealing with one application, and the clock is ticking and you've got a certain number of planning staff -- even a municipality like East York has a very limited number of planning staff and if they're dealing with three or four other applications at the same time, there are only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week, and it may be that a number of applications simply don't get into the queue in the first place, they're not accepted. Municipalities will have to be very careful to make sure everything's there before they accept them. That may be good or that may be bad, but I just have a sense that may be a consequence of this approach.
The Chair: Is that a question?
Mr David Johnson: I think it was a statement.
The Chair: A statement. Mr Grandmaître, did you have a point connected to this?
Mr Grandmaître: I have a statement, but I think Dave just clarified this.
The Chair: Very well. I have Mr Winninger first, Mr Curling.
Mr David Winninger (London South): I'll waive my question. That ground's been covered.
Mr Curling: Following on what Mr Johnson said, I think when we were doing the hearing, some of the people said that maybe it's not even necessary to have this legislation, because what we need to do is to make sure that we have an efficient system working, and what we're trying to do is to legislate all of these procedures. What we're trying to do here, of course, is to make sure that the process moves along very efficiently and quickly and not be held up.
I'm concerned really, though, at the front-end part of it, that if there are forms to be filled out before the clock starts, because the clock will start as soon as all things are in place -- as Mr Johnson stated, there is no process in order to say, although the regulation will stipulate, as you said -- we're hoping it will lay it out and say you fill out all these forms and then we start the clock ticking because everything is all filled out. What could be done in order to make sure that those things are not held up before the clock starts? The importance one time was after it was in that the clock starts ticking. Now they're going to say before all that's done, we must have this before we start the clock ticking or the process starts. Is there anything in here that would say you must move along to get the clock started so the time frame can be shortened?
Mr McKinstry: Yes, the approval authority is required to deal with the complete application, and it has 180 days to do that. If they don't deal with it, and the government will be introducing a motion to change that slightly later on, to make that shorter, the view of the government would be that you really need to have some kind of certainty in what that application is before you can start any clock ticking. It seems to me what happens is that in the current system the municipalities get clogged up with incomplete applications and the staff spend all their time trying to get those applications complete, so when complete applications come in they too get held up. It seems sensible to say, "Let's define what a complete application is clearly so everybody understands, everybody will know what information needs to be submitted and then everybody knows when the clock starts ticking."
Mr Curling: Could I ask the question then -- when I present my application that day, it would be assessed that same day and said: "You've got all your i's dotted and all your t's are crossed here according to the prescribed regulation in this form. It's in." When does that happen? Do they have to put that in and wait and they say: "I have a big batch on my desk. When I get to that and I put the okay in, the clock starts ticking." When do they start that process?
Mr McKinstry: The clock would start ticking on the day it's received, if it's complete. So if the staff don't look at it for a week and, looking at it, determine it's complete, the clock has been ticking already for one week.
Mr Curling: So once they put it in and they take it across from the counter, then --
Mr McKinstry: That's right, and it gets its date stamp, which most organizations place on.
Mr Curling: Okay. All right, thanks.
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Mr David Johnson: Did you say the material can't change once the clock starts ticking, the background material? Did I hear you say that? No?
Mr McKinstry: There's a limited amount of material that would be required as prescribed information. It's entirely possible that a municipality will say to a developer, "We'd actually like you to do this or that," but that is not part of the prescribed information. So they wouldn't be able to not accept the application. But there's always dialogue between developers and municipalities as applications unfold.
Mr David Johnson: I think of a case, I think it was in St Catharines, where there was a subdivision where there was a bunch of information that went forward but, after a public hearing or two, it was determined that they wanted to avoid some trees and the sewer line was rerouted. The sewer would be a fairly integral part, I guess, of an official plan amendment for a particular application. That would be something there would have to be a lot of information on. But as a result of compromise or agreement, partway through the process, to save a bunch of trees they rerouted the sewer line. Would that upset the apple-cart here at all if they had to redo all that sort of information and provide a new sewer route?
Mr McKinstry: I guess it would depend on the individual circumstances. If it completely changed the application it may be so, but in fact the application is already in progress. The developer has an application, so after 180 days if there's no decision made on that application it can be sent on to the board.
Mr David Johnson: That would be in the 180 days; it would be sort of during the process.
Mr McKinstry: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: Say somewhere around 90 days they made this determination that they needed a new route for the sewer to avoid the trees, which is a fairly significant change, would the clock start ticking over again?
Mr McKinstry: No.
Mr David Johnson: No? Would the applicant be able to make those kinds of changes?
Mr McKinstry: It's very hard to know without knowing the specific detail of the application.
Mr David Johnson: All right.
The Chair: Anything further? We're ready for the vote.
All in favour of the government amendment? Opposed? That carries.
Mr Eddy: This is section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(20) of the Planning Act.
I move that subsection 17(20) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted -- this is very good wording, I understand:
"(20) The approval authority shall, as soon as practicable, notify persons and public bodies that it is considering the application and invite interested parties to view the material and submit objections within 30 days of the notice.
"(20.1) The notice shall specify the last day for submitting objections and that the failure to do so is grounds for the approval authority to refuse a request for referral.
"(20.2) If an objection is received by the approval authority within the 30-day period, the approval authority shall notify the council or planning board that adopted the official plan, plan of subdivision or consent, the person or public body that filed the objection and each municipality to which the official plan, plan of subdivision would apply if approved.
"(20.3) The notice shall specify that a period of 120 days is allotted for the council or planning board to resolve the dispute.
"(20.4) If the council or planning board makes a decision within the 120-day period, notice shall be given to the person or public body that filed the objection and each municipality to which the official plan, plan of subdivision or consent would apply if approved.
"(20.5) The notice shall specify that only persons or public bodies that filed an objection may, not later than 15 days after the giving of written notice is completed, request in writing that the approval authority refer all or part of the proposed decision to the municipal board."
This is recommended by AMO, which had a committee on the Planning Act and conferred with municipalities of various types to further streamline and present what we would consider improved wording for this section and would ask the ministry if it considered it and sees the improvements recommended.
Mr Hayes: I think you said something about that it would really clarify things and it would --
Mr Eddy: Yes, hopefully.
Mr Hayes: Really, Mr Chair, no offence to the presenter of the amendment, but I find it very unclear and it certainly appears to me that it would really create confusion to the role of council and the approval authorities. Also, the system that we have now does provide clear time frames for the council and the approval authority to follow and a clear line of appeal. So I'm hoping maybe the members who presented this could explain to us really what it is. I think it would make it really hard for people to deal with this.
Mr Eddy: It is prepared and presented by people who will be working with the Planning Act on a day-to-day basis at the local level.
Mr McLean: After the next election.
Mr Eddy: I was thinking at the municipal level, but I don't want to comment on that other possibility.
The Chair: Other comments?
Mr McLean: Mr Chair, I would make the comment that we have another resolution here that is identical. It must be a good resolution or the two parties would not have come up with the same one. It's also been recommended by AMO --
Mr Hayes: You really do think alike, the two of you.
Mr McLean: -- which represents some 842 municipalities. If that many municipalities are not being listened to, which I've observed since these hearings began and the clause-by-clause has begun, then I'm wondering if there's any need of proceeding with the rest of the amendments, if they're not going to be listening to what AMO was telling them.
The clarification I want to find out from the parliamentary assistant is, why does he not believe the 120-day period is more appropriate than what he has in his legislation?
Mr Hayes: I want to make a comment and then Mr McKinstry will comment also. For Mr McLean to say that we have not listened to AMO, its many issues -- minor variances, the Trees Act, the list goes on and on -- you will see as we go through that we have listened to AMO very well. I think they would certainly indicate that to you fellows if you spoke to them today.
Mr McLean: Could I have a clarification on that?
Mr Hayes: We'll let Mr McKinstry respond to Mr McLean.
Mr McKinstry: We've looked at this motion and the AMO recommendation, and it's still not clear to us how it streamlines the process, because what happens is that it can go to the approval authority, and it can go back to council, and it can go back to the approval authority.
Our sense was and the recommendation of the Sewell commission was that there be a clear line where the municipality does its work, the approval authority does its work, and there are time frames so people have a guarantee of moving through the system quickly without being referred back to a previous stage. So at the end of the system they can get to the board with some certainty.
Mr McLean: Could I have a clarification then? Has the ministry had any communication with AMO since these 200 amendments have been tabled with regard to the concerns it has raised? If not, why have you not had communication with them?
Mr McKinstry: We've had many, many meetings with AMO up to, I guess it was last week, and we have had discussions with AMO on how we could meet its concerns. The government believes that in fact it has met the concerns of AMO to a fairly significant degree.
Mr McLean: My question was, since these have been tabled, have you had any discussions or meetings with them?
Mr McKinstry: We haven't had meetings since this week, but AMO's position has been clear for some weeks.
Mr McLean: That's certainly the indication we got as what they were wanting and that's why our resolutions, I believe, are so important to this process.
Mr Winninger: It just occurred to me that perhaps the reason why AMO put forward this elaborate objection procedure was to try and resolve some disputes without the necessity of going to the OMB. We've heard earlier in these proceedings that the OMB has initiated a number of very progressive measures, including alternative dispute resolution, that would be able to deal with some of these disputes perhaps in a much more expeditious manner than the municipalities are used to. I don't know if the ministry is able to confirm or clarify that, but it seems to me it's really unnecessary and overly cumbersome.
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Mr Hayes: You're right.
Mr Wiseman: He just articulated it.
Mr Hayes: I certainly couldn't have said it.
The Chair: We're ready for the vote then.
All in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? That is defeated.
The PC amendment, similar.
Mr McLean: It's identical and it's a super resolution, but I will withdraw it in the interests of saving some time.
The Chair: Very well. We have a government amendment.
Mr Hayes: I move that clause 17(22)(c) of the Planning Act as set out in section 10 of the bill be amended by adding before "comments" in the second line "written."
This is a technical, housekeeping amendment to the bill.
Interjection: Again.
Mr Hayes: Again.
Mr McLean: So the comments, you want them to be written.
Mr Hayes: Yes, to be written.
Mr McLean: "If the approval authority proposes to approve, modify and approve as modified or refuse all or part of a plan, the approval authority shall give written notice of its proposed decision containing the prescribed information to...(c) each person or public body that made written submissions or comments under subsection (13)...."
Why are you wanting to take the words "submissions or comments" out? You want to replace it with "written submissions or written" --
Mr Hayes: Before "comments."
Mr McKinstry: The reason we are making this motion is to clarify that the notice should be given to those who have made written submissions because there may be many oral submissions that the approval authority is not aware of. We want to make sure there's some certainty in who the notice should be given to, to limit the notice.
Mr David Johnson: Sometimes I lose track of who's who here, but in the case of Metropolitan Toronto, the approval authority -- no, sorry, that's not right -- in the case of most regions, the approval authority would be the region --
Mr McKinstry: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: -- and the local municipality would be the council. Under subsection 17(14), for example, "The council shall provide to any person or public body as the council considers may have an interest in the plan adequate information...." etc. If the local council keeps record of who has expressed an interest and provides that information to the approval authority, why would not the approval authority contact those people as well?
Mr McKinstry: The approval authority would. In clause 17(22)(b) it says, "each person or public body that made a written request to be notified...(c) each person or public body that made written submissions or written comments...."
I think the issue here really has to do with public bodies and the fact that public bodies make written comments, and that should be reflected in that section.
Mr David Johnson: Where do you cover the case where individuals made oral comments through the process? I don't know what clause covers it, but suppose somebody made a deputation. It's not uncommon at all for people, on official plan amendments for example, to stand up before the council and make verbal comments. Many people don't have access to a typewriter or whatever, so they want to stand up and say their piece. But they haven't got it down in a letter. A municipality would keep track of that. They'd probably even appear in the official minutes of the municipality as having made a deputation.
Where here would they get notice from the approval authority if the approval authority proposes to modify or approve something that was modified, that same plan that those people have made verbal comments on?
Mr McKinstry: People can make verbal comments and the municipality will take those into account, but it seems to me that it would be a simple matter for individuals simply to write a simple letter that says, "Please notify me"; not to raise their objections in the letter, but to say, "Please notify me of your decision." That's what this section deals with.
Mr David Johnson: I don't know if you have attended many of these meetings or not.
Mr McKinstry: I have.
Mr David Johnson: I can tell you, there are a whole lot of people who come out and have a whole lot to say but don't put it writing. Here, when we deal with the people in this room at Queen's Park, we're accustomed to dealing in paper, but there's a huge chunk of the general public who are not accustomed to dealing with paper, writing letters, making simple statements on letters or whatever. They just like to stand up and say their piece, whether it's in Durham or wherever it is, and they would usually go on the official records of the local council as having made a deputation.
I can tell you, from a local point of view, woe betide the local council which doesn't keep those people up to date. They expect to be kept up to date, and certainly at any council I've been associated with, they have been. But here it seems to me that if the approval authority decides to modify, those people would be totally unaware of any modification.
Mr McKinstry: What we are trying to achieve here is some certainty for the approval authority so that they know who they're supposed to notify. People call up on the phone and say, "I object," and there needs to be some certainty so the clerk will know who should be notified of the decision. That's all we're trying to do.
Mr David Johnson: Well, suppose that certainty was that the information, let's say, that would flow from the local council to the approval authority contained the names and addresses of the people who had made verbal presentations, and the approval authority used that list as supplied by the local council as to who should be contacted in the event of a change or modification. That's a well-contained, controlled list and the local council can be trusted to keep the names of the people who made verbal presentations.
Mr McKinstry: One of the issues is that if people make verbal presentations, if people call on the phone, the clerk may or may not have their address.
Mr Eddy: It's taken at meetings.
Mr McKinstry: We're trying to just make it simple for the clerk and make it fair for the public.
Mr David Johnson: Well, I think you're needlessly complicating this. The local municipalities, at least any I've been associated with, keep track of the people who are involved, and it's not an infinite number of people. But people who do take the time to come out and to make a presentation, I think, could be greatly annoyed if a change was made and they weren't notified. I think you could rely on the local council to supply that information to the approval authority.
The Chair: Mr Curling, you're on the list.
Mr Grandmaître: No. I think Mr Johnson just asked --
The Chair: Is there a question, Mr Johnson?
Mr David Johnson: Yes, I was looking for --
The Chair: We were very busy here.
Mr David Johnson: Yes, you were very busy.
The Chair: We were all actively using our collective heads here. I beg your pardon.
Mr David Johnson: Well, maybe you want to think about that. All right, why doesn't Mr Curling take over then.
The Chair: Yes, and we'll come back to you.
Mr Curling: In the meantime, I want to take up on what Mr Johnson is saying. I presume that those who are making verbal presentations --
Interjections.
Mr Curling: I'll wait on them again.
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Curling, did you ask me a question?
Mr Curling: Well, I don't know who I'm asking of the entire group that I'm speaking to.
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The Chair: I'm sorry. Repeat what you were saying.
Mr McLean: The parliamentary assistant is going to amend it.
Mr Curling: I'm saying then that --
Interjections.
Mr Curling: Oh, start again.
Mr Hayes: Mr Chair, I think that Mr Johnson has made a very valid point here, and as the PA to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I am willing to withdraw this amendment.
Interjection: Hear, hear.
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, the point was made too about names and addresses, and at any public meeting like that, names and addresses are taken of everyone who attends.
Mr Wiseman: That's right.
Mr Eddy: I guess we all knew that, sorry.
The Chair: Moving on, a PC amendment.
Mr McLean: I move that section 17 of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsection:
"Waiving of notice
"(22.1) Despite subsection (22), the approval authority may waive the notice required under that subsection if the modifications to the official plan are, in the opinion of the approval authority, of a relatively minor nature."
The question I have with regard to (22.1) is, at the end of (b), "each person or public body that made a written request to be notified of the proposed decision," why wouldn't you add "in writing" on the end of that clause?
Mr Hayes: He's saying add "in writing." That's not mentioned in his amendment.
The Chair: Are you asking for some clarification in terms of the question?
Mr Hayes: Yes.
The Chair: Could you clarify as best you can, Mr McLean?
Mr McLean: I'm asking the parliamentary assistant for clarification.
The Chair: I understand.
Mr Hayes: It's your amendment, Mr McLean.
The Chair: Could you enumerate again your question?
Mr McLean: That's the problem that I'm having too.
Mr Hayes: Would you explain your amendment to me?
Mr McLean: Well, the waiving of a notice is what we're wanting to discuss, but I'm not so sure it's in the right pew. I'm sure it's not, because it's waiving of the notice of 180 days, I believe. I think we have our amendments mixed up, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr Hayes: I don't know if there is a subsection (22) amendment.
The Chair: Yes, there is. Well, their amendment.
Mr McLean: I think we have the wrong number on that. It has to do with 180 days.
Mr Hayes: So you want to just withdraw your --
Mr McLean: I will set this one aside until I get the other number clarified.
The Chair: Stand it down then?
Mr McLean: Yes.
The Chair: Okay, we'll stand that matter down. The next one is a PC amendment.
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, you have all of the Liberal amendments. Did you have one to subsection 17(22.1)? No, sorry. That's subsection 17(29). What section are we at?
The Chair: We are at subsection 17(22.1) at the moment, and we have stood that matter down.
Mr Eddy: Do you have a proposed amendment to subsection 17(29)?
The Chair: Subsection 17(29)? Yes. We're not there yet.
Mr Eddy: Okay, thank you. I'm overanxious.
The Chair: Mr McLean, with the next amendment.
Mr McLean: I have to go through all these amendments, Mr Chair, and I think some of my amendments are numbered inappropriately, from what I'm gathering here. Staff has handed me some that I don't believe -- I have one here, Mr Chair. It's section 10 of the bill, subsection 17(24) of the Planning Act.
Interjections.
The Chair: A bit of order, please, so we can hear.
Mr McLean: I move that subsection 17(24) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by striking out "30" in the second line and substituting "15."
Really, the bottom line is that we want to cut it back from 30 days to 15 days once the bylaw has been passed to prevent the long delay.
Mr Hayes: What we want to have happen here is we want to be fair to all parties that have an interest in an official plan or an amendment and 30 days, we feel, is a realistic time frame for making a referral request. If insufficient time is given, a person may request referral in all cases so as to protect his or her referral rights, thus creating unnecessary referral requests. So we feel that 30 days is a realistic time frame.
Mr McLean: I want just a clarification, Mr Chairman. I remember looking at some of these amendments and I think that you have a government amendment changing that to 14 days, do you not, from 30?
Mr McKinstry: I guess in a sense what we think here is that 30 days is really to give people the time to review the amendments and review the decision of the official plan. Even if it's a complete official plan, this is a lengthy document and people need some time to decide whether or not they want to refer it to the Ontario Municipal Board.
The other circumstance is when people are in fact making comments between when council has a public meeting and when the council adopts it. But I think the thing to remember here is that the 30 days at the end of the process, when they are referring it, is the final step. After that they can't do anything. So we felt that 30 days was a minimum period to make sure that everybody had their time to decide, because the 14 days, in fact they could still go on and request referral later.
Mr Curling: In the interests of streamlining and efficiency, I think the amendment put forward by the Progressive Conservative Party is quite reasonable; 15 days is quite an adequate time. I'm not yet convinced that it would require 30 days. Could the officials tell me why 30 days? What would be required in that time that would really take 30 days that could not be done in 15 days? All I'm hearing from the parliamentary assistant is that they have listened and they feel 30 days is quite adequate. I don't know what "adequate" means. I just wondered if there are a number of things they have to do in those 30 days if the time is so long, if it takes 30 days to do. Why could it not be done in 15 days?
Mr McKinstry: As I mentioned before, this could be a decision on an official plan for a region, so it could be a very, very significant decision. The government felt that people needed time to review that decision to decide on whether or not they wanted to refer it to the board.
I draw your attention to the fact that if a referral is not made within the 30 days, the decision is final, so it is a fairly significant point at the end of that 30-day period or, as you're suggesting, the 15-day period. The government felt that 15 days would not be adequate for people to review and think through an entire official plan or even a major official plan amendment.
We talked before about reducing the time between the public meeting and adoption of the plan to 14 days. The reason that was supported by the government was the fact that it is not the end of the process. People still have time to participate with the approval authority and still have an opportunity to request referral to the board at the end of the process. But the 30-day period mentioned here is the end of the process and there will be no further opportunities after that 30 days is over.
Mr David Johnson: When does the clock start ticking on the 30 days?
Mr McKinstry: I believe the legislation says the day after the day the giving of written notice is completed.
Mr David Johnson: And that's the written notice by the local council?
Mr McKinstry: By the approval authority, which could be the region or it could be the province.
Mr David Johnson: So the day after the approval authority gives notice the clock starts ticking on the 30-day period. That's strange terminology, because they really haven't given approval then if you can make deputations or appeal.
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Mr McKinstry: I won't make comment on legal drafting. I'm not a lawyer. But in fact --
Mr David Johnson: It is strange.
Mr McKinstry: Remembering back to the fact that there is still a 150-day time frame for the approval authority to make decisions, so if that time frame is not met, people have an automatic right to request referral. There are, too, some checks and balances in there, so the approval authority could not delay giving notice deliberately because they've still got the rigour of the 150 days.
Mr David Johnson: I understand there is a balance here all the way around. Maybe people are away on vacation or whatever and that sort of thing. But when you say that people need 30 days because it could be a complicated official plan, we have to bear in mind that people have been looking at this for quite some long period of time and presumably they're not waiting until this instant to try to understand it. Anybody who's doing that is not using the system the way you're intending the system to be used. So whether they're individuals or public bodies, they would have been looking at this plan for months through the local system, through the public hearings, that sort of thing. Anybody who is interested probably would know it forward and backwards by this time.
I'm a little hard pressed to accept the explanation that they would need the time to understand it. I think they would understand it fairly thoroughly by this time. The only thing that occurs to me is that some people do go away on vacations or whatever, so you need a certain period of time to account for that.
But would you not agree that most people, by this point, by the time the approval authority gets the official plan or the official plan amendment, should have had every opportunity to understand all the implications forward and backwards?
Mr McKinstry: I certainly agree that the intent of the process is to get people involved early. However, my experience with approving official plans, and I've had a fair amount of experience with that in the past, is that there can be dozens and dozens of modifications. While many of the modifications will be small, as our experience here shows it is, you really have to concentrate and go through very carefully each modification to see what it changes in the plan. So there is, in our view, some need to leave a 30-day window for people to consider that.
Mr David Johnson: Is there any control over the magnitude of the approval authority in terms of the change it can make to a local plan? In other words, it would be certain, as you say, that there would be modifications and small modifications obviously could work out. But if the approval authority changes very significantly the local plan, does the approval authority (a) have that right, or (b) does the thing just get sort of thrown back to the local council and they say, "Here, do it again, because we disagree with it"?
Mr McKinstry: The practice certainly has been in the past that further notice is given for very large changes to official plans, and I think you really have to think a little bit about integrity of local councils, that they do have some responsibility to their local ratepayers. My view is that if it is a wholesale change, the council would have to go back to the public. However --
Mr David Johnson: The local council or the --
Mr McKinstry: The approval authority might have to go back to the local council or the local council back to the public. But in fact, if they did make wholesale changes, this is one way of letting people know that those changes have been made and letting them go --
Mr David Johnson: You see, the reason I'm asking is because I assume that the approval authority would not make wholesale changes, that the approval authority would approve it, make minor changes or refer the thing back, send it back to the local council if it felt that wholesale changes were required but let the local council have another crack at making the wholesale changes. Is that what the act contemplates?
Mr McKinstry: The current practice is that major modifications would always go back to local council for ratification, yes.
Mr David Johnson: What's intended under this new procedure? What would happen?
Mr McKinstry: I can't remember exactly what is required in the act but I would think that procedure would continue.
Mr David Johnson: If that's the case, then again the approval authority would not be making wholesale changes, and I agree. I think that's a good philosophy. I don't think the approval authority should be making wholesale changes. I think if they disagree with it on a wholesale basis, then they should send it back to where it came from for more public hearings. But if that's true, then it again raises the question, why do you need all of 30 days? If the changes are relatively minor, do you really need that many days?
Mr McKinstry: As I pointed out before, the changes might be minor but, as we've been finding in this committee, people need to think through them, talk through them and figure out what in fact they mean to the bulk of the plan, because there would be concern that one word of a change might mean major changes or it might not. So all I was saying was that the 30 days give people the time. Official plan documents can be very, very lengthy documents and you might have 50 modifications, so you have to read each modification in context with the plan itself. They may be minor, but it does take time to work through it.
I can't emphasize too much that this is the end of the process. This is where people's appeal rights would end.
Mr David Johnson: All right, and that's important. How long do you anticipate between when the local council approves the official plan and when the approval authority receives the official plan?
Mr McKinstry: There's a provision in the act which says they must forward within 15 days.
Mr David Johnson: But in all likelihood it would take the latter part of that, so the general public would probably get, in terms of making an objection, the two weeks there plus the 30 days in subsection (24). Would that be a fair assessment?
Mr McKinstry: No, I don't think so, because the local municipality does its work and sends it on to the approval authority. It may be a region or a province --
Mr David Johnson: That probably takes a couple of weeks?
Mr McKinstry: That's the 15 days.
Mr David Johnson: That's the 15 days, two weeks, yes.
Mr McKinstry: And then the approval authority, if it's an official plan, has that 150 days to make its decision and then there's a 30-day period at the end of that to sort of make sure that people can refer it. Just to go back to why we made those decisions, there's a 180-day period for the municipality, and really what we're doing is giving the approval authorities 150 plus 30, which is 180. So we're doing what the commission suggested, which is to give two 180-day periods.
Mr David Johnson: I'm completely lost, then. I guess I missed this.
Mr McKinstry: I don't blame you, actually.
Mr David Johnson: So in actual fact, if you as a builder are looking for an official plan amendment, you will spend 150 days possibly, or 180, at the local level.
Mr McKinstry: The maximum time at the local level is 180 but that's an outside time.
Mr David Johnson: All right, you could spend 180 days at the local level and then an additional 150 days at the approval authority.
Mr McKinstry: These are time limits. These are maximum times, and if you think of the act now, there are no maximum times, so you could spend five years, and that's in fact been the experience of some municipalities.
Mr David Johnson: All right, but that's one whole year. So why is it that the approval authority -- maybe we're straying here -- needs 150 days and then another 30 days beyond that again for the objections?
Mr McKinstry: The 30 days is to make sure that people have the time to raise their referral requests. It isn't for the approval authority. The approval authority only has the 150 days at a maximum. If the approval authority doesn't need that 150 days, there is an absolute right for the applicant to go on to the Ontario Municipal Board. That would be the municipality, in this case.
Mr David Johnson: If the approval authority is a region, do you anticipate that the region would hold the public hearing during its 150 days?
Mr McKinstry: No, the local municipality is required to hold the public hearing.
Mr David Johnson: So why on earth would the region need 150 days?
Mr McKinstry: The region needs 150 days to analyse the project, to make sure that its regional interests are met and to make sure that provincial ministries are satisfied with the project.
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Mr David Johnson: It seems like a tremendously generous period of time, and if the approval authority is the provincial government, in terms of regional plans, then the provincial government would have 150 days.
Mr McKinstry: Maybe I can explain one of our difficulties in drafting this legislation. We're talking about 150 days, which could be for a regional plan or could be for a site-specific development of one acre. There's no way of distinguishing in legislation between those two and therefore we have said there is this maximum 150 days. Remember that there was no time before, so approval authorities could go for ever. We think we have taken a considerable step in moving towards a much more streamlined system. But the system has to accommodate all kinds of different applications, both the official plan and the small amendment.
Mr David Johnson: So if you had your preference, you would be able to distinguish between major official plans, let's say, and smaller official plan amendments, which you would agree should be dealt with a whole lot faster than 180 plus 150 plus another 30 days, which could take a whole year.
Mr McKinstry: That would be an ideal world. Of course, small amendments can also mean if there's a contaminated site and there are problems with the site, they can also take a very long time. So we're trying to have a reasonable frame here.
Mr David Johnson: I just hope that, having set a frame, the frame doesn't become the norm. That would be the problem and sometimes that happens, when you say that on some occasions today it takes a longer period of time. I think it's perhaps like speaking in the Legislature. Before I came, I understand at one point there was no maximum period of time that you could speak in the Legislature and then somehow it was imposed that lead speakers could speak an hour and half and everybody else could speak half an hour. From what people tell me now, people actually speak longer now than they did back then, on average, because now they feel they have to use the whole period of time that's allotted.
I assume a different mentality would perhaps take place with regard to planning, but that's a danger, particularly at the approval authority, where I think less time would be required than what's allocated, that municipalities may say: "Well, we have 150 days to deal with this, so we'll set that aside and that means some time next March we need to make a decision. We'll put a little notch on the calendar and next March we will dutifully make our decision." I don't know how you guard against that, but that would be a concern for me.
Ms Haeck: I guess I take a somewhat different view than Mr Johnson. I think the 30 days is in fact required. I'm thinking of ratepayers' groups in my riding that may hold regular meetings, and the 30 days would in fact correspond to a month, and having monthly meetings where they may get together to draft a response would allow them to do that in their regular meeting schedule, whereas if you end up having it within a 15-day time frame, it would compromise the normal meeting schedule that most groups have.
I think 30 days does in fact allow ample time for community groups to have reviewed the remarks or the document and thereafter take some time to carefully frame their remarks as a collective and then submit them. Fifteen days, to my mind, just wouldn't allow for that.
Mr Grandmaître: While we're on the time frame question, can I ask staff, did you consult the OMB to determine the 30-day or 15-day time frame? Did you consult with them if your request was reasonable?
Mr McKinstry: We certainly talked extensively to the OMB about all of the planning reform package. I'm not sure why the OMB would care about this time frame, though. I'm not clear about that.
Mr Grandmaître: When I say "time frame," not specifically this one, but all time frames, you know, the 180 days, the 120 days and then the 30 days and so on and so forth, because they will be faced with some, let's say, objections and they would have to rule on these objections. Would the OMB have any input in it?
Mr McKinstry: I'm not clear. One of the things we've done for the OMB is to give it dismissal powers, and it has supported that. But I'm not clear why they would worry particularly about the time frames. The time frames don't affect them, so I'm not sure why they would worry.
Mr Grandmaître: Let me rephrase my question: Is it possible that an official plan would come before the OMB and the OMB would turn down this application because the amendment, for instance, wasn't clear enough as far as the OMB was concerned? Let's say the OMB is not totally satisfied with the objection.
Mr McKinstry: The OMB can request reasons for a referral or an appeal.
Mr Grandmaître: Is there a time frame?
Mr McKinstry: There are no time frames for the OMB.
The Chair: I think we're ready for the question.
All in favour of the PC amendment? Opposed? That is defeated.
Mr Curling: Section 10 of the bill, subsections 17(24.1) and (34.1) of the Planning Act:
I move that section 17 of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding the following subsections:
"(24.1) A referral by the crown shall only be filed by the minister.
"(34.1) An appeal by the crown shall only be filed by the minister."
I think the rationale for this is that it is felt that the minister in question here is the Minister of Municipal Affairs and any referral or appeal should not be just done by any minister who feels they object to certain aspects of it and so they can appeal and make referral to the crown, but only the Minister of Municipal Affairs should be doing so. I think this is a safeguard to having everyone having a shot at this. Once we have a comprehensive policy, this would be very helpful in streamlining it.
Mr Hayes: The government is looking at the one-window appeal alternative. They're doing this through the provincial facilitator and work is being done on that right now. This does have merit, but we deal feel that the amendment is certainly not required because this will be taken care of and dealt with by the provincial facilitator. They're working on a system now that would complement this.
Mr Curling: This has merit, but you're not ready with your other amendments or your facilitator who will look after this; we should more or less trust you that they will look after that.
Mr Hayes: Yes.
Mr Curling: But in the meantime we are doing legislation here now. We're going by legislative process, protection of all parties. We thought, why not put this in? We have seen legislation already that has been placed in other legislation. When that comes into place, you can repeal this section of this.
Mr Hayes: I will refer it.
Mr McKinstry: As Mr Hayes said, the government is trying to organize a one-window appeals approach. This has been done through the provincial facilitator and this is seen as a very good, very streamlined approach. However, there could be circumstances at some point in the future where an appeal by another ministry or agency is appropriate, and the government's not prepared at this time to totally remove that option, while we do want to move towards the approach that you're talking about.
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Mr Curling: Would you say, then, Mr Parliamentary Assistant, that this legislation is a bit premature in the sense that many of the factors and the support section of this legislation -- that you're not ready and so therefore many of these things are very good amendments that we have put forward?
Mr Hayes: That your amendment is premature? Yes, I would say that.
Mr Curling: No, our amendment is right on. Maybe we are premature in the fact that this amendment is more ready than the legislation that is there and because you need a facilitator to do that support. I wonder if you could just step the whole legislation down until you have all those processes in place, so that when we put our amendments forward you could say that the facilitator did make provisions for that or was unable to make provisions for that, so that this could be accommodated.
Mr Hayes: The answer is no.
The Chair: Other questions? I think we're ready for the vote.
All in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? That is defeated.
A PC amendment.
Mr McLean: It's very much the same. I'd be disappointed if it was lost, but I can realize that the government has a majority and will vote me down, so I will withdraw it.
Mr Hayes: I move that subclause 17(29)(a)(iv) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:
"(iv) the plan or part of the plan that is the subject of the proposed decision is premature because the necessary public water, sewage or road services are not available to service the land covered by the plan and the services will not be available within a reasonable time."
The bill allows the approval authority to refuse a referral request based on a number of grounds including the prematurity of a development application. The amendment would clarify that a matter is premature if water, sewer and road services will not be available in the near future for the application which is dependent on these services. There was a concern expressed by the development industry and the Canadian Bar Association that the power to refuse a referral request on the basis of prematurity could be misused if the meaning of the term was not clarified. We have done what they have requested and clarified it.
Mr McLean: So you're taking out (a)(iv), withdrawing it, and putting the other one spelling out "because the necessary public water, sewage or road services are not available to service the land covered by the plan and the services will not be available within a reasonable time"? Are there not other areas that you could specify where you may want to propose a decision and deem it premature?
Mr Hayes: No, this is just really being specific. They asked for a clarification of what was premature and that's what we feel is premature. If you'd like Mr McKinstry to address that further for you, I'd request that.
Mr McLean: I think we asked for a clarification this morning with regard to "substantial" and I'm not so sure we got a definition of that. You're prepared now to give us a definition of "premature"?
Mr McKinstry: I think there was some indication earlier in these proceedings that in fact where terms are not specified in legislation they go back to the ordinary dictionary meaning. What we're saying here is that in these circumstances, and the circumstances are where the approval authority or the board can dismiss an application without a hearing, "premature" should have a very specific meaning, that it should not be open to a very wide interpretation. We have set out what, in the government's view, are the specific circumstances where a development application could be dismissed.
Mr McLean: Okay, further clarification, then: "...the land covered by the plan and the services will not be available within a reasonable time." Can you define for me what a reasonable time would be?
Mr McKinstry: A reasonable time would be defined by the approval authority. The reason that we used those terms was because municipalities do their plans, make their servicing and their land use plans on different time frames. Some use 10 years, some use 20 years. What we're really talking about here is where the municipality has not planned for services for the proposed development and the development needs services.
Mr McLean: But you say you can stop the project unless "the land covered by the plan and the services will not be available within a reasonable period of time." But your period of time, your interpretation, and the developer's period of time may be two different definitions, unless it's specified.
Mr McKinstry: The developer can make submissions to either the approval authority or the board to argue this, of course. I guess what we have done is we have scoped it. It was wide open before and there was concern from both the Canadian Bar Association and the development industry that we should give at least some indication of what we meant because "premature" could in fact have a very wide meaning. It could mean that the municipality was not prepared to deal with it at the time. We gave some definition of it to satisfy those concerns.
Mr McLean: You know, I remember sitting as reeve of a municipality. Our council agreed that this project was premature. The questions were asked: "Okay, what do I do? How premature is it? Is it premature by a year, by six months, by two years? Is it premature by three years? When can I proceed?"
What you're doing is hamstringing people who want to get on with doing the business of the community, such as the municipality and people who are involved in developing plans, by putting in "within a reasonable time," because there's nothing definite. I like strict rules, I like complications that it is difficult for people when you're in an environmentally sensitive area. But the rules have got to be laid out as to whether you can or whether you cannot. To just say "within a reasonable period of time" is not acceptable to me, nor is it to anybody else who wants to put money into a community.
The Chair: That was a comment, I suppose, Mr McLean. Correct?
Mr McLean: I still want the definition of "a reasonable time" and nobody's giving me that definition. That's what other people want to know too: What is a reasonable time?
Mr Hayes: I would say that if someone had a proposal and there were services that were required and the municipality had no intentions of doing it within three, four or five years, I think it would be unreasonable to approve it. Wouldn't you?
Mr McLean: But when you say, "No, we think it's premature," then that individual is sitting there not knowing what he's going to do with his property or what he's going to do with his land.
Mr Hayes: It's premature because the services are not there to accommodate the development.
Mr Wiseman: He can just come along and put them in.
Mr Hayes: That would change if the developer said, "We'll do it." Certainly.
Mr Wiseman: There is a little bit of a problem here, and that is that if a person owned a parcel of land that was set off from the urban envelope and the council said, "We don't want this land developed because it's too far away," and, as Mr McLean has said, came along and said, "It's premature," defining "premature" as meaning you don't have any services out there, he could say, "Fine, I'll put them in." Then you've got this pipe and everything going out there and the council is stuck. The council doesn't want it. I guess what I'm sort of looking for here is something that says that if the council decides that it doesn't want it, there should be some reasonable expectation that the council can also have some assurances that it's not going to be end-run as well.
Mr Grandmaître: Even if the developer wants to pay for the services?
Mr Wiseman: Yes, because if the elected council is saying, "This is not an appropriate development for my area; it's going to do a whole lot of things that we don't want to do," then maybe it should be able to say no. I know they don't usually, but with the new guidelines and so on and the emphasis on not sprawling, maybe the council wants to say no.
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Mr Grandmaître: If it's premature and if it's part of the official plan -- let's say that it's part of the official plan but the services aren't there yet and this developer goes for an approval. They can't say it's premature because it's part of the official plan, and especially if he wants to pay for those services.
Mr Wiseman: It may be premature in terms of part of the official plan because other parts of the official plan may say that you have to do a certain percentage of infill, that you cannot leapfrog over green spaces and that it has to be adjacent to the already builtup areas. That could be in the official plan too. Even by saying that you would put the services in, the council may very well not want to do it.
The Chair: I'm sorry. Rather than having a dialogue between the two of you, do you have questions of clarification or other comments?
Mr Grandmaître: I would rather have an answer from the staff or the parliamentary assistant than Mr Wiseman, because I'm not satisfied with his answer.
Mr Curling: No one is really.
Mr Grandmaître: What if a developer is willing and it's part of the official plan, it's in the municipal --
Mr Hayes: Okay, put it this way then on that question: If it's in the official plan and if the developer says, "I will put the services in," and if the council agrees with that, you don't have to use this.
Mr Grandmaître: Okay. Good.
Mr McLean: All this resolution is saying is that it's premature because it hasn't got the services. Nobody knows what a reasonable period of time it is in order to put those services in. The question is, what is a reasonable time?
Mr Hayes: I would also say that would be the decision of the approval authority and it may also be the decision of the developer. If someone is saying, "You're not going to get those services for five, six, seven years," then that developer might say: "That's certainly not a reasonable time. I won't do it."
Mr McLean: I think it's a poor amendment. I don't like it. I'll vote against it.
The Chair: I think there's nothing further.
Moving on to the vote then, all in favour of the government amendment? Opposed? That carries.
A PC amendment.
Mr McLean: Oh, it was carried. God, I wrote down "lost." I guess I was right.
The Chair: Mr McLean, the next one is yours.
Mr McLean: That's right. I move that subclause 17(29)(a)(iv) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out.
Isn't that just exactly the one that we just dealt with?
Ms Haeck: That's right.
The Chair: It is in order, yes.
Mr McLean: That's right. It already has been changed, hasn't it?
The Chair: Striking out is different than the change that was in the amendment.
Mr McLean: Okay. I'm in favour.
The Chair: Discussion on that motion?
Ms Haeck: Why don't we move right to the vote?
The Chair: All in favour of the amendment? Opposed? That's defeated.
Mr Hayes: I move that clause 17(29)(b) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:
"(b) the person or public body requesting the referral did not make oral submissions at a public meeting or did not make written submissions to the council before the plan was adopted and, in the opinion of the approval authority, the person or public body does not provide a reasonable explanation for having failed to make a submission; or".
Mr McKinstry: If I can clarify what the amendment is, there was some concern, particularly among ratepayers' groups and community groups, that they could be dismissed very easily for not having participated early in the process. We wanted to make everybody aware that in fact this is not an absolute power, that there will be some opportunity to provide an explanation of why they did not participate before they were dismissed.
Mr Grandmaître: What authority would rule on this if in the opinion of the approval authority -- oh, I see. The authority would judge if that person or that public body was -- I see. Okay.
Mr McLean: What's the authority that's going to rule on that?
Mr McKinstry: It would be the approval authority or the OMB.
Mr McLean: This is going to rule on somebody who has made an oral presentation which was not deemed to be -- or having been referred back through the process?
The Chair: Is that a question, Mr McLean?
Mr McLean: Yes.
Mr McKinstry: Sorry, Mr McLean, I didn't quite hear your question.
Mr McLean: I wouldn't want to have heard it either.
Mr David Johnson: While he's thinking, can I ask a question?
The Chair: Before you do, though, Mr Hayes, do you want to make a comment?
Mr Hayes: May I just make a comment and then maybe it'll make all the members feel a little more comfortable with this amendment.
The Chair: For sure.
Mr Hayes: This amendment is requested by various citizen ratepayer groups and is also supported by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, regional planning commissioners, the Urban Development Institute, the Canadian Bar Association -- Ontario, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
Mr Eddy: We support it.
The Chair: Are people ready for the vote?
Mr David Johnson: It's supported by Al McLean and Dave Johnson.
The Chair: Mr Johnson, questions?
Mr David Johnson: Mr McLean's question sort of piqued an interest in me. When you say the approval authority may refuse, who specifically --
Interjection: That would be regional council.
Mr David Johnson: You say regional council. Okay, let's take the regional council. Would that be a motion of the regional council or would the regional council delegate that somehow? Who would actually make that decision in the regional council?
Mr McKinstry: It would have to be a council decision.
Mr David Johnson: So the staff would report to the council?
Mr McKinstry: That's right.
Mr David Johnson: The council then would --
Mr McKinstry: Make the decision.
Mr David Johnson: -- make the decision.
Mr McLean: But if you had a staff member who has authority, what would happen then?
Mr David Johnson: So it could not be delegated to the staff?
Mr McKinstry: As far as I know, we have not made provision for delegating that.
Mr David Johnson: Well, it makes sense that you wouldn't, I think, because somebody would have to determine that it does not provide a reasonable explanation. That may be more of a political decision than a staff decision. I just wanted to confirm that. By having it go through a staff process -- in the summer, for example, regional councils may not meet for some period of time.
Mr McKinstry: If I can offer another clarification, I was wrong in fact; it could be delegated. If council wishes to delegate, one of our motions is to allow council to delegate authorities to staff. So this would go along with it. Staff is still accountable to council. It's still council's decision, but it has simply delegated it.
Mr David Johnson: But if this was in the middle of the summer, a staff person could turn down. It might be something in Durham, something awful that's happened, and some citizens would object to it and --
Mr Wiseman: Take your pick.
Mr David Johnson: -- a staff member could in the dead of summer turn it down. The council members, who would be on vacation or whatever, wouldn't hear about it for months.
Mr McKinstry: If I may say, I think most developers would very quickly contact their elected representatives to let them be aware of this.
Mr David Johnson: This could be a person, this could be somebody objecting to it, objecting to the magnitude of the development, couldn't it?
Mr McKinstry: That's right. But I imagine they would still contact their representative.
Mr David Johnson: Yes, but the representative --
Interjection: May be on holidays.
Mr David Johnson: -- yes, they may be on holidays or in a summer period. You know, this is the one thing: The wheels fall off the planning process in the summer because a lot of councils don't meet in the summer.
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Mr Hayes: But the councils do not have to give that authority to staff; we're enabling them to do it. Right? If they choose not to, then your concern or your fear will never --
The Chair: If they do, it's delegated, and they're accountable to the politicians. I mean, that's the point.
Mr Hayes: That's right.
Mr Wiseman: I was thinking about my council and what it does, and I know exactly what it would do with this section. They'd delegate this to somebody who's in the planning department, probably fourth or fifth grade level, and an opposition person who says that they do not like the official plan amendment or an amendment on a parcel of land but maybe was away when the notice was sent out, given that just recently notices were sent out for official plan amendment, if the person happened to have been away on vacation or something over the summer, they would not have gotten it, and they may not be able to make a presentation, and all of a sudden this great big thing's going in behind them, and because they haven't been around they have no rights left, and they get told by a staff person that they have no rights.
Mr McKinstry: I guess a couple of comments; one is that council can put conditions on delegation --
Mr Wiseman: Oh, no, let's understand something here, that what this does is give the council that isn't interested in putting conditions on, that is interested in slipping stuff through, like putting 7,000 acres into an official plan that they did not consult on -- this is tailor-made to just slide stuff through. Oh, they'd love this.
Mr McLean: Could I get a clarification?
The Chair: I'm sorry, we're still answering a question. Mr McKinstry, go ahead. I think he understood the question. Go ahead.
Mr McKinstry: The other comment, just so everybody's clear what we're doing here, is that this provision is in Bill 163. We're simply clarifying here that in the opinion of the approval authority the person or public body does not provide a reasonable explanation for having failed to make a submission. Everything previous to that is already in Bill 163. So we're simply saying people should be given the chance to provide some reasonable explanation of why they didn't participate, and we have built in fairly extensive notice provisions to try and make sure that people are able to participate.
Mr Wiseman: Is it reasonable that they were away on vacation and that they were not able to be there and they didn't get the notice?
Mr McKinstry: I would think if they didn't get the notice, it would be reasonable.
Mr McLean: It would be reasonable to me.
Mr Wiseman: It may be reasonable to you, but come to Durham.
The Chair: Come on, Jim.
Mr Wiseman: I like Ajax, though.
Mr McLean: I'd like to get a clarification, Mr Chair. I'm pretty curious who drafted these 100-plus amendments that the government has. Was it the ministry staff or was it legal counsel that drafted them?
The Chair: Mr Hayes, do you want to --
Ms Mifsud: It depends what you mean by "drafting." There's obviously policy input, legal input and then there's actual putting pen to -- it's kind of a joint effort. The wording itself I think I will have to be responsible for.
Mr McLean: I thought it was coming from the ministry staff.
Ms Mifsud: The ministry certainly has major input in the policy. I don't know how to divide it. It's kind of a group process.
Mr McLean: How long have they been working on these amendments?
Interjection: For years; before John Sewell.
Ms Mifsud: When did the committee stop? I don't know. You see, they've developed policy, and they don't always necessarily tell me till the last minute or last week or last month. So I really can't answer, as to the whole process, how long they've been working on it.
The Chair: All right?
Mr Wiseman: I have major questions on both sections.
Mr Grandmaître: What are you concerned about?
The Chair: Given that there is no other motion in front of us --
Mr Wiseman: What are my concerns? My concern is that the public may be losing their ability to participate in the process. That's my concern.
Mr David Johnson: UDI supports it.
Mr Wiseman: With UDI supporting it, that really raises my concern.
Mr White: Mr Chair, I move that we stand down this motion so that we can deal with it at a later time.
The Chair: Is there unanimous consent? There appears to be. Okay.
Mr Curling: I move that subsection 17(29) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be amended by adding the following clause:
"(d) the person or public body refused to participate in good faith in alternative dispute resolution techniques under section 65."
People are concerned that things are now maybe frivolous or people just want to be troublesome and in that respect could lose a lot of time. We hope that if people are not doing this in good faith and refuse to come under the alternative dispute resolution techniques, that we could proceed with the process without holding up any more time on this. I know my colleagues have some other comments to make in this respect.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, do you want to comment now?
Mr Eddy: Just briefly. It's an additional criterion that's been requested by the municipalities through their municipal association. I think the wording "in good faith" of course is used in preceding subsections of this section. That does happen on occasion, where a person may go through the motions of participating in the alternative dispute resolution techniques but is not really participating. So I agree with the request that this be added.
Mr Wiseman: I'd like to hear from Mr Hayes, and then I'd make comments.
Mr Hayes: One of the problems we have here is that we do have an alternative dispute resolution system, and with the process there, we just don't believe that we can really legislate people when they're going to do something voluntarily, put it that way. ADR is a participatory process which we support strongly as part of the planning process, but we do not believe that a requirement for ADR can be legislated.
Mr Wiseman: I was just going to say on this that I have a little bit of difficulty with it as well in terms of definition of good faith. Then the second thought I had was, well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they refuse to participate, but then you would be negating all of their other legal avenues for resolving something.
The problem that I really have with this is, what happens if it's the proponent who's not willing to do something in good faith? There was an incident just a little while ago in my riding where the person who was against what was happening went to the dispute resolution techniques, went through that whole process, agreed with what the mediator had to say about how it should be resolved, but the proponent and the town just said, "Forget it."
Mr Eddy: And walked away.
Mr Wiseman: And walked away. So it went to the Ontario Municipal Board. So I don't think I like this section. I don't even think I like the whole section, but this one I wouldn't support.
Mr David Johnson: When you look at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario brief, they talk about simply people refusing to participate in the process. Somehow in the motion that they then developed they inserted the words "in good faith." Frankly, I really don't know what "in good faith" means either, and it gives me a little bit of pause because what somebody means by "in good faith" may be entirely different than what somebody else means. But if the words "in good faith" were deleted, would that change the view of the parliamentary assistant at all? That would then simply say that the person or public body refused to participate in the alternative dispute resolution.
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In other words, the province has set up this mechanism, and I think it's generally conceded that it's a good mechanism, and it hopefully will resolve problems. I think the concern is being expressed here, though, for somebody who may have a frivolous objection -- although I think staff would say there are avenues to reject frivolous objections anyway -- somebody who is really just trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works and they won't participate in the dispute mechanism, they simply want to drag it out as long as they can, if so, if the directive then was that if you don't participate -- deleting the words "in good faith," because who really knows what that means? --
Mr Wiseman: It really changes it, though. If you delete "in good faith," it means if you don't participate, you're cut off. It's pretty absolute.
Mr David Johnson: The easiest thing to do is to participate. You can just show up and participate in bad faith. You can be in good faith or bad faith, I suppose.
Interjection: Who is going to determine that?
Mr David Johnson: Who is going to determine? But that's a much easier criterion to meet than by inserting the words "in good faith."
The Chair: Let's get Mr Hayes to comment on that.
Mr Hayes: I can see where you're coming from, but at the same time, what you would be doing here, even if you did take out the words "in good faith," you'd still be making it compulsory for the person to go through a process. So you're making it compulsory, and that's not the idea of the whole thing; it's to make it voluntary and try to work together and communicate and solve problems.
Mr David Johnson: The person has initiated the process, though. This is what I find a little bit of a puzzle, because this person says: "I want to be involved in this process. I want this to be appealed." So they're saying that they want to be involved in the process.
Mr Hayes: They are being allowed to be involved in the process, but they are not being forced to be involved in that process; this would force them.
Mr David Johnson: Okay, I guess. So we've heard your opinion. It's just my opinion that there is some merit in what the Association of Municipalities of Ontario is putting forward. If you're forcing people, pulling them out of their houses and forcing them to be involved in a process that they didn't want to be involved in, then I would agree with you 100%. But what we're talking about here are people who are appealing this, are appealing some decision to the Ontario Municipal Board. Most appeals, I assume, are on excellent grounds, or they may be just dragging out the procedure. But there is another part of this procedure which presumably, if they were in good faith, they would be interested in, and that other part is the dispute resolution mechanism.
I would think that since they have volunteered themselves to be part of this process, to appeal to the OMB, this additional step could easily be inserted where part of that process was the dispute resolution, and if they didn't go through that then they weren't serious, that's a clear indication that they're simply dragging it out and they're not serious and therefore there shouldn't be an OMB hearing. That's my feeling.
The Chair: I think Mr Curling had answered the previous question. Did you ask another question?
Mr David Johnson: Well, I made a statement. You can choose to respond to it or not.
The Chair: I think that there's a difference of opinion there.
Mr Hayes: I have already responded.
Mr Curling: We know that there are groups and individuals who have good intentions some times when they see development happening in their neighbourhood, and there are the others who have the NIMBY tag on them; they don't want it, no matter what it is, in their backyard, and they will participate just for some time, for the profile or just to be irritating the system.
While the parliamentary assistant stated that there are voluntary ways we can control this system, if you put someone through the dispute resolution process that this will be almost ordering them to do something, most of this legislation is ordering you to be conforming to certain procedures. I think this was placed in here to say that if people have good intentions and want to participate in good faith, meaning that they have an issue they'd like to raise, they'd like to be resolved; somehow it comes to a situation and a personality, and they have the alternative dispute resolution technique that they will conform to. That means they are in good faith if they more or less have confidence in the system.
But in the meantime now to say: "No, I don't want to participate in here, I just want to raise hell. I just want to carry this process through as long as I can until I frustrate the process." While they're frustrating the process, it's costing money. It is running counter to the streamlining process that you want to put in place. I feel that what we are putting here, the amendment, would somehow deal with that kind of a difficult process.
I would say that government should look very hard at this amendment because then it would more or less eliminate those frivolous individuals or public bodies, so to speak, who just want -- "No. I don't want it in my backyard; for no reason, because I don't want it." I have seen situations where I used to live before that they wanted to put the bus along the road and those with cars say: "No way. I don't want any bus." Why? "Because I have cars." On the other hand, there are people who wanted the transportation there. They would drag it out for a long time until a decision had to be made.
I think that if they have a genuine concern and this can be resolved in a manner, I think that is a very efficient way to resolve these matters. I would say if you take a very serious look at it and encourage the government members to support this amendment, or the parliamentary assistant could demonstrate which is a powerful decision to just say, "We will take a very serious look at this and come back because I think it's worthwhile to have this amendment in the legislation."
The Chair: I think we're ready to vote.
Mr Curling: I thought he was going to comment. Were you going to --
Mr Hayes: You were making a comment. I don't recall you asking me any questions.
Mr Curling: Yes, would you consider --
Mr Hayes: Yes. We have considered it and I responded to you after I considered it.
The Chair: I think he's already had --
Interjections.
The Chair: I think we're ready for the vote on this matter.
All in favour of the Liberal amendment? Opposed? That's defeated.
A PC amendment, subsection 17(29).
Interjections.
The Chair: Mr McLean, identical?
Mr McLean: These are good amendments; however, I will withdraw it. Is it necessary for the Chairman to say whose amendment it is or whose it isn't?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr McLean: Why?
The Chair: In order to identify -- they're all listed here, the amendments that everyone has made. We need to deal with them. So you either have to withdraw it or not move it or -- we have to do something with those motions because they're there.
Mr McLean: I wonder as Chairman of the committee when the members would be able to receive the Hansards that we have been talking about for weeks and weeks now. I'd like to review some of our Hansards that we've had for the first two weeks of these hearings. Is there any chance that we might be able to get them before we adjourn?
The Chair: We could try, yes, within a reasonable time.
Mr McLean: Could you determine what that is?
The Chair: Yes, we can. As soon as we can.
Mr McLean: We'll have them by next Monday, will we?
The Chair: I think we can, yes.
Moving on, government amendment.
Mr Hayes: I move that subsection 17(30) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out.
This amendment deletes the exemption provision for public bodies from the requirement for bringing concerns to council before the official plan or amendment is adopted. A public body should be subject to the same rule as persons and I think we all agree with that.
The Chair: There you go.
Mr Hayes: Have I convinced you or do you want me to go further?
Mr McLean: I'd like you to define what your definition of a public body would be and consist of?
The Chair: Ms Ross.
Mr Hayes: Okay, have you got the list of that?
Ms Ross: Yes, there is a definition of "public body" at the beginning of the act, if I can find it. "Public body means a municipality, local board, ministry department, board, commission, agency, or official of a provincial or federal government or a first nation."
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The Chair: Is that clear, Mr McLean?
Mr McLean: Pretty close.
The Chair: Any other matter?
Mr David Johnson: If I may --
The Chair: Mr Johnson -- hold on, he would like to read into the record some other comments.
Mr Hayes: If there are concerns with the official plan or amendment, they should bring their concerns to council before the plan is adopted. I think I should also make known that various citizens, ratepayer groups -- and it's also supported by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, regional planning commissioners, Urban Development Institute, Canadian Bar Association -- Ontario and Canadian Environmental Law Association. I thought you would like to have that information.
The Chair: Anything further? Mr McLean.
Mr McLean: The only thing I have to say, Mr Chair, is the fact that the government motion, the Liberal motion and the PC motion for once through this process are all identical and I will be supporting them all.
Mr Hayes: We're starting to understand one another.
The Chair: All in favour of this government amendment? I should point out, the other amendments by the other two parties are nearly identical. That carries.
Mr Hayes: I move that subclause 17(38)(a)(iv) of the Planning Act, as set out in section 10 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted:
"(iv) the plan or part of the plan that is the subject of the proposed decision or the appeal is premature because the necessary public water, sewage or road services are not available to service the land covered by the plan and the services will not be available within a reasonable time;"
Mr McKinstry: If I could clarify that this is for the powers of the board to dismiss. The other one was powers for the approval authority to dismiss. It's identical.
Mr David Johnson: I wonder if the staff or the parliamentary assistant could tell me how the municipal board will decide that the necessary public water, sewage or road services are not -- if they're not available, that's pretty easy. Is it just not available or not available within a reasonable time -- but are not available to the extent required, I guess? There may be sewage capacity there, for example, but it may not be adequate to handle the whole proposal.
Mr McKinstry: If I can clarify, this motion really does not get at the issue of sewage capacity, it gets at the issue of whether or not there's services at all. What the board would do is look at the municipality's official plan, look at their servicing plan, and they could determine from those whether or not this was an area that the municipality was planning to service within the lifespan of their plan.
Mr David Johnson: Could you tell me, does this intend to deal with appeals that essentially go straight to the Ontario Municipal Board? Because, presumably, if this came through the local council -- and what's the other thing we were talking about? -- the approval authority -- I have to learn these words -- neither of them would approve an application where there is no public water or no sewage capacity.
Mr McKinstry: It's primarily intended to deal with areas where there is a direct appeal. However, the board would still have this power where there is a referral request and it goes through the municipality.
Mr David Johnson: So where there is a direct appeal, and there is sewage capacity -- or there is water capacity, but there isn't sufficient capacity, let's say, to deal with an application of subdivision, for example. There's a sewage pipe but it wouldn't be big enough to handle the whole flow; on this basis, the Ontario Municipal Board would not be able to rule it premature, is that what you're saying?
Mr McKinstry: It could rule it premature if the services were not available, yes. It could.
Mr David Johnson: I'm saying the services are -- it depends on how you define "not available." There's a sewer pipe there, but it's overloaded, let's say, even with existing capacity in the area.
Mr McKinstry: If there's no capacity, it is possible that the board could rule it premature. However, it is a discretionary power.
Mr David Johnson: It doesn't say that here, though. It depends again, I guess, how you define -- to say that sewage is not available. You would define a sewage pipe that's deemed to be full to capacity as being not available, would you?
Mr McKinstry: That could be one interpretation, I think, yes.
Mr David Johnson: It's not very clear, is it?
Mr Hayes: There's no capacity available.
Mr David Johnson: It doesn't say that though, it uses the words "not available."
Mr Hayes: If you don't have the capacity to take more, it's not available, right?
Mr David Johnson: If that's the interpretation, it seems like a bit of a leap, though. You're telling me that would be the direction.
Mr Hayes: If the pipe is full to capacity then of course the service is not available.
Mr David Johnson: Let me give you another example then, and see how you interpret this: Suppose the approval authorities have approved a number of subdivisions but, because of economic conditions, they've not gone ahead and then along comes another subdivision, this one, and it appeals directly to the Ontario Municipal Board. If somebody sat back and looked at all this, they would say, "If all of these go ahead that have been approved already by the approval authority, then there will not be capacity," but they haven't all gone ahead.
What does the Ontario Municipal Board do then? Does it judge the availability of capacity on what's available at that particular instance or does it look at what has been approved back through the years and months and say, "Once all this that's approved goes ahead, there's no more capacity, so therefore this particular application is premature"?
Mr McKinstry: The municipalities allocate capacities to developments that are approved and, in the terms of subdivision approval, they have to have a mind to servicing and capacity. So the board, in its review, would also have to look at that and they could potentially say, at the outset, if there is no capacity, it's premature, or they might decide to not say it's premature because they think it's borderline and they might decide to hear it.
I should also say there is another government motion later on in the package that deals with the issue of giving the municipalities the ability to reallocate sewage capacity because AMO told us very clearly that we did need some way of saying if developer A wasn't going ahead, maybe developer B should have that capacity. That, to some degree, ameliorates that concern.
Mr David Johnson: I agree with that at the municipal level that unless your motion incorporates the OMB in there as well, then the OMB could be working at loggerheads or in the opposite direction with the municipality.
Mr McKinstry: No, it does not.
Mr David Johnson: I'm a tiny bit reassured when you say the Ontario Municipal Board could do this or could do that or could do anything, but the words here don't reflect that. That's a very broad interpretation that you're taking of these words.
Mr McKinstry: If you look at the whole section, it says, "may dismiss...if, (a) it is of the opinion that." So it is discretionary. There's no requirement for them to dismiss it.
Mr David Johnson: I guess specifically I'm saying it looks to me as if this clause refers specifically to what is available in the ground at the time the Ontario Municipal Board is making the decision. It doesn't look to me as if the phraseology here guides the board to look at all other approvals that have been made, but are just hanging in thin air as it were.
Mr McKinstry: Under section 51 of the act, in approving subdivisions, approval authorities have to look at availability of services. That's a very clear directive in the act.
Mr David Johnson: Those are the approval authorities; we're talking about the OMB here.
Mr McKinstry: It is one of the approval authorities. Anybody who isn't making an approval on an application of a subdivision would have to look at these subsections.
Mr David Johnson: But this objection has gone directly to the Ontario Municipal Board, right around the approval authority. Is the Ontario Municipal Board also required to look at what has been approved?
Mr McKinstry: The Ontario Municipal Board would be required to look at the availability of services, and services are not available if they're allocated to another draft plan of subdivision.
Mr David Johnson: I'm pleased to hear you say that, but it doesn't really say that here. That's an interpretation.
Mr McKinstry: This is simply a dismissal power that says they can dismiss, if it's premature, on these reasons.
The Chair: Anything further? Seeing none, let's move to a vote here.
All in favour of the government amendment? Opposed? That carries.
Having dealt with that, we'll adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1700.