Item - 2021.PH20.2

The Planning and Housing Committee:

1. Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, to prepare a budget briefing note to the Budget Committee presenting the backlog of planning and heritage report requests and the necessary resources that would be required from the appropriate Reserve Fund, to address the backlog of planning and heritage report requests and provide scenarios for completing the backlog of requests within 3 years and within 5 years.

2.  Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning to provide a briefing note to the Budget Committee on current, planned, and 2020 budgeted staffing levels, including all Council approved positions for special projects such as Housing Now.

3. Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning to initiate the focussed review of the North York Secondary Plan and provide recommendations as an outcome of this work on maximum densities that may be included in the Secondary Plan; and that the work program for this study be undertaken in consultation with the ward councillor.

The Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning gave a presentation on the Study Work Program.

This report provides the City Planning Division's annual update on its Study Work Program. It outlines the Division's 58 completions and approvals in 2020, highlighting a remarkable variety of city building work. The report also provides a forecast for the Division's 2021 Study Work Program.

Although this past year has not been business as usual given COVID-19 impacts, the collaborative effort with divisions across the Toronto Public Service, external agencies and community partners enabled City Planning to advance studies and initiatives in support of the City's 2019 Corporate Strategic Plan and its four Strategic Priorities on affordable housing, mobility, quality of life, and climate change and resiliency. These include affordable housing policy and programs, such as inclusionary zoning and Housing Now; new planning frameworks to guide longer term investment and growth, for example, the Golden Mile and Keele Finch Plus secondary plans; zoning initiatives including expanding permissions for outdoor patios to support bars and restaurants as part of Toronto's recovery efforts; environmental initiatives such as the Ravine Implementation Strategy; and guidelines, including the Retail Design Manual, to influence better design and development outcomes across the city.

Looking ahead, the 2021 Study Work Program reflects Council's direction and the Division's commitment to advancing a suite of activities in response to Toronto's recovery and rebuild efforts. This includes:

- responding to affordable housing challenges with recommendations on Inclusionary Zoning, Housing Now sites, Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods and support for Phase 2 of the Modular Housing Initiative;

- enhancing opportunities for place-making, growth-supported investment and social equity in all areas of Toronto, by bringing forward reports on various studies including the Mount Dennis Planning Framework Study, the Jane Finch Initiative, Little Jamaica Phase 1, the King-Parliament Secondary Plan Review, Bloor West Village Heritage Conservation District Study, the Christie's Planning Study and the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus Secondary Plan;

- delivering environment-focussed tools, such as an update to the Toronto Green Standard, to further advance sustainable site and building design and city-building resiliency practices;

- providing key research and analytics, such as the Right-Sizing Housing Bulletin and Toronto Employment Survey and Development Pipeline findings, to support evidence-based recommendations to City Council on policy and programs;

- modernizing regulatory tools, including zoning for multi-tenant housing, to support the objective of 'building back better' in all areas of the city; and

- moving forward on addressing the various provincial legislative and regulatory requirements including the Official Plan Municipal Comprehensive Review and the Community Benefits Charge.
 

This report also responds to City Council's June 2020 request on what new planning strategies and frameworks should be incorporated into the City's planning processes so the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are considered in all future planning for the City of Toronto. This report emphasizes "a complete community lens" as a useful framing device for understanding the existing challenges, service gaps and disparities that vary across Toronto's neighbourhoods, which COVID-19 has further magnified. By applying a complete community lens, the City and its partners can more fully understand how proposed plans, policies and actions are responding to existing gaps and stimulating positive opportunities in local communities. Ultimately, planning strategies and frameworks that adopt a complete community approach can be an effective at integrating various objectives and actions into cohesive and coherent plans through which government, non-government organizations, community groups and private-sector development partners can drive positive population-serving outcomes.