Item - 2024.PH15.1

The Planning and Housing Committee recommends that:

1. City Council adopt Official Plan Amendment 528, substantially in accordance with Attachment 1 to the report (September 12, 2024) from the Interim Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning.

2. City Council authorize the City Solicitor to make such stylistic and technical changes to the Official Plan Amendment 528 as may be required and to submit the necessary bill for enactment.

3. City Council adopt an amendment to Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 213, Real Property, substantially in accordance with Attachment 3 to the report (September 12, 2024) from the Interim Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning.

4. City Council authorize the City Solicitor to submit the necessary bill to amend Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 213, Real Property, to give effect to City Council's decision.

The Planning and Housing Committee held a statutory public meeting on September 26, 2024, and notice was given in accordance with the Planning Act.

This report recommends that Council adopt Official Plan Amendment 528 (OPA 528), which amends the City's Official Plan policies to specify limited exemptions when the sale or disposal of City-owned lands in Parks and Open Space Areas, within or outside of the Green Space System, may be permitted without the requirement of an Official Plan Amendment (OPA). The purpose and intent of Official Plan Amendment 528 is to facilitate conservation projects and essential public works and utilities that support Toronto's development and growth, provided certain criteria are met.

An associated amendment to Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 213 is also recommended. As recommended, Official Plan Amendment 528 will not revoke Council's current disposal framework contained in the City's Municipal Code, but rather will prescribe narrow circumstances under which a site-specific Official Plan Amendment is not needed.

Lands in the Parks and Open Space Areas of the Official Plan, within or outside of the Green Space System, accommodate natural habitat areas, important ecological services and many of the City's recreational opportunities. They are essential to health, prosperity, and quality of life in our City and receive a high level of protection in the Official Plan.

In the Official Plan, the City's Green Space System is made up of lands in Parks and Open Space Areas, much of the natural heritage system, and a variety of privately managed but publicly accessible spaces. Parks and Open Space Areas policies, which govern the Parks, Other Open Space Areas, and Natural Areas land-use designations, prohibit development within Parks and Open Space Areas, except for a limited list of uses, including conservation projects and essential public works and utilities. However, the Official Plan does not allow City-owned lands in Parks and Open Space Areas to be sold or disposed of by the City, except where the City-owned land is exchanged for nearby land of equal or greater size and comparable or superior green space utility.

This means that although certain land uses are permitted in Parks and Open Space Areas, such as conservation projects and essential public works and utilities, the enabling transaction to allow the sale or disposal of the land is prohibited and requires a site-specific Official Plan Amendment to proceed.

In Toronto's Municipal Code, the sale or disposal of land includes granting either a fee simple interest or a leasehold or easement interest for a term longer than 21 years. Chapter 213 of the Municipal Code requires that land be declared surplus prior to its sale or disposal. Official Plan Amendment 528 is intended to work together with the City's current disposal framework in Chapter 213 of the Municipal Code and provide a mechanism to allow transactions for specific types of projects to proceed without the requirement for a site-specific Official Plan Amendment.

This report recommends a balanced approach that would allow the sale or disposal to proceed without site-specific Official Plan Amendments in certain circumstances, provided:

1. the sale or disposal is to a public agency to undertake conservation projects; or

2. the sale or disposal is an easement to facilitate essential underground public works and utilities, including alternative energy systems; and

• the project restores and enhances the land (including the natural ecosystem); and
• the project meets all other applicable policies in the Official Plan.

The recommended amendment is technical in nature and seeks to reduce redundancy in the current process without changing policy direction or intent. Site-specific Official Plan Amendments would still be required for the sale or disposal of City-owned land in Parks and Open Space Areas related to all other project types, including public transit projects. This report does not propose changes to the City's current disposal framework set out in the Municipal Code beyond specifying limited exceptions where a site-specific Official Plan Amendment is not required, and this report will not result in the declaration of any City-owned lands as surplus.

This report proposes an amendment to Chapter 213 of the Municipal Code, Real Property, to add a new General Condition in Appendix B (Attachment 3). This new General Condition will make authority to approve a sale or disposal of land in the Parks and Open Space Areas of the Official Plan conditional upon either a site-specific Official Plan Amendment being in force that exempts the lands from the prohibition on sale or disposal, or confirmation from the Chief Planner and Executive Director of City Planning and the General Manager of Parks, Forestry and Recreation that the proposed sale or disposal satisfies Policy 4.3.9 of the Official Plan.

For more information about consultation activities, see Attachments 5a and 5b.