Item - 2025.PH23.7

The Planning and Housing Committee:

1. Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and the Executive Director, Development Review to use Attachment 3: Proposed Application Streaming, to the report (June 30, 2025) from the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, and the Executive Director, Development Review as the basis for public and stakeholder consultation and bring forward final application streaming recommendations in the second quarter of 2026.

2. Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and the Executive Director, Development Review to report back to the Planning and Housing Committee on the status and results of the remaining KPMG implementation recommendations contained in this report in the second quarter of 2026.

3. Requested the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and the Executive Director, Development Review to consider updates to the Committee of Adjustment user fee descriptions that reflect zoning permissions adopted by Council for multiplexes, garden and laneway suites, and multi-tenant houses.

Since 2021, City Planning staff have undertaken an extensive work program to improve services related to the Committee of Adjustment. The work program includes a series of projects to implement the recommendations of a third-party consultant intended to improve the public experience related to Committee of Adjustment hearings.

In May 2021, City Council directed the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, in consultation with the City Solicitor, the Chief Building Official and Executive Director, Toronto Building, and the Ombudsman, to report to Planning and Housing Committee on a consultant review of the Committee of Adjustment. As a result of this direction, City Planning retained KPMG, who conducted this review over the course of 2022. KPMG delivered its Final Report titled "Committee of Adjustment Review" in January 2023.

In February of 2023, staff summarized KPMG's review and recommendations and outlined a multi-year implementation plan to move those recommendations forward. The goal of these efforts was to increase public confidence in and satisfaction with the Committee of Adjustment review and hearing process and enable all users to effectively participate in the Committee of Adjustment. One of the recommendations by KPMG at that time was to conduct a comprehensive review of the Committee of Adjustment Service Delivery Model. In December 2023, staff retained KPMG to conduct this Service Delivery Model review which was completed in February 2025.

Concurrently with those reviews, staff have introduced various process and service improvements related to the Committee of Adjustment. The benefits of this work are already being realized. For instance, in December 2022, a newly submitted complete application would be scheduled for a hearing on average twelve weeks from the time of application intake. Since June 2023, that timeline has been reduced to an average of seven weeks. In addition, the previous backlog of applications that resulted from service disruption and fluctuating application volumes during the COVID pandemic has now been resolved.

The purpose of this report is twofold.

First, this report provides an update on the implementation of the 15 recommendations from KPMG's Final Report on the Committee of Adjustment Public Hearing Review since that report was presented to Council in February 2023. The previous report to Planning and Housing Committee in February 2023, summarized and accepted those 15 recommendations and laid out a work plan for implementation.

Second, this report presents the findings of KPMG's Committee of Adjustment Service Delivery Model review, and staff's workplan for advancing these new recommendations. This includes establishing an application streaming model to create a context for future decisions on application fees and application submission requirements. In early first quarter 2026, administration of Committee of Adjustment will move from the City Planning Division to the Development Review Division, to increase consistency in how development applications are reviewed by the City. Once those changes are complete, staff will review and confirm an approach to implementing KPMG’s remaining organizational and public hearing recommendations.