Item - 2019.PH8.7

The Planning and Housing Committee:

1. Received the report (September 3, 2019) from the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and the Deputy City Manager, Infrastructure and Development Services for information.

The Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning gave a presentation on End-to-End Review of the Development Review Process.

The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of the end-to-end review of the development review process as directed by the former Planning & Growth Management Committee.

The full report of the end-to-end review can be found at https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/ .

The City of Toronto’s development review process is a mature and robust system that supports and informs engagement with public stakeholders. The City believes in continuous improvement to ensure the development review process is efficient and effective; enhances clarity, certainty and transparency to applicants and the public; and above all else, continues achieving valuable city-building objectives such as affordable housing, transit, economic development, parklands and complete communities. 

In response to the direction of City Council and the Planning & Growth Management Committee, the City ran a competitive procurement process and retained an outside consultant – KPMG and Gladki Planning Associates – to provide an external objective perspective, relevant expertise conducting similar reviews, knowledge of industry leading practices and research of other jurisdictions.

The City formed an interdivisional team, consisting of representatives from City divisions involved in development review, to oversee and consult on the end-to-end review including City Planning; Engineering & Construction Services; Toronto Building; Toronto Water; Solid Waste Management Services; Fire Services; Legal Services; Transportation Services; Parks, Forestry & Recreation; Economic Development & Culture; and the former Affordable Housing Office.

Extensive stakeholder consultations were conducted to identify how the City can improve the clarity, certainty and transparency of the development review process to City staff, applicants and the public.  In addition to stakeholder consultation, the review included documentation reviews, analysis of internal performance measures and data, multiple workshops with the interdivisional project team, high-level process mapping and research of leading practices from comparable jurisdictions.

The end-to-end review identified a number of continuous improvement opportunities around project management, teamwork, collaboration and technology that are administrative in nature.  These continuous improvements will improve how the City manages the development review process to better achieve its city-building objectives, and ultimately, make it more consistent, effective and efficient for applicants to work with the City to get the necessary approvals.  These continuous improvements will also result in more collaborative working relationships between applicants and the City.

The City is in the process of creating a dedicated Implementation Team, led by the Director of Business Transformation to lead, monitor and report to the Chief Planner on the implementation of the review’s recommendations.  The recruitment process for the Director of Business Transformation is currently underway. 

Upon the hiring of the Director of the Business Transformation, this individual will be responsible for:

Developing a detailed, multi-year work plan, adapted from / based on the full consultant report, to implement the end-to-end review's recommendations; and,
Hiring additional project management support staff, reporting to the Director of Business Transformation that will support the interdivisional implementation of the multi-year work plan.

With the full support of the City's senior management team, the Director of the Business Transformation will lead the multi-year, interdivisional effort to transform the City's development review process, and the management structures and practices in place to support the process.  The administrative, interdivisional changes to the development review process are intended to be implemented in phases over the next two (2) years.