Item - 2020.SC12.6

City Council recessed its public session and met as Committee of the Whole in closed session on July 29, 2020 to consider confidential information on this Item as it pertains to advice or communications that are subject to solicitor-client privilege and information regarding potential litigation.

The Scarborough Community Council submits the item to City Council without recommendations.

Scarborough Community Council directed:

1. That the City Solicitor, Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning and appropriate City Staff attend a meeting with the local Councillors and the applicant, to discuss a possible resolution in advance of the January 29, 2020 City Council meeting and that the City Solicitor report to City Council at the January 29, 2020 meeting with the outcome of the discussions.

This application originally submitted on December 22, 2016, proposes to amend the Official Plan to add a Site and Area Specific Policy ("SASP") for the lands at 1880-1890 Eglinton Avenue East and 1523-1545 Victoria Park Avenue (Choice lands) to permit a mixed-use development with new streets and parkland.  The SASP would provide for a mixed-use community that would include a range of building heights from one-storey to 39-storeys, 2,614 residential units (242,799 square metres of residential uses) and 30,629 square metres of non-residential uses, with a proposed gross Floor Space Index ("FSI") of 3.5 times the area of the site, for a total gross floor area of 273,428 square metres.  The subject lands are located within the Golden Mile Secondary Plan study area. 

The Official Plan Amendment application was submitted on December 22, 2016, and has been appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board ("OMB"), now the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal ("LPAT") citing City Council's failure to make a decision within the prescribed time frames set out in the Planning Act.  The appeal was filed on March 5, 2018.

On November 8, 2019, the City received a letter from the applicant's solicitor, being a "with prejudice" settlement offer and formal revision to the application ("Resubmission Letter").  The Resubmission Letter advised that the applicant has amended its application, including an increase in  proposed density to 4.28 times the area of the lands, comprising of approximately 3,291 residential units (303,215 square metres of residential uses) and 31,173 square metres of non-residential uses, for a proposed total gross floor area of 334,928 square metres. The Resubmission Letter also provided an updated OPA by-law, which provides for upwards of 340,000 square metres of gross floor area, which is a significant increase of approximately 61,500 to 66,572 square metres of gross floor area.

 
The Resubmission Letter was not accompanied by any supporting reports or update letters from the original application, as acknowledged in the Resubmission Letter.  City Staff are not in a position to adequately review, circulate and comment on the changes to the application given the lack of a complete submission package.  It is unusual to receive a revised submission requesting additional density from an original submission accompanied without supporting documentation and therefore the original supporting reports cannot be used to support the revised submission.

Should the applicant intend to pursue a revision to its application, it should formally provide the required documentation for City staff to review and to determine how to proceed with the revised submission. Until that time, city staff cannot provide fulsome, comprehensive analysis of the revised submission to provide recommendations to City Council for consideration. Accordingly, the report largely addresses the original application, however it also recommends that the City Solicitor oppose the revised application.

The purpose of this report is to seek City Council's direction for the City Solicitor, together with appropriate City staff and/or external consultants, to attend the LPAT hearing to oppose the original application and the with prejudice settlement offer dated November 8, 2019, in its current form.  City staff have concerns with how the proposed Official Plan Amendment can be supported in the context of the GMSP consultants' reports and recommendations for the broader Golden Mile area and for the subject site.  

The GMSP consultants Transportation Master Plan ("TMP"), Community Infrastructure Strategy and the Master Servicing Plan ("MSP") provide comprehensively analyzed information to assist with the direction on how growth can be accommodated within the Golden Mile Area.  These studies will also be used to inform the emerging policy direction in the proposed Golden Mile Secondary Plan, as presented in the report dated December 20, 2019, and being considered at the January 8, 2020 Scarborough Community Council meeting.  The proposed Official Plan Amendment, in its current form and the November 8, 2019, settlement offer are not consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS 2014), do not conform with the Growth Plan (2019), and does not conform to the City's Official Plan.

This report also recommends that the City Solicitor and appropriate City staff be authorized to continue discussions with the applicant in an effort to address the issues outlined in this report.