Item - 2021.PH27.7

The Planning and Housing Committee recommends that:

1. City Council direct the City Manager to transition the City wide affordable housing priority application function from a pilot to a permanent service and report back to City Council in the first quarter of 2022 with a plan to expand the City-wide priority application stream. 

As directed by City Council at its meeting of September 30, October 1 and October 2, 2020, the purpose of this report is to:

• Provide an update on the work supporting the Priority Application Stream focused on affordable housing and to present the preliminary results of this stream.

• Report on the work undertaken by Concept 2 Keys (C2K) over the last three months and highlight upcoming deliverables.

The C2K program is transforming the development review process by improving organizational structures, processes and technology. Given the scope of this transformation, the C2K program is being implemented incrementally. The first two streams of work currently underway are as follows:

• 1. The Priority Application Stream, which launched on January 1, 2021, is focused on affordable housing development applications city-wide. Since the launch of the program, review teams have received 24 applications for 18 development projects. This includes 15 priority affordable housing developments and 3 private purpose-built rental projects. The 15 affordable housing developments include Open Door and Modular Housing Initiative sites, representing a proposed total of 1,211 new affordable and supportive rental homes. Additional development projects earmarked for priority review are in the current pre-application stage and will be reported when applications have been received. A first set of applications are now approaching key approval milestones and an evaluation of improvements in approval timelines will be conducted. Within the affordable housing review stream, the overall average time for staff to review and comment has been five weeks per round of reviews. This compares to an average duration of eight to nine weeks per review round for all development applications across the City. The City's Modular Housing Initiative applications have been given the greatest urgency and have averaged three weeks per review.

• 2. The District Application Stream, which launched on July 1, 2021 in the Etobicoke York district, is focused on testing the scalability of development review improvements across a range of application types in a typical planning district. Progress in Etobicoke York to date includes establishing three interdivisional review teams supported by a new application management function and recruiting additional staff to ensure the review teams have the appropriate resources in place to provide a positive customer experience for applicants. The teams have received 27 pre-application consultation requests and 24 new development applications to date.

Alongside these two streams of work, C2K is also working with partner divisions to improve the processes and technology that support an efficient and effective development review process. Initiatives undertaken and accomplishments achieved over the last quarter include:

• Development review vacancy rates have trended downwards from 19.1% to 13.5% over the last 11 months based on 44 net new positions added to support current resourcing needs and from 19.1% to 11.1% based on original complement levels. This brings the City closer to its commitment of achieving 90% staff complement for development review by the end of 2021, although challenges remain.

• Soft-launched eight application types for intake through the Application Submission Tool (AST) and a public launch is scheduled in Q4 2021.

• Initiated development of technology requirements for a file circulation platform to inform a procurement process launching in Q4 2021.

• Launched a pilot for an online mapping and analysis tool that allows City staff to efficiently evaluate the development potential of any given property in the city.

• Established an interdivisional Process Improvement Working Group to update the Terms of Reference and preparatory work for mandating pre-application consultations.

• Revised and updated thirteen existing and one new Terms of Reference, which were posted to the Development Guide in August 2021.

• Finalizing the analysis of the City's existing development application review fees in order to provide recommendations to City Council in Q1 2022.

As directed by City Council at its September 30, October 1 and October 2, 2020 meeting, C2K will continue to provide updates on a quarterly basis to the Planning and Housing Committee on accomplishments to date and planned future deliverables.