City of Hamilton's Response to Bill 13 & Bill 109

Ontario’s Provincial planning framework is established by the Planning Act. The Planning Act provides municipal governments with the direction and authority to guide development and land use planning through official plans and zoning by-laws and sets out requirements for various types of Planning applications. It requires all municipalities to follow the processes and requirements set out in the Act and its associated regulations.

What is Bill 13 & Bill 109?

Changes to the Planning Act were recently made by the Province through Bill 13 and Bill 109. Key changes include:

• Bill 13: Allowing Councils to delegate the authority to pass zoning by-laws that are of a minor nature to a committee of Council or staff.
• Bill 109: Changing the timelines for which a decision must be made on Official Plan Amendment, Zoning Amendment and Site Plan applications, and requiring municipalities to refund application fees if a decision is not made within the required timelines. Changes to application timelines and new refund requirements take effect on January 1, 2023.

How does this affect Application Processes?

To address the legislative changes made by Bill 13 and Bill 109, changes to the City’s application processes will be needed. Changes to the City’s implementation policies in its Official Plans are also needed to reflect the process changes.

Staff have implemented several Official Plan amendments to streamline application processes, including providing greater clarity on materials required for a complete application, updating public meeting notification timelines and permitting the delegation of some types of minor zoning by-law amendments to staff. The purpose of these recent changes is to ensure that decisions can be made on applications within the required timelines, to avoid refunds of application fees.

Current work on this project includes the preparation of a Guideline for each type of study, report or plan that may be required as part of a complete Planning Act application, to provide greater clarity and direction on the required content for these materials. This will ensure that all required information is provided with submitted applications before they are accepted.

Draft Guidelines will be available for public input in two phases:

Phase 1

• Guidelines that do not require peer reviews or significant consultation due to the following:
  1. A guideline already exists and is not being amended. New explanatory summaries have been created which refer to the existing guidelines.
  2. A guideline already exists and is being updated; or,
  3. A new guideline is being created that represents best practice and common information often shared through the Formal Consultation process.
• Commenting period from October 24, 2022 to November 7, 2022.
• Draft documents will be presented to Planning Committee on November 29, 2022.

Phase 2

• Guidelines that require more time to complete due to the following:
  1. A guideline exists but requires revisions which may need more in-depth consultation; or,
  2. A guideline does not exist and a new technical guideline is being created which requires peer review and consultation.
• Consultation will be in Q1-Q2, 2023.
• Draft Documents will be presented to Planning Committee in Q2, 2023.
• List of Phase 2 - Draft Guidelines (to be released Q1-Q2, 2023)