One Ontario: one system for permitting
At least one industry association says Ontario’s construction market is being hampered by a patchwork building permit system.
That is in part why the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) is throwing its weight behind a new initiative called One Ontario that would create guidelines for a unified, digital platform that could be used by all municipalities for development approvals and permits.
“Development of a streamlined and uniform e-permitting system to be used by planning and building departments in all municipalities across the province would result in faster building approvals and a more efficient system that would increase the supply of housing across the province,” says RESCON president Richard Lyall. “A common digital system that is harmonized would also allow external agencies to be linked with approval agencies, thereby improving the workflow.”
The One Ontario initiative is being led by AECO Innovation Lab, a construction-industry consortium that is looking at matters of productivity, sustainability and profitability. Its advisory board includes a number of prominent industry types, such as professor Carl Haas, university research chair at the University of Waterloo; Ralph Kaminski, a former chief building official with the City of Waterloo; Aubrey Le Blanc, the chief administrative officer with the Ontario Building Officials Association; and Claudia Cozzitorto, director of design technologies at Diamond Schmitt Architects.
The One Ontario initiative would set the stage for a comprehensive e-permitting system that would replace the current patchwork of systems and streamline the process across municipalities by developing new guidelines that will establish a set of provincial data exchange standards.
“By developing a unified standard, all municipalities will be singing off the same song sheet when it comes to issuing approvals,” says Lyall, who also sits on AECO’s board of advisors. “This will be good for other sectors of construction, especially infrastructure. It will enable designers, permit applicants, builders, plans examiners, building department officials and approval agencies within municipalities and externally to be connected through a transparent electronic platform.”
For RESCON, the need to expedite the delivery of new housing in the province—and in the Greater Toronto Area in particular—has never been greater. Demand is far outstripping supply.
Indeed, says RESCON, the province needs to build 75,000 new homes per year over the next 24 years to keep up with expected population growth. It falls short by an average of 12,000 units per year. Research has shown that rezoning delays can take up to three years and residential site plan approvals can take an additional two years in the permitting process, adding tens of thousands of dollars to housing prices.
In July 2018, RESCON published a report that identified opportunities to streamline the province’s development and building approvals process. The report recommended that Ontario’s 444 municipalities adopt an inter-connected, state-of-the-art digital e-permitting platform.
All municipalities must conform to existing provincial regulations which govern development and building, namely the Planning Act and the Building Code Act, so it makes sense to modernize and standardize the approval process across Ontario municipalities. Now is also the perfect time to undertake digitization efforts as COVID has impacted face-to-face interactions and resulted in work being done electronically or remotely.
“The successful evolution of One Ontario is important in creating a more predictable environment for housing in our province – which can then drive industry productivity and ultimately deliver homes that are affordable for all Ontarians,” says Lyall. “The Streamlined Data Exchange Framework being proposed by One Ontario can result in a seamless development application and permitting process between AEC companies and municipal governments. This transformation creates more favourable conditions that quickens the pace of construction, minimizes risk for everyone and generates efficiencies long-overdue in the industry.”