By Pepper Parr
March 7th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
During the second meeting of the Pipeline to Permit Standing Committee meeting, Jamie Tellier,Director of Planning set out to explain the data on the chart below.
One of the reasons the Pipeline to Permit committee was created was to look at the available data to better understand just what was happening in the development sector.
It crystal clear: better data was needed.
Roll your cursor over the image to enlarge.
As you can see in really small print on the bottom, it was generated on February 27 2024. The previous chart that was presented to you at the last committee meeting was generated on February 2. So this what you’re seeing here is less than a month.
The total number of housing units for major planning applications has gone up since the last chart – it’s gone up by about 3500 residential units. We are now a little over 45,000 residential units within the major planning process pipeline.
Jamie Tellier, Director of Planning in his animated mode.
I’m going to take you through the application status and you’ll see some of the changes through the various stages of the planning pipeline.
On the right side you’ll see the application status, that’s gone up by about 3000 units. That number signals the ongoing interest in obtaining the planning approvals for residential developments. This reflects the confidence that we commonly refer to as the hoping to dream stage.
This is very early days and we’re having those consultations but again, it signals the interest to develop residential in Burlington.
Underneath that you’ll see the under review status. That has stayed pretty much the same since the last one.
I do want to note that even though that number has stayed the same, when we when we consider major planning applications to things that are subject to legislative timelines, and certainly the bill 109 refunds, we are achieving our legislative timelines 100% of the time.
Underneath that you’ll see appeal to the OLT. I’m very pleased to note that that number is going down. Staff have been busy resolving various litigation matters, which ultimately will enable more housing in Burlington.
Depending on the decision from the OLT (Ontario Landing Tribunal) landowners are either going to move to a building permit stage or perhaps they’re going to move into the site plan stage depending on the nature and type of development.
Underneath that you’ll see waiting for site plan application. That number has increased by a little over 600 units. Referencing the appeals – perhaps fresh off of an OLT decision.
Now the developers have to put all their technical documentation together to come in for a site plan.
The last one is the planning approval. We’ve changed that name to bring a little more clarity to it. This number is where the planning approvals have been issued. And now they can move on to the building permit.
This is a planning approval, not building permit approval. I’m happy to note that that number has also gone up by about 1100 units since our last report.
At that point Tellier was ready to turn things over to Nick Anastasopoulos, City of Burlington Chief Building Official,
We report on what Nick had to say in a separate article.
