Toronto isn’t paying city planners enough. That’s driving up house prices, some say

A shortage of planners at Toronto city hall means it takes 32 months to get development approved -- the second slowest in the GTA.

Thestar.com
Oct. 5, 2022
Tess Kalinowski

When it comes to speeding housing development applications through city hall, smaller municipalities have got Toronto beat. Milton, Whitby, Barrie and Brampton all do the job faster.

Developers say that the slow pace of permit approvals is further squeezing the already short supply of housing and driving up home prices with costly construction delays.

It takes 32 months on average to approve a development application in Toronto. Two years ago it took 21 months, according to the latest benchmarking study by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which represents homebuilders.

That September study found Toronto’s approval timelines ranked 15th out of 16 GTA municipalities. Only Caledon was slower, taking 34 months on average for approval. Milton topped the list at 10 months. Barrie, Brampton and Whitby all averaged 13 months.

Developers say a shortage of planners at city hall is a key reason Toronto approvals take nearly three years on average. The city has acknowledged it has trouble attracting and keeping planners because it can’t compete with private-sector salaries and the lower cost of housing in other municipalities.

About 2.5 per cent of overall city staff work in planning. That compares to a regional average of 3.06 per cent, according to the BILD study by Altus Group, the data company that tracks home construction trends.

In June, Toronto chief planner Gregg Lintern reported to the city’s planning and housing committee that 13 per cent of planning positions -- back then there were 477 -- were vacant and a quarter of the staff at that time had been hired since January 2020.

Meantime, industry leaders, some city councillors and housing advocates say Toronto needs to hire more planners, pay them better and, in some cases, reconsider their working conditions.

Mark Richardson, the technical lead for HousingNow, which advocates for affordable rental construction, notes that COVID-19 was a game changer in terms of work-life balance expectations.

“You’re asking people to be paid less money than they would make in the private sector, then get themselves to a church basement or a community centre in North York on a Tuesday night at 7:30 in rush hour. They get to go there with their well-thought, well-reasoned presentation and then have 25 angry neighbours yell at them for 45 minutes,” he said. “If I’m a 30-year-old planner, is that an attractive position for me to be in?”

The city of Toronto said its planning department has approved 28,000 housing units per year over the last five years.

“Development review is not a straight line and timelines can vary depending on the project, and the nature of the application,” said a city statement attributed to Lintern.

Developers and their consultants can also take time to address issues and revise projects so that they are approved, said the statement.

A big portion of the timeline is the period between planning approval and when the developer applies for a building permit. That may also involve overhead for arranging construction contracts and other preparations.

In July, Toronto city council directed staff to look at how the city can be more competitive in its hiring practices. That study isn’t supposed to finish until later this year.

The city wouldn’t say how much its planners earn. A recent job posting for zoning examiners advertised wages of about $76,000 to $84,000. A planner, policy and research position posted earnings of $85,000 to $93,000 annually.

Failure to get approvals moving faster will have consequences, said the president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario.

“If the city cannot do the job the housing supply crisis will get worse, and Toronto will see a further drain of talented young people leave due to a lack of housing,” wrote Richard Lyall in a July letter to the planning and housing committee.