Barrie to clarify bonusing policy
Transparency benefits all

NRU
April 30, 2014
By Edward LaRusic

The City of Barrie’s density bonusing policy has been collecting dust for over a decade, but a proposed update to bring clarity to the policy may turn it into a useful tool.

Mayor Jeff Lehman has been on Barrie council since 2006 and he doesn’t believe the bonusing policy -- which has been in the official plan since 1997 -- has ever been used. Even with the updated policy, he thinks council would be reluctant to use it.

“We as a city, I believe, have never negotiated a section 37 agreement. So that was part of the reason for the change, because there’s not enough guidance or confidence for staff.”

“We’ve traditionally viewed a planning application on the merits of what’s been proposed. It really gets to a tough issue: ‘Are you justified as a council in approving something you otherwise wouldn’t?’”

“I will tell you in the public meeting [about proposed revisions to the policy] and in conversations around the time, there’s quite a level of discomfort with any use of section 37 among members of council. I think they recognize rightly that even with fairly extensive guidance, there’s still a great deal of subjectivity to this, and a lot of hesitation among members of council to go down this road.

Lehman points out that Barrie is the only urban growth centre north of Newmarket and the city is growing quite quickly. Growth opportunities may bring a use for the new bonusing policy.

“The community deserves to know what the rules are and to know that if there is going to be any changes to the rules, that there’s a solid planning rationale as to why. It’s the same with the development community ... I think if we’re doing this, we need to be very, very specific about how it works, and what counts and what doesn’t. I think a lot of the problem and concern of section 37 is its subjectivity.”

Solicitor David Bronskill (Goodmans LLP), who has been involved with numerous development applications in Barrie, agrees. While he is unfamiliar with the bonusing policy changes that staff is proposing, he said that clear bonusing policies “should be welcomed by all stakeholders in the process.”

“It’s a myth about section 37 that applicants pay section 37 funds to a municipality to somehow make a development that is otherwise bad into something good. That’s not how section 37 works. Some of the misunderstanding stems from the fact that many municipalities don’t have transparency and clarity in their section 37 policies to understand when and how they should be applied. So if Barrie is taking steps to increase the transparency and clarity in its policies, then that is a welcome change for everyone.”

Barrie policy planning manager Merwan Kalyaniwalla told NRU that the city was reviewing its official plan policies and staff thought updating the bonusing policy could give council a new tool.

“It was just one of those things, where the mechanics of how to go about doing this, we didn’t have it clearly laid out in the official plan, so [the bonusing policy] fell into disuse. There have been development applications but [the policy] wasn’t used for those applications and it may not be in the future. We’re suggesting, we have this tool, and we think we can improve on this tool.”

Kalyaniwalla said staff is looking to create a policy that is flexible, depending on what benefits are needed in a particular part of the city, whether it’s affordable housing or playground equipment.

“First and foremost, that development proposal must meet the test of good planning. [The new policy] also identifies the nature of the types of benefits that can be secured. It’s not intended to be an exhaustive list, but it gives some examples of the types of benefits, which the old policy didn’t.”

A public meeting on proposed changes to the bonusing official plan policy was held April 14. Kalyaniwalla expects to have a staff report and draft policies to present to the general committee this summer.