The County of Haliburton wants to change the pre-consultation process for development applications across the Highlands, saying it will improve the experience for customers, reduce duplication, and shorten approval timelines.
County senior planner, Kim Bishop, presented a report to the July 22 meeting, seeking endorsement for the new approach.
Now, applicants have to complete a preconsultation with the local municipality for all development applications for which the County is the approval authority.
“This has the effect of doubling the efforts of applicants and staff for a single planning application,” Bishop said. “Applicants consistently advise that the process is time consuming, expensive, and confusing.”
She further noted that streamlining preconsultation processes was one of the recommendations of the service delivery review and has been discussed by area planners for several years.
She told councillors County staff are recommending a ‘one-window’ approach, where all proposals are directed to the County, and then circulated to local staff for comments. She added a single set of preconsultation comments would be provided that address provincial, County, and local policy requirements as the review and commenting during this phase would occur at the staff level.
“The proposed one-window approach would eliminate the requirement for local staff to prepare a recommendation report and present it to their local council; instead, they could provide comments to ensure that proposals conform to local official plan policies, and comply with other planning bylaws. The feedback would also include a list of required submission materials,” Bishop said.
Under the proposed new arrangement, endorsement of applications by local councils would shift to the complete application stage, where councils have all the information they require prior to making an endorsement.
“The intended effect would be to provide more timely, comprehensive pre-consultation comments, eliminate duplication of effort on the part of applicants and staff, and expedite the consent application review process,” Bishop said.
Fees would be adjusted once the program can be evaluated to determine what is required for cost-recovery; likely the municipal fee would be reduced in time provided municipal staff time involved is reduced.
Bishop noted that more recently, the Minden Hills’ development approval process review reaffirmed the recommendation by identifying streamlining the consent, commenting and endorsement process as an opportunity for improvement.
“It is the opinion of staff that the proposed process maintains meaningful local municipal involvement while better aligning pre-consultation with its intended purpose under the Planning Act. The recommended approach provides applicants with a single co-ordinated pre-consultation process, reduces duplication between the County and local municipalities, improves customer service, and allows local council endorsement, where desired, to occur at a point in the process when complete information is available to inform decisionmaking,” Bishop said.
Make it easy for the public
Councillors Liz Danielsen, Jennifer Dailloux, and Pat Casey expressed some concern about the input from ward councillors being lost, or any threat of local councils being cut of the process. However, Bishop said they were giving councils an opportunity to choose their level of involvement.
Casey said he thought they should keep the initial submissions local, “for a local refined feel,” with the ‘one window’ approach starting at the townships, then moving to the County for review. “I do feel it’s one or two steps removed from what the local municipality wants, or what the councillors may pick up from the people in their ward,” he said.
Director of planning, Elizabeth Purcell, however, noted the carriage and approval authority rests with the County, or its land division committee. “Having carriage through the local municipality puts a lot of work on municipal staff when they’re not the approval authority…” She added the proposed process still maintains direct input from local councils.
Coun. Lisa Schell said “one of the biggest frustrations we hear from the community is that this is difficult for the average person to navigate. I don’t feel, as a council member, I’m losing any kind of a say that I may have, or not have. I think we need to make this as easy for the pubic as possible.”
