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Peel to submit comments to Province on Bill 185

May 2, 2024   ·   0 Comments

Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act has many implications for Region of Peel

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Region of Peel will see many impacts from the Province’s Bill 185, the “Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act”.

In a staff report submitted to Regional Council at its April 25 meeting, staff said through Bill 185, Peel’s planning responsibilities under the Planning Act will be transferred to its lower tier municipalities and the Province by July 1.

“As the date for implementation has now been identified, staff are working with Regional Council, the Transition Board and local municipalities to finalize the implementation plan in the coming weeks,” reads the report.

Bill 185 will also give Peel’s lower tier municipalities the ability to pass bylaws providing for the allocation of water supply and sewage capacity to support developments approved under the Planning Act.

Introduced on April 10, Bill 185 proposes a wide variety of amendments to existing legislation in Ontario, according to the staff report. Among them are changes to the Hazel McCallion Act that confirm the Region of Peel will not be dissolved.

Among other changes, the Development Charges Act is being changed through Bill 185 to restore studies, such as development charge background studies, as eligible development charge (DC) costs.

“In general, many of the changes to the DC Act appear positive for municipalities by reversing some changes originally introduced in Bill 23, which limited the ability of municipalities to collect DC revenue,” reads the staff report. “While the DC Act amendments in Bill 185 do make some progress towards restoring municipalities’ ability to fund growth-related infrastructure, they do fall short of making municipalities financially ‘whole’.”

In their report, Region of Peel staff asked Regional Council for approval to provide their comments on Bill 185’s impacts to the Province. Councillors provided unanimous consent for this.

Bill 185 was referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs on April 17. As of April 25, the committee had not met to consider the bill.