Facts Matter “Use It or Lose It” Is More Complicated Than a Three-Year Expiry Date
I recently saw a campaign post suggesting that Niagara-on-the-Lake’s planning process is being “hijacked” by land speculators, and that development approvals should simply expire after three years if someone doesn’t build.
I actually agree with part of the concern behind the post.
We should not allow scarce water and wastewater capacity to be tied up indefinitely by developments that aren’t moving forward. The Province agrees, and Ontario has introduced additional “use it or lose it” tools specifically to address stalled developments.
But there is an important problem with presenting this as simply “approved + three years + not built = approval expires.”
That is not how Ontario’s planning system works.
A rezoning is not a building permit
This distinction matters.
When Council approves a zoning by-law amendment, it changes what uses and development standards are permitted on a property.
That is not the same thing as approving a building permit, a site plan, a draft plan of subdivision or allocating water and wastewater capacity.
The Province’s three-year provisions do not create a blanket rule under which every rezoning disappears if construction hasn’t begun within three years.
Ontario’s own guidance says an approval authority must establish a lapsing period of at least three years for a draft plan of subdivision. Bill 185 also provided municipalities with authority to impose lapsing conditions on site-plan approvals.
Those distinctions are important when we’re explaining municipal planning law to residents.
What about water and sewer capacity?
This is where I think there is a worthwhile conversation to have.
Bill 185 established a municipal servicing-management framework allowing municipalities to adopt policies governing the allocation and reallocation of water and sewage capacity.
In other words, if an approved development is sitting dormant while holding servicing capacity that another project could use, municipalities have been given a mechanism to address that problem.
That is something worth examining for NOTL.
If we have projects holding scarce capacity without progressing, I support looking at whether the Town and Region are using every appropriate tool available to ensure our infrastructure is being allocated responsibly.
But that is very different from saying Council can simply erase a property’s zoning after three years.
And then there are the property values…
The campaign material also lists properties showing what owners allegedly paid and what properties were subsequently listed or sold for, suggesting that municipal approvals produced enormous profits.
There is an important distinction here too:
An asking price is not a selling price.
Someone can list a property for $3 million, $10 million or $20 million. That doesn’t establish its market value or demonstrate that Council created that amount of value.
More importantly, the examples shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable. A rezoning, severance, subdivision approval, OLT decision and site-plan approval are different processes with different legal consequences.
If we’re going to publicly name individual properties and owners and use them as evidence of a systemic problem, then I think we owe residents a complete analysis of each property: what was purchased, what approvals existed at purchase, what Council subsequently approved, what the OLT approved, what servicing was allocated, whether the property actually sold, and what ultimately happened.
There is a bigger issue here
Municipal councillors don’t get to decide whether someone is worthy of making money from their property.
Our responsibility is to consider planning applications within Ontario’s legislative planning framework and make decisions based on the planning matters before us.
That doesn’t mean municipalities are powerless.
Far from it.
We can protect servicing capacity.
We can establish appropriate conditions.
We can use the new provincial tools for stalled developments where they legally apply.
We can monitor approvals. And I would support having staff provide Council and the public with clearer information about approved-but-unbuilt developments in NOTL.
But we also need to accurately explain what Council can and cannot do.
So here’s a constructive idea
Rather than declaring that every unused “approval” should expire, I would like to see the discussion broken down properly:
How many developments in NOTL currently have draft subdivision approval?
How many have site-plan approval?
How many have only zoning approval?
How many have servicing capacity allocated to them? How long have they been inactive?
And, most importantly, which of Ontario’s new “use it or lose it” provisions can legally be applied to each?
Those are questions worth asking.
If the answer shows that projects are unnecessarily tying up infrastructure needed elsewhere, then Council should examine the tools available to address it.
That’s responsible planning.
Good policy starts with identifying the problem accurately, understanding the legislation, and then using the tools available to solve it.
For anyone interested in reading what Ontario actually introduced, the Province has a useful explanation of its municipal tools for stalled developments here: Ontario — Municipal tools for stalled housing developments
And Ontario’s explanation of subdivision approvals and lapsing periods is available here:
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