Burlington Mayor Gives Address to West End Home Builders' Association

I was grateful for the opportunity to address the West End Home Builders' Association on Tuesday, June 23, 2021 and discuss City-building initiatives and Burlington's bright future ahead.As Burlington's Mayor, I am committed to productive dialogue with the development industry and hearing feedback, questions and comments while working towards making Burlington a city everyone wants to and can live in.Below is my address to WE-HBA -- click here for the accompanying slides to my presentation.--Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you about city building, growth and development in the City of Burlington. I appreciate having this opportunity to address the West End Home Builders Association (WE HBA) members and to discuss our vision of Burlington as we move forward. I want to let all of you know I am very committed to engaging with organizations like WE HBA, and collaborating to ensure Burlington continues to be a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family in.I wanted to start with some background on the beginning of my term as Mayor and how our new council reflects what the community sees as the future of growth and development in our city. In 2018, the residents of Burlington elected a new Mayor and 5 out of 6 new councillors to represent their interests. The biggest issue we saw in that election was growth and development. People did not see decisions being made at City Hall that reflected the true character of Burlington, or its future. They saw excessive high-rises being approved and focused primarily in our downtown core, a serious lack of infrastructure and greenspace to support them, and they felt they were losing the essence of what made our city beautiful.That is one of the reasons I ran for Mayor, and why Burlington had an almost entirely new council. The community had tasked us with creating a new plan to protect Burlington’s future. We needed a plan that was more reflective of residents' vision, one that put new growth and development in the right places at the right scale, and one that protected our fine and uniquely Burlington heritage aspects.BURLINGTON'S OFFICIAL PLANOne of city council’s first actions was to undertake a study to revise our 2018 adopted Official Plan (OP). One was the interim control bylaw to study the MTSA designation downtown and at the GO station. That led ultimately to the support to remove the MTSA from downtown, and created additional OP policies. We enacted an Interim Control Bylaw in March of 2019 for a time of one year to freeze development in our downtown – 1% of our city’s geography - while we conducted our studies. The other was the review of the downtown policies and precinct plan in the new Official Plan. That led to the changes and heights/densities, and was approved by Halton Region in November.As a result of both studies, staff recommended moving the MTSA from the downtown entirely, keeping it at the Burlington GO, and adjusting the UGC boundaries downtown to align with the Burlington GO MTSA. Through the study and extensive work by city staff, we created an OP that respected good planning principles, could accommodated our share of provincial growth targets, and aligned with what our community was asking for. The new Plan provides a basis for communicating Burlington’s long-term vision for sustainable growth, as well as priorities regarding intensification, climate change and the wise use of resources.Our revised new OP includes focusing height closer to the GO station(s), stronger protections for green space, heritage, jobs, our rural community, established low-density neighbourhoods and, of course, a special focus on preserving the character of the downtown.I’m extremely proud of the public engagement and cross-agency collaboration that went into creating the new Official Plan. We wanted to show our residents that their voice mattered, that we were listening and taking active steps to address their concerns. Throughout the Regional approval process, alignment with the Official Plan’s original vision and underlying principles remained a key consideration, in addition to conformity with Regional and Provincial policies.As a result of community input, policies affecting the Downtown area were refined to clarify the community’s vision for growth. The findings of the Interim Control ByLaw Land Use Study were also incorporated to strengthen transit-supportive policies within Major Transit Station Areas and led to the request to remove the MTSA from the downtown entirely.BURLINGTON HOUSING STRATEGYThe future of housing in Burlington is something that the city is very committed to working on. Burlington is an amazing place to live and raise a family, and we want to be able to offer more housing options to the current and future residents.The Housing strategy will help describe the current layout of housing in Burlington and set out policies that establish city wide housing objectives. It will also be an opportunity to examine opportunities for partnerships to increase the supply of affordable housing and consider financial and other incentives to facilitate the provision of affordable and/or special needs housing.In January 2021, city council endorse the Burlington Housing strategy Terms of Reference, directing staff to start work on the Housing Strategy. This strategy will be an opportunity to develop creative and innovative solutions for housing issues in Burlington that will build on support Halton Region’s Housing Strategy. Staff have assembled a Housing Strategy Working Group to help advise on local housing issues, to advocate for the strategy and provide key insights from a diverse background of experience and expertise.DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITYI wanted to go over the numbers we’re seeing in Burlington’s planning department for development activity. There aren’t many straight forward applications anymore. We’re long past the time where the City grew outwards, converting farmland into subdivision for new homes. Instead, we’re now growing from within, which means infill and intensification. Infill development is extremely complex to review and process and there are more technical changes and community sensitivities.We currently have 45 active major development applications at different stages of review in our system, and 54 tall or mid-rise buildings at various stages of review. To date in 2021, we have had 22 major development pre-consultations.There are approximately 5700 residential units with zoning approval and subject to final site plan approval. There are also approximately 7100 residential units that do not have zoning approval and are currently under review.The construction value of residential and commercial building permits approved in 2020 was over $370 million and we would expect to realize an increase in the city’s assessment base over the coming years based on occupancy of these new buildings.In 2020, over 680 building permits were issued for non-residential development totaling over 124,000 square meters of floor space that will continue to help our business growth and economy.Also in 2020, building permits were issued that will result in over 670 residential units that will continue to grow our city’s housing capacity.We continue to be open for business, directing growth where it needs to go. Last year we announced that Brock University is relocating their Hamilton campus to a more accessible location in Burlington to better serve students and the broader community. Having post-secondary offerings in our community is a great way to show that Burlington is open for business, and we’re looking forward to further updates on location and timelines this year on the relocation.In October 2020, City Council supported the establishment of the Burlington Lands Partnership, a new organizational structure that will oversee the strategic lands management function of the City. The BLP represents a transitional approach that allows for the expansion of organization capacity and a build-up of expertise that will in turn enable further consideration by Council of a formalized municipal development corporation (MDC) in line with other municipalities in Ontario and utilizing the powers allowed under the Municipal Act related to municipal corporations.Our goal with the BLP is to enable the City of Burlington’s focus on strategic lands related a number of key priorities, including maximizing business development opportunities that support economic growth and job creation, deliver increased affordable housing and implement city building projects and initiatives that enhance the quality of life for all citizens.We continue to work to refresh our outdated zoning bylaw with the goal of helping make simple things easier to get done.  Throughout 2020 we continued to see development applications and settlement approvals.LOCAL PLANNING APPEALS TRIBUNAL (LPAT)Appeals at the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal are a significant workload driver for our planning and building staff, and legal department. We are expecting more development related appeals before the end of the year for major development applications. Right now we have 10 appeals for major developments, 4 appeals of committee of adjustment decisions, 31 appeals of the Interim Control By-law and 44 Appeals of the new Official Plan.URBAN GROWTH CENTREI do want to address the recent news about the Province approving our request to adjust the boundaries of the Urban Growth Centre (UGC). This is something I’ve been working on, alongside many Burlington residents, since 2011. Throughout my time in office, as a Councillor and then as a Mayor, I watched our community continuously voice their concerns that our Official Plan and the development occurring was not what in line with what they saw the future of the city being. We listened to those concerns and worked for years with the provincial government in order for our request for the UGC to be moved to become a reality.Last week Minister Steve Clark of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced they will be supporting that adjustment. We’re now in the home stretch with Halton Regional Official Plan Amendment (ROPA) 48 which proposes to adjust the downtown UGC boundaries to align with the Burlington GO Major Transit Station Area (MTSA).The purpose of the proposed Regional Official Plan Amendment (ROPA 48) is to help define and provide direction on urban structure. It will identify non-discretionary components of a Regional Urban Structure including strategic growth areas such as Urban Growth Centres, Major Transit Station Areas, Regional Nodes and Employment Areas. It also proposes a limited number of employment conversions supporting the mixed-use development of certain strategic growth areas, sets performance targets related to a mix of jobs and residents in certain strategic growth areas, and updates population and employment allocations assigned to Halton Region to 2051 by the Growth Plan, 2019. The proposed Amendment applies to all lands in the Regional Municipality of Halton.Adjusting the UGC boundaries does not mean stopping growth. I know that there is opposition to this adjustment, and I understand where that concern comes from, but Burlington is still open for business and our city will continue to grow and evolve. The city has already taken on a large share of growth and will exceeds the UGC targets. Changing the boundaries does not mean people and business owners won’t be able to move to Burlington, or that we aren’t taking steps to help make living in Burlington more affordable. What’s changed is that we are directing future development with height and density where it should be, close to mass transit and where we can build complete communities.City Council supported this move from the beginning and our planning department did a fantastic job doing extensive analysis’s and providing consistent professional planning advice. They were fully supportive in helping make sure we had all the necessary planning policy work prepared to support the boundary adjustment, and I am so thankful for all their hard work.Public meetings took place earlier this month (June) and Regional Council can soon vote on this now that the public consultation has concluded and once we receive staff’s recommendation, expected in July or at the latest, September.Again, I want to thank everyone here today, for West End Home Builders Association for inviting me here and being open to have a conversation about a topic like development. I know it’s not one that we’re always going to see eye to eye on but I’m always open to having conversations with organizations such as WE HBA and figure out how we can work together.