June 5, 1998
To:Chairman and Members of the Committee of Adjustment
From:Carl Januszczak, Secretary-Treasurer and Manager, Committee of Adjustment
Subject:Staff Reports to Committee of Adjustment
Agenda:June 10, 1998
This report is further to our informal discussions on May 6, 1998, regarding the matter of staff reports to the Committee
and the former Committee's resolution of April 9, 1997 (Appendix 1). You are, by now, aware of my opinions regarding
that resolution and of my convictions that professional planning advice to the Committee of Adjustment is both a necessity
and an obligation. I want to put this issue into proper perspective.
The City's planners necessarily report to City Council with respect to all applications to rezone land and we offer opinions
and recommendations accordingly.
A minor variance application is a rezoning application by another name. By definition, the application is for a "minor"
rezoning with respect to a specific property. The Ontario Planning Act places the Committee of Adjustment in the shoes of
Council and delegates authority to the Committee to make the hundreds of "minor" rezoning amendments to the City's
zoning by-laws every year. By far, the majority of these variance applications are truly minor in nature, however a few of
them are significant enough to the City so as to require greater scrutiny by staff and the Committee.
In these cases, it is my view, shared by the Commissioner of Planning and Buildings, that the relevant planning issues
should be identified and considered, a professional opinion stated, and appropriate recommendations made for the benefit
of the Committee, the land owner, and other interested parties. This is nothing less than what is expected of the staff in
dealing with any other development application submitted to the City.
We have reviewed all variance agenda, staff reports, decisions and outcomes back to the beginning of 1995. The results are
summarized on the attached tables. The first shows the results for this year (1998) only. The second is for the period of the
Ano opinion@ policy in 1997. The third is for the pre-policy period, while the last is a grand total overall. The tables
indicate the outcomes where no
report was provided to the Committee of Adjustment, where an information only report was provided, and where staff
opinions to approve or refuse the application were provided. The following indicates some interesting findings with respect
only to applications we reported with an opinion:
1.Since the inception of the "no opinion" policy on April 9, 1997, we have actually reported 12 times; once in 1997, the
"Hughes" variance recommended to be refused (the associated consent application was subsequently refused), and the
remainder this year. In every case, the staff opinion has been accepted by the Committee.
2.Overall since 1995 we have reported with opinions on 116 applications, or only 12.3% of all applications considered by
the Committee during this period.
3.Of those 116 reported opinions (to approve or refuse), 88.8% of the staff opinions were accepted by the Committee as
the basis for its decisions.
4.Of those 116 reported opinions, only 30 (25.9%) have been appealed to the OMB. (There have of course been many
other appeals on variances, but I'm focussing here only on the reported applications.) Of these, 5 have been to the
consistent positions of staff and the Committee since inception of the no opinion policy. They are all still pending.
5.Of the remaining 25 appeals, 18 have been to the consistent positions of staff and the Committee (whether to approve or
refuse). Of these, the positions were upheld by the Board in 14 cases and rejected in the other 4. It should be noted that the
Board upheld the staff and Committee decision in one case, Dar-Zen, that had been appealed by Council. Staff were
subpoenaed, but were not required to testify as the matter was settled in a motion hearing.
6.Of the only 7 appeals where the staff opinion differed from the Committee'
7.I mention the one subpoena in 5. above. There have only been two others, involving 2 of the 7 cases where the staff
opinion differed from the Committee, one of which was settled prior to a hearing, (the auto auction).
8.The actual testimony of staff subpoenaed against a Committee of Adjustment decision has only factored into 1 case
(Toronto Sufferance), out of 943 applications generating 116 staff reports and 30 appeals since 1995.
In conclusion, the suggestions that City planning staff have been subpoenaed to appear in opposition to a large number of
appealed Committee decisions is simply invalid and unsustained.
That the Committee of Adjustment rescind its resolution dated April 9, 1997, and direct the planning staff to report to the
Committee with respect to all significant minor variance applications together with professional opinions and
recommendations where appropriate.
Carl Januszczak, M.C.I.P., R.P.P.
