Commenting Agencies - Internal/ External

As part of a site plan or sub­di­vi­sion review, var­i­ous agen­cies (Con­ser­va­tion, Nia­gara Escarp­ment, Min­istries (Trans­porta­tion, Envi­ron­ment, etc) , Util­i­ty com­pa­nies) might express opin­ions about the pro­posed devel­op­ment. A munic­i­pal­i­ty will col­lect all the com­ments before mak­ing a deci­sion.

An agency may also out­line any con­di­tions that must be cleared dur­ing the approval process. These con­di­tions are referred to as draft plan con­di­tions. The draft plan approval pro­ce­dure can there­fore take up to one year or more but, com­ment­ing agen­cies are usu­al­ly request­ed to make their con­cerns known with­in a few months of receiv­ing a pro­pos­al for review. This, how­ev­er, can be extend­ed over a longer peri­od and is often due to the com­plex­i­ty of cer­tain issues. Such issues as the loca­tion of roads or ser­vices for exam­ple can take con­sid­er­able time to resolve. It is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the munic­i­pal plan­ner to fol­low up with the agen­cies to ensure that their com­ments are sub­mit­ted as soon as pos­si­ble and to nego­ti­ate in the clients best inter­est keep­ing in mind the prin­ci­ples of ​“good plan­ning”. The approval author­i­ty eval­u­ates the mer­its of the pro­pos­al against cri­te­ria such as: con­for­mi­ty with the offi­cial plan, suit­abil­i­ty of the land for the pro­posed pur­pose, com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with neigh­bour­ing uses, ade­qua­cy of munic­i­pal ser­vices (roads, water, sew­er), etc.