The City of Toronto’s Planning Division has had a very busy year. City Planning recently released their very first Annual Report which outlines the achievements of the past year and the priorities of the Division moving forward. Containing information on the several projects, plans and studies familiar to UrbanToronto readers, the report also acts as a useful reference document for anybody interested in the development of the city.

2013 Development Review title page from the Toronto Planning Annual Report

To further understand the contents and value of the Annual Report, UrbanToronto had the pleasure of speaking with Jennifer Keesmaat, the Chief Planner and Executive Director of the City of Toronto's Planning Department. 

UrbanToronto: The City Planning Division launched its first Strategic Plan in 2013, a guiding document which will assist planners in implementing the Official Plan over the next five years. The Strategic Plan also emphasized the need for an Annual Report. What was the thought process and purpose behind creating the report?

Jennifer Keesmaat: There were a couple things. The first one that the Strategic Plan points to is transparency – being very clear with respect to the work the City Planning Division is engaged in, the work that has been completed and what our priorities are moving forward in 2014. Really the big idea driving it is transparency and also adding clarity as to what it is the City Planning Division does. When a lot of people open up the report, they say “oh, I didn’t know you do this, you do that too?!” I think it has been a very helpful document in that regard.       

Within the last year, the City Planning Division has engaged the public through consultations, social media and events like Planners in Public Spaces. How does that fit in with the overall purpose of the report and vision for the city?

At a very basic level, in order to collaborate, a key objective of our Strategic Plan is to continually work to broaden participation in city building. It’s really difficult to participate in something if you don’t know what people do. So we recognize that in order to broaden participation in city building, we need to actually be really transparent about what it is we’re doing so that people know the opportunities to come into our processes and participate. So there’s a direct connection between the objectives outlined in our Strategic Plan and being more collaborative in finding meaningful ways for the public to participate and collaborate with us in ensuring people know the work we undertake in a year. This is an annual report and we’re pretty excited about doing this every year.

As the Chief Planner of Toronto, you have identified the need for increased density, transportation options and walkable neighbourhoods. There are several developments, projects, plans and studies referenced throughout the report that address some of these needs. Is there any specific project you believe will have the greatest positive impact on the city?

One of the big ones you will see in the report are the Tall Building Guidelines. The Tall Building Guidelines were adopted in May 2013 and are really important because they articulate very clearly the role that tall buildings ought to play moving forward in creating a higher quality public realm. That’s something we recognize because tall buildings have a large impact so they have specific obligations and the Tall Building Guidelines are about ensuring that our tall buildings are responding to specific obligations that they have. It’s really a seminal landmark document that has been developed over quite a few years that we were able to move forward and get approval for in 2013. That’s going to have a very positive impact on the city moving forward.

Are these strictly guidelines or are they going to be mandatory moving forward?

They are guidelines, but we currently use them as we go through the negotiation process on city applications and as we move forward and implement the development permit system in different areas of the city, we flag that as one of our 2014 priorities. We will be taking the Tall Building Guidelines and entrenching them in bylaws. So they will have a big impact.

Heritage preservation has been a hot topic lately with the loss of 81 Wellesley Street East and the former Empress Hotel. Protection of heritage assets is identified as a priority in the Official Plan. With Toronto undergoing a building boom amid criticisms that Heritage Preservation Services is underfunded, how does the city properly balance heritage protection with the pressures of development?

One of the critical things that we’re doing right now is undertaking five new Heritage Conservation District Study Areas and we’re doing them in areas that are under a tremendous amount of growth pressure. So we want to get those Heritage Conservation Districts into our high-growth areas as soon as possible. The good news is that we were able to secure in the 2014 Budget additional capital funding for the first time for Heritage Conservation Districts as well as the resources to expedite the creation of Heritage Conservation Districts in the city, which was one of my key objectives coming in here as Chief Planner. The picture wasn’t so rosy a year ago but we are sitting in a much better position moving forward.

The report contains a great deal of useful information about the City of Toronto’s planning policies and programs.  Is there any specific section of the report you wish to highlight for those who may not read it in its entirety?

We would like to encourage everybody to read it. We tried to make it really readable and really acceptable because we really do want people to read it. We do have a graphic on the second page after the Chief Planner’s Message where we talk about who puts into the process, what people, how we go through planning, and I think that’s a pretty powerful graphic because it paints a portrait of the magnitude of what we do in the City Planning Division on an annual basis. I have a relatively small team and even with the volume of work we process and undertake it’s impossible to look at that graphic and not be impressed.

It’s a very detailed report considering there aren’t that many pages.

We have some really large projects in here that we only gave a paragraph to. For example, we undertook a comprehensive review of our employment lands in 2013 that resulted in a 600-page report to Council but that’s only represented by one little paragraph in this book. It’s tricky to get it right but we’re very proud of the report.

What do you expect or hope to gain from this report and how will that influence further public involvement in planning?

One of the critical things that this report does is capture in one document the magnitude of the work that we do and as I mentioned earlier, in order to participate in a process you need to understand what is captured by that process. My hope is that people will read this document and think “wow, thank you City Planning for doing the good work that you do” and also think “wow, there’s lots of very important, interesting work going on and I would like to know how I can get more involved with building my city." My hope is that it will draw people into our planning process.

Thank you very much for your time!

The City Planning Division's Annual Report can be found at this link