The City of Toronto is conducting a review of the Committee of Adjustment. Led by the City Planning Division, the objective of the review is to improve effective participation in the public hearing process. A third-party consultant, KPMG, was retained to carry out the work.
KPMG has already begun work on this project including two feedback sessions held on June 2nd and June 13th with residents’ associations invited to attend. We understand that about 30 residents’ associations participated in these sessions.
FoNTRA has completed some research work related to this subject and has created three reports, as follows:
- Survey of User Experiences – with input from residents’ associations and their members
- City-wide Issues List – a compendium of problems and solutions
- Review of Four Hearings – using a scorecard to measure the activities
Survey of User Experiences
FoNTRA used a survey template suggested by the Ombudsman in B.C. to measure the fairness of the COA tribunals. The methodology is called the Fairness Triangle and measures Process, Decisions and Service.
The survey was quite successful with 112 respondents with a broad range of experience at COA hearings. Survey questions are below – note: survey itself is now closed.
Survey Results
City-Wide Issues List
FoNTRA has been active for several years identifying problems at the COA hearings on a city-wide basis. FoNTRA has created a compendium of these problems to create a master issues list.
Review of Four Hearings
To assist in our assessment of the COA performance, we decided to analyzed the activities of each Panel on a specific day in April 2022. There are separate Panels for each of four planning districts … Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and Toronto/East York.
In order to assist with this analysis we created a scorecard for itemize the activity of each scheduled item on the agendas of each of the panels.
Next Steps
The KPMG team has asked all of the participating residents’ associations to provide individual submissions based on their experience. We encourage our members to provide submissions.
The Lytton Park Residents Organization recently submitted comments in response to the KPMG request.
South Eglinton Davisville Residents‘ Association has prepared a submission in response to the KPMG request, focused on a comparison of C of A Best Practices with GTA municipalities.
South Armour Heights Residents’ Association has prepared a submission in response to the KPMG request.
Don Mills Residents Inc. has prepared a submission in response to the KPMG request.