Official Plan Review

City of Brantford Official Plan – Envisioning Our City: 2051

The City of Brantford has prepared a new Official Plan: Envisioning Our City 2051. The new Official Plan provides a vision for the future growth of the City and a policy framework to guide the City's physical development to 2051. It replaces the former Official Plan with updated land use policies and schedules (maps) to address the changing needs of the community and includes the expansion lands (formerly part of the County of Brant) added to the City’s municipal boundary in 2017. The Official Plan and review process must conform to Provincial policy including the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe as amended in August 2020.

Latest Update - Provincial Approval

The Province of Ontario issued a Notice of Decision on August 4, 2021 regarding the City of Brantford Official Plan – Envisioning Our City: 2051. The Decision approves, with modifications, the new Official Plan for the City of Brantford which is in effect as of August 5, 2021.

City Adoption

By-law 1-2021 was passed by City Council to adopt the Official Plan at the March 23, 2021 Council meeting. A Notice of Adoption was issued on April 1, 2021 when  the new Official Plan was submitted to the Province for final approval.

City Council, at its meeting held on January 26, 2021, approved recommendations to adopt the new City of Brantford Draft Official Plan – Envisioning Our City: 2051 in March 2021. This decision supported the recommendations approved by the Special Committee of the Whole – Community Development at the end of the Public Meeting sessions held on November 19, 2020 and January 19, 2021.

The Official Plan includes revisions made to the Settlement Area to address the August 2020 amendments to the provincial Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (Growth Plan). The Municipal Comprehensive Review Addendum Report accounts for those changes. Other revisions were made to address various comments the City received on the previous Draft versions of the Official Plan, and to incorporate the amendments approved by Council.

City Council also endorsed the following three supporting documents at the January 26, 2021 City Council meeting:

Urban Design Manual – The updated Urban Design Manual provides a consolidated set of citywide urban design guidelines. It reflects the City’s commitment to good urban design and provides a consistent baseline for assessing development proposals on both public and private lands.

Comprehensive Block Plan Terms of Reference (Appendix B to the Draft Official Plan) – The Official Plan requires completion of a Block Plan prior to the approval of development applications upon lands located within the proposed Block Plan areas, identified on Schedule 2 of the Official Plan. The Comprehensive Block Plan Terms of Reference has been prepared to outline expectations for Block Plan submissions and allow for efficient preparation and review. It sets out a process based on the minimum requirements to complete a Block Plan.

Draft Infrastructure Staging Report –This report outlines the required water, wastewater, stormwater and transportation infrastructure and community facilities necessary to support development within the Settlement Area expansion lands.  The Draft Infrastructure Staging Report will be updated after addendum updates to the 2020 Master Servicing Plan and 2020 Transportation Master Plan, to accommodate the extension of the growth forecasts from 2041 to 2051, are completed. 

A hard copy of each document listed above will also be available for public viewing at City Hall between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, by contacting the Planning Department at 519-759-4150, ext. 5873 to schedule a viewing appointment.

Past Meetings

Previous Reports

The June 2020 Draft Official Plan, including Schedules 1 to 13 and Appendix A, was issued on June 30, 2020 for a public and agency review and commenting period which closed on August 28, 2020. The following companion documents were also made available:

The preferred Settlement Area boundary expansion (Option 1) reflected in the June 2020 Draft Official Plan and presented in Staff Report 2019-184 was endorsed by Council in April 2019. It is based on the evaluation of land use concepts within Settlement Area Boundary Expansion Options 1 and 2, contained in Municipal Comprehensive Review - Part 3: Preferred Settlement Area Boundary Expansion and Preliminary Land Use and Transportation Plan - Draft April 2019, and Appendices. Council reconfirmed the growth targets for intensification in the Built-up Area and density in the Designated Greenfield Area in July 2019 (Council Agenda and Staff Report 2019-408). Staff Report 2019-691 advised that the Province approved the City’s alternative intensification target request in November 2019.

The MCR Part 3 Report builds on the evaluation of Settlement Area boundary expansion options proposed in Municipal Comprehensive Review - Part 2: Settlement Area Boundary Expansion - Draft December 2018. The amount of land required to accommodate Brantford’s population and employment growth to the year 2041 was determined in Municipal Comprehensive Review - Part 1: Employment Strategy, Intensification Strategy, Housing Strategy and Land Needs - Draft December 2018, which also identified appropriate intensification and density targets.

Contacts
For more information about the new  Official Plan – Envisioning Our City: 2051 and the Official Plan Review process, please contact:

Updates
To stay updated on this process, please subscribe to email updates by using the link at the bottom of the page or contact the Planning Department.