Victoria and Park | 25, 36, 38 fl | Proposed

[ZEBuilder]

That is just the unfortunate reality of the development industry, people with money realized they could put in some work get approvals then sit on it while it just gains value and make a pretty penny while doing it.

Is there anything that municipalities are entitled to from developers who take up a lot of municipal staff time but then don't do anything?  Would the backlog in approvals that developers constantly complain about shrink if all of the "will never see the light of day projects" get removed from the pipeline?  In some way, Waterloo's bylaw that limits the timeframe between demolition and reconstruction has kept developers from razing residential properties and leaving them as empty lots.

The simple answer is including sunset clauses in every ZBA/OPA. You would very quickly get rid of all the fake proposals because you'd keep on having to reapply for ZBA/OPAs if you're just sitting and that becomes unprofitable real quick.

There would need to be stipulations within a sunset clause bylaw for very specific cases where timelines get dragged on but those could very easily be put in place as part of the site specific bylaw much like holding provisions.

The funny thing is there really isn't a backlog of approvals as developers love to say, there's thousands of units with SPA approval as we speak that just aren't being built. Not picking on a developer in particular but locally VanMar is sitting on loads of approved but unbuilt units. They have SPA for the remaining 2 Station Park towers, 10 Duke, and 417 King, all 40+ floors and in total 2000+ units. Those projects only need building permits and they can start, however the financial model that VanMar and most condo developers have is not conducive to building speculatively. VanMar does have some money don't get me wrong but you're not going to see them finance a 40+ floor building with their own money. This is why companies that build rental are still building because they have so many assets they can leverage if they need loans, or just massive amounts of liquidity and CMHC has been throwing around a lot of money lately for rental (Vive has been getting a ton of it). In some cases notably SFH developers who have capital are just building units on spec, for example Erinbrook Towns, some of Trussler West and Harvest Park by Activa all have portions being built speculatively.

As you mentioned there are some aspects of the redevelopment process that can be controlled. For example what you're alluding to is known as demolition control, most municipalities have some form of bylaw controlling the demolition of residential units. In Kitchener for example there's 3 conditions that can be applied, building permit and/or SPA, and reconstruction must occur within 2 years, if a developer fails to meet that it's 20000 dollars per dwelling unit, which depending on the project can be costly.