County of Brant Council discussed updating its land use planning framework to help implement the new Official Plan during their regular council meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2025.
Brandon Kortleve, Manager of Policy Planning, said the municipality is exploring the use of a Community Planning Permit System (CPPS) to replace its zoning and site control by-laws as they were developed under the 2012 Official Plan, and are outdated and rooted in pre-amalgamation standards.
According to his report, the CPPS is a tool that offers a modernized framework for land use planning and is designed to “combine zoning, minor variances, and site plan control into a single streamlined process, enabling faster approvals, clearer development standards, and better alignment with community goals. The system also supports housing diversity, rural economic development, climate resilience, and the protection of employment lands and natural heritage.”
During her presentation to Council, Chun Chu of Dillon Consulting said there are several benefits to using a CPPS including the ability to:
- Streamline the development process with shorter approval timelines (from 160-plus days down to 45 days)
- Front-end public engagement during the development of the CPPS rather than during each individual application
- Require pre-consultation as needed
- Impose a broader range of conditions of development that benefit the community
- Reduce the number of applications required for homeowners and developers
- Add predictability to the process and a more stable planning vision for the municipality
- Integrate other regulatory frameworks and processes into the CPP By-law
- Provide direction on aspects such as landscaping, urban design criteria, and heritage character
- Support flexible use permissions through discretionary uses
Negin Mousavi Barenjaghi, a Junior Policy Planner with the County, said that despite the many benefits of the CPPS, it’s not a perfect tool and there are some potential impacts and risks to both the community and to the Planning Division.
She said from the community standpoint, the CPPS may reduce the opportunity for public engagement on individual applications; that there could be difficulty in understanding the new framework; that there are concerns around a fair distribution of community benefits across communities; and there would be no third-party appeal rights.
The junior policy planner added that as far as staff is concerned, delegation of approvals may raise concerns about consistency; that there would be a need for systems to track outcomes and assess financial impacts; and that staff would likely need significant training to administer the new process and interpret the CPP by-law.
“We can explore a phased training program to make sure that guidelines are provided to different departments across the County to make sure that expectations are set early on, and that guidelines are provided specific to the needs of each department within the County,” said Mousavi Barenjaghi
Following the presentation, Councillor John Bell said he didn’t understand how it was possible to condense 160 days of effort into 45 days.
“The unique thing about a CPP is that it’s a system that will have clear rules for the development standards as well as the criteria for any variation. Because of that clear transparency, the developers or applicants would know the rules up front,” responded Chu. “In addition to that, a CPPS can require pre-consultation; as you are aware, Bill 185 took away that ability for municipalities to mandate pre-consultation for a regular development application, but under the CPPs regime, you can make it required. That means that you can let the developer know, up front, exactly what studies they need, what conditions they need to fulfill, and what information is needed in order for the municipality to make a decision within the 45 day framework.”
Chu also added that because the CPPS allows for delegated authority, it could also help shrink administrative timelines so decisions can be made more quickly.
Kortleve also said that he didn’t expect the 45 day timeframe to happen overnight, but that it would be something the CPPS would allow them to work towards.
Councillor Brian Coleman later said he was concerned that only seven of the 444 municipalities in Ontario, including Lake of Bays, Carleton Place, Ganonoque, Brampton, Innisfil, Huntsville and Guelph, have implemented the system.
“I’m all about the change and I support reducing the timeline, but I’m a little concerned that there’s not that many municipalities that have bit into this yet,” he said. “… If you were telling me that we’ve got 200 other municipalities looking at this system, I would be a little bit more confident, but I’m not confident in the way it is right now.”
Councillors John MacAlpine and Bell also brought up that they were worried about the lack of public consultation process when it comes to individual applications.
“I’m a little troubled by what I see on page six of your report in the CPPS process, the word public input isn’t featured at all,” said Bell.
Kortleve explained that the CPPS would front-end the consultation process, meaning developers would be required to get various levels of public input before the application is even made.
He also said if it’s a larger impact development that needs to go to Council for approval, “there would be that portion that’s required for public input as part of the application, and then we could require a public meeting for council to make the decision as well. So we can tweak that based on the different thresholds of the impact of the development.”
Public engagement on this project was initiated on September 22, 2025, with the launch of an EngageBrant webpage, and will continue after a draft CPP by-law is released in early 2026. The system should then be implemented between May and June of next year.
While Bell was happy to receive the information in the report, he said he was not fully convinced the change would be beneficial, asking that the Council defer the motion to endorse the development of the CPPS and to direct staff to draft a CPP by-law and OP amendment.
The deferral failed, and Council ultimately voted in favour of having staff move forward. Councillors Bell and Peirce both voted against the motion.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
