Toronto Development Review, Permitting and Inspection Services Resume

Toronto Building Permitting and Inspections have now resumed. Initially overwhelmed by the level of disruption caused by COVID-19, many of the City’s services were scaled back, delayed, or suspended. This has impacted many industries, including developers working within the City of Toronto. With new IT deployments and staffing changes, services are now coming back online, with some modifications.

Only electronic applications are being accepted and there are new standards for in-person inspections for health and safety. Priority is being given to permits applications received prior to the service disruption and new applications are being evaluated for a general timeline for processing.‍

Committee of Adjustment hearings are resuming starting June 3, 2020 and future meetings have been booked through July 31, 2020. These meetings will be taking place virtually and the first set of notices will be delivered this week. The new meeting format will restrict agendas to a maximum of 20 items and priority is being given to items received by March 16 and those files that are completed. More complex cases requiring in-person meetings will be deferred to a later date. Based on the current backlog, it is expected that it will take a number of months to catch-up.

Staff are currently considering when full services, including accepting and reviewing Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendments Draft Plan of Subdivision will be completely operational.

The following is the status of each service area:

Development Review & Related Services

Permits

Building Inspections

Committee of Adjustment

Consultations