Growth Management
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 Growth management is about controlling where and how our population and employment growth will happen, while thinking about things like planning, design, servicing and financing. Growth management is an important topic and a key component when creating policies that will direct and manage growth in the County of Brant. These policies will help ensure that we're growing in a responsible manner, making sure our future generations will have the resources needed to continue to make Brant a charming, prosperous and inclusive community.
Below are common questions and more information on growth management and what tools are available to the County of Brant to ensure that our growth best fits evolving local priorities and changing communities needs.
| What does an Official Plan have to do with growth? |
| An Official Plan is the County of Brant's way of creating policies and objectives that will guide growth and land-use. Our new Official Plan will continue to guide the decisions we make about things like transportation and mobility, infrastructure, climate change, protecting our resources, economic development and building healthy and complete communities. It allows us to look at what growth is expected to come our way and to determine where it will go, how it should look, and how long it will take. |
| What is the Province's Growth Plan? |
The Growth Plan is a policy document that sets general growth targets and policies in place for all municipalities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (including the County of Brant and some of our neighbours). We are required to conform to the new Growth Plan by July 1, 2021, and we are working on doing this by creating our new Official Plan in time for that date. The Growth Plan sets our population and employment targets (different for each municipality), provides general directions and policies to guide that growth, but gives the County of Brant flexibility to determine how to make that growth best suit our communities. There is more information on A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe at the bottom of this web page.
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| What are the key growth management targets in the Growth Plan? |
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The Growth Plan sets targets for population and employment growth, forecasted to the year 2051. There are annual housing development targets and employment density targets (people and jobs per hectare), with the majority of development being directed to areas that are already developed. These numbers help us determine if we need more land for our growth, or if the current boundaries to our settlements will allow us to grow as needed.
The County of Brant will need to accommodate 59,000 residents and 26,000 jobs by the year 2051.
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| Can we stop or slow down urban development and population growth? |
| While it is possible for the County of Brant to slow or constrain urban development, it is difficult for the County to reduce population growth pressures. These pressures are largely controlled by broader forces like provincial population, job growth and federal immigration policies. Growth in the County of Brant is anticipated to be largely driven by migration from elsewhere in Ontario. Without this anticipated growth, the County of Brant's population and labour force base would gradually decline over the next several decades. With this in mind, it is important that we focus our efforts on managing and controlling our growth in order to ensure that the County of Brant will experience job and population growth that is beneficial to everyone. |
| Why do we have to plan so far into the future? |
| Long-term population and employment forecasting will help the County of Brant accommodate growth, manage change and think BIG picture. These forecasts are an important part in making sure we are financially, socio-economically and environmentally sustainable for our future generations. It helps us plan for government services, infrastructure and avoiding over or under estimating our future land supplies. An Official Plan helps guide other forecasting and planning like housing supply plans, economic development and tourism planning, financial strategies, corporate strategic plans and master servicing and transportation plans. With so many people working to keep the County of Brant running the Official Plan can help guide all these projects forward to the same objectives. |
| Where can I learn more about the Province's A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe? |
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Land Needs Assessment
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Our Land Needs Assessment, or LNA, is a technical process through which we determine how much land is needed in the County of Brant to accommodate forecasted population and employment growth. Land needs are generally assessed based on two different areas: Community Areas and Employment Areas, meaning that the assessment is done on space for housing and space for jobs. There are several general components to the LNA process which are described and illustrated below. The LNA is done to determine how much land the County of Brant has available at present and how much will be needed to accommodate its growth to 2051 so that our new Official Plan uses the most up-to-date data to inform our policies and Council's decision making.
| Community Area Land Needs |
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 One of the important discussions for the County of Brant with respect to community population growth will be the allocation of that growth. Now that we know how many people we are expected to have in the County by 2051, where will we be locating these new homes?
Once we've determined where we'll be locating the housing, we'll need to choose the types of housing that we think will most appropriately accommodate those new residents. Will we have small-scale walk-up apartments? Will there be a mix of townhouses, semi-detached units and duplex units? These considerations will need to be reflected in the new Official Plan's housing policies.
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| Employment Area Land Needs |
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In order to plan for the growth of our economy and provide jobs for our residents, we need to make sure that there is enough land available to create businesses and jobs. We'll be thinking about where we can locate employment, whether in our community areas with mixed uses, in employment dedicated areas like business parks, or outside of our settlement areas like agriculture-related and on-farm diversified uses.
Once we've determined where we want to encourage jobs, we'll need to think about transportation and connections to those places, what types of jobs we want to encourage here in the County of Brant, and how we can help our local business owners thrive in the economy of the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
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Site Specific Designation Considerations
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The County of Brant is inviting land owners to submit requests to review their land use designation on their properties through the New Official Plan process.
County staff will begin to review and evaluate each request against criteria and make overall recommendations to Council. Once initial recommendations have been determined on land use designations, the County of Brant will discuss with the landowners of each request to provide the results of the evaluation process and receive any further information.
Please submit requests electronically to officialplan@brant.ca by April 30th, 2021 with the following information at a minimum:
- Municipal address(es) and map clearly outlining the area to be considered.
- Property description, including the past/current uses and site characteristics.
- Planning Rationale for request, including analysis of Provincial Policy Statement and the Growth Plan policies.
- Current Land Use Designation and reason for request (i.e. proposed future use).
- Availability of servicing (water, sewer).
- Please note if this request is inside or outside of a County Settlement Area Boundary, or if the lands are designated Agricultural.
This can be sent in a PDF format for file.
All requests will be reviewed and evaluated which are based on Provincial policies and County of Brant objectives. Please note there is no guarantee that requests will result in a staff recommendation and/or Council’s decision to convert the land designation.
The Official Plan Designations are outlined on Schedule ‘A’ and can be viewed at the following link along with the Official Plan text document:
https://www.brant.ca/en/invest-in-brant/official-plan.aspx#Find-the-Land-Use-Designation-of-a-specific-area
If you have any questions or require any clarification regarding preparation of your submission, current County of Brant Official Plan, and/or New Official Plan please do not hesitate to contact the policy team at officialplan@brant.ca
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Employment Lands & Conversion Requests
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The County of Brant’s new Official Plan is currently underway. This will include an assessment of the County’s employment land needs, a vacant employment land inventory and economic and employment analysis. This analysis will help us ensure that the County has an available supply of serviced and un-serviced employment lands in all parts of the County to meet our planning horizon to the year 2051. We need to ensure that the County has at least 26,000 jobs available by 2051, and this part of our land needs analysis will help our Economic Development staff prepare an employment strategy that best reflects the future opportunities to increase our employment options here in the County of Brant.
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What is an employment land conversion?
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| Part of this comprehensive process is to review and evaluate requests to convert specific properties (or areas) that are currently designated for employment and consider permitting non-employment uses. This is referred to as an 'employment land conversion'. Non-employment uses could include residential, mixed use, commercial, and institutional uses, rather than typical industrial or commercial uses seen in business areas. One aspect of this assessment is to identify employment lands may be better suited for non-employment uses.
As part of our public engagement process, we want to hear from the general public if they support or oppose conversion requests. These discussions will happen to as part of our Economic Development and Prosperity discussion platform.
As of September, 2020, the County has received fifteen (15) landowner requests for employment land conversions in various parts of the County.
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| I have a property that is designated employment, can I be considered? |
| The County of Brant is inviting land owners to submit requests for properties that are currently designated for employment to be converted to permit non-employment uses.
County staff will begin to review and evaluate each request against the conversion criteria and make recommendations to Council. Once initial recommendations have been determined, the County of Brant will meet with the landowners of each request to provide the results of the evaluation process and receive any further information.
Please submit requests electronically to jennifer.boyer@brant.ca by December 31, 2020 with the following information at a minimum:
- Municipal address(es) and a map clearly outlining the area to be considered;
- Property description, including the past/current uses and site characteristics that may make it unsuitable for employment use;
- Availability of servicing (water, sewer)
- Proposed non-employment use, with as much detail as possible (i.e. residential conversions including unit count, type of development, etc.)
- Planning Rationale for the conversion request
- If this request is inside or outside of a County Settlement Area Boundary, or would be an expansion to a Settlement Area Boundary.
All requests will be reviewed and evaluated against the County's developed criteria for conversion considerations, which is based on Provincial policies and County of Brant objectives. Please note there is no guarantee that requests will result in a staff recommendation and/or Council’s decision to convert employment lands to non-employment uses.
Our employment land needs assessment is being conducted as part of our new Official Plan review, which will fulfill the Municipal Comprehensive Review requirements of the Provincial Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
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| Employment Land Conversion Criteria |
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As part of the County of Brant Municipal Comprehensive Review (MCR), the County of Brant has developed principles for our Employment Areas to assist with conversion criteria for the review of Employment Land conversion requests. If not carefully evaluated, the conversion of Employment Areas to non-employment uses can potentially lead to negative impacts on County of Brant’s economy, considering such things as available employment opportunities, the employment land supply, and possible fragmentation of our Employment areas. While the developed criteria will provide direction for local planning and real estate market considerations, it is not assumed that a site which meets more than half of the criteria is immediately considered for conversion.
The Employment Conversation Criteria include consideration of the Provincial requirements as well as localized criteria including location, access, area and site configuration, land-use, land supply, and municipal interests and policy. To view and download a summary document of the criteria prepared for the 2020/2021 Municipal Comprehensive Review, please follow this link or visit www.brant.ca/EmploymentConversionCriteria.
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| Limitation on appeals |
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Generally appeals for land conversion requests are not permitted, including the following circumstances:
- Refusals or non-decisions on proposed amendments that would remove land from an 'area of employment' if appropriate Official Plan policies are in place
- Minister's decision on new Official Plans and Official Plan updates
In the case of the new Official Plan for the County of Brant, there is no ability for a person or public body to appeal the entire plan, although any part of the plan can be appealed. For more information on making an appeal to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT), please visit the LPAT dedicated webpage on the Province of Ontario's website or by clicking this link.
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