October 14, 2026

Site Plan Control in Ontario: Exemptions, Fees and Timelines

Site plan control is the municipal review of how a building sits on its land: where it goes, how cars, trucks and people get in and out, grading and drainage, servicing, garbage, landscaping and lighting. If your site is in a site plan control area, which in Toronto is the whole city, you need the City’s approval of your site plan before you can get a building permit for many new buildings and large additions. Residential buildings with 10 units or fewer are exempt in most places. In Toronto the 2026 fee starts at $43,605.12 plus $5.37 per square metre of floor area. The law gives the municipality 60 days to decide. In practice, a 2024 study for the Ontario Association of Architects put the average across Ontario at 23 months.

The rules have changed several times since 2022, and more change has been proposed. Every rule and fee below was checked on October 13, 2026 against e-Laws and the City of Toronto. This is a practical guide, not legal advice; a planner and, where needed, a lawyer belong on the team for this step.

What site plan control covers, and what it can’t

In Toronto the power comes from section 114 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006. Everywhere else in Ontario it is section 41 of the Planning Act, which says plainly that it “does not apply to the City of Toronto” (s. 41(16)). The two sections say almost the same thing, so we cite the Planning Act numbers below and give the Toronto numbers where they matter.

A council designates a site plan control area in its official plan and by-law. Inside it, nobody can undertake “development” until the municipality has approved the plans and drawings (s. 41(4)). Development means building, or an addition or alteration “that has the effect of substantially increasing the size or usability” of a building, plus commercial parking lots and some trailer and land lease sites (s. 41(1)).

Two things get approved. The site plan shows every building and facility on the land. The drawings show each building’s massing and conceptual design and how it meets the street and its neighbours; residential buildings under 25 units usually don’t need them (s. 41(4), (5)).

As a condition of approval, the municipality can require the owner to provide, at no cost to the municipality, a defined list of things (s. 41(7)):

Sources: Planning Act s. 41(4), (4.1), (4.1.1), (4.1.2), (6), (7), (9.2); City of Toronto Act s. 114(5), (6), (11), (13.1). The June 2, 2026 dates are the in-force dates e-Laws gives for the Bill 98 amendments.

The right-hand column is the part owners most often don’t know. Site plan is about the site: access, servicing, grading and the edge with the neighbours. It can’t cut your height or density (s. 41(6)), and since 2022 it can’t send you back to change the colour of the brick. If a comment seems outside that scope, the owner or the municipality can ask the Ontario Land Tribunal to decide (s. 41(4.2)).

Toronto’s own site plan page still lists “sustainable design” among the things reviewed, but it was last modified in September 2025, before the Act changed (City of Toronto, Site Plan Control Applications). Ask the planner on your file how the Toronto Green Standard is handled now. Our guide to the Toronto Green Standard after Bill 98 sets out which measures the City’s interim checklist still requires.

Do you need site plan approval? Exemptions

Start by checking whether your project is “development” at all, then whether it falls into an exempt class.

The 10-unit exemption

Since November 28, 2022 (Bill 23), a residential building on a parcel that will contain no more than 10 residential units isn’t development for site plan purposes (Planning Act s. 41(1.2); City of Toronto Act s. 114(1.2)). Count every unit on the parcel, not only the ones in the new building.

The exemption doesn’t apply where the parcel includes land in a prescribed area. The Province has prescribed two: land within 300 metres of a railway line, and land within 120 metres of a wetland, the Great Lakes shoreline, an inland lake or a river or stream valley (O. Reg. 254/23 for the Planning Act; O. Reg. 255/23 for Toronto). Discontinued and abandoned rail lines, and lines used only by urban transit, don’t count. In Toronto, Chapter 415 then leaves it to the City to decide whether such a project needs site plan approval (s. 415-45.5). In a city crossed by rail corridors and ravines, that catches more lots than owners expect, so measure before you assume.

This is why most fourplexes and sixplexes in Toronto don’t go through site plan, as we set out in our guide to building a multiplex in Toronto.

Toronto’s own exemptions

Toronto designates all land in the city as a site plan control area (Toronto Municipal Code, Chapter 415, s. 415-43), then exempts classes of development. On our reading of the Code as consolidated June 26, 2025, the main ones are:

1. New residential buildings of 10 units or less, and some of four storeys or less (for example, the only building on the lot, or under 2,000 square metres).
2. Laneway and garden suites.
3. Mixed-use buildings of up to six storeys with 10 units or less and shops at grade, excluding uses such as drive-throughs, places of worship and medical offices.
4. Industrial and warehouse buildings totalling no more than 2,000 square metres on the lot, or the zoning maximum if greater.
5. Additions under 600 square metres to commercial, office or institutional buildings, outside the front yard; industrial additions up to the greater of 25% or 1,000 square metres.
6. Interior conversions that leave 10 units or less, or change the use of up to 1,000 square metres.
7. Rebuilding after fire, flood or a City order, at the same size, setbacks and use.

There are exceptions to the exceptions. The City can pull an exempt project back in where there’s a road widening requirement, or where it would benefit from review of access, sidewalks or protection of neighbouring lands (s. 415-45.5). That doesn’t apply to residential buildings of 10 units or less unless they’re in the rail or water areas above.

The City recommends a Zoning Applicable Law Certificate review to confirm whether a property needs site plan approval at all. For anything near the thresholds, we’d pay for it before spending on site plan drawings.

Outside Toronto

Each municipality sets its own site plan control area and exempt classes by by-law, under the Planning Act. In Mississauga, for comparison, the pre-application meeting is recommended but optional, pre-screening “usually takes 3 to 5 business days,” and a third resubmission triggers a recommended meeting with the reviewers (City of Mississauga, Apply for site plan approval). The 10-unit rule applies there as it does in Toronto.

The site plan approval process in Toronto, step by step

This is the City’s sequence (City of Toronto, Site Plan Control Applications) with what it means for the owner at each step.

1. Pre-application consultation (PAC). Since Bill 185 (2024) the City can’t make it mandatory, but the Act requires it to permit one (Planning Act s. 41(3.1); City of Toronto Act s. 114(4)), and Toronto “strongly encourages” it. You request it with a concept site plan and elevations, and pay a non-refundable $3,000 deposit. You get five minutes to present, then a Planning Application Checklist Package listing the studies and drawings your application needs (City of Toronto, Pre-Application Consultation). The deposit comes off the application fee if you apply. Without a meeting, you complete the standard Application Checklist yourself.
2. Prepare and submit. The design team prepares everything on the checklist and submits it online; City staff check the documents and send payment instructions.
3. Completeness. Within 30 days of the fee, the City must tell you whether the application is complete (Planning Act s. 41(3.6); City of Toronto Act s. 114(4.5)). If it says not, the notice lists what’s missing. If you disagree, or it doesn’t answer, you can bring a motion to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The 60-day clock in the Act doesn’t start until the plans, required studies and fee are all in (s. 41(3.5)).
4. Circulation. City divisions and agencies review it, plus outside bodies such as the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority or a rail authority where the location calls for it.
5. Comments and revisions. The planner collects comments from circulation, the ward councillor and the community. You revise and resubmit as one package, showing what changed and explaining anything you didn’t change. The first resubmission carries no fee.
6. Recirculation. Revised drawings go back out. This repeats until the comments are resolved. Each cycle is where the months go.
7. Notice of Approval Conditions (NOAC). The Director of Community Planning issues it, and it “constitutes approval with conditions.” It lists pre-clearance conditions, which you meet before final approval, and post-clearance conditions, which you meet during or after construction.
8. Site plan agreement and securities. Entering the agreement is normally a pre-clearance condition. In most cases you also post financial securities, and the agreement is registered on title.
9. Statement of Approval. Once the pre-clearance conditions are met and the agreement is registered, the City issues final approval. You can proceed to the building permit on the approved drawings.

What the application usually needs

The checklist package decides this, and it varies with the site. Expect a site plan, architectural plans and elevations, a landscaping plan, a site servicing and grading plan, a functional servicing and stormwater management report, a traffic or transportation study for anything with significant parking or loading, an arborist report and tree preservation plan where trees are affected, and a geotechnical or hydrogeological report where there’s below-grade work. Since 2025, a study the municipality requires is deemed to meet the requirement if it’s prepared by a member of a prescribed profession, and the Province has prescribed professional engineering (O. Reg. 10/26 outside Toronto; O. Reg. 11/26 in Toronto).

Site plan fees, securities and the site plan agreement

Toronto’s 2026 fees

From the City’s fee schedule effective January 1, 2026 (City of Toronto, Development Application Fees):

Worked through, a building of 5,000 square metres of gross floor area comes to $70,455.12, and one of 20,000 square metres to $151,005.12. The maximum is reached at roughly 107,600 square metres. Fees are adjusted every January 1.

Refunds. Under the City’s Application Fee Policy (July 1, 2025), withdraw before the City issues its notice of complete or incomplete application and you get 85% back; after that, nothing. Resubmissions after the first can attract more fee if the floor area goes up. The provincial fee refunds that Bill 109 introduced, where a municipality had to return part of the fee if it missed the deadline, were repealed in 2024 and only survive for applications received before the repeal (Planning Act s. 41(11.1)–(11.3), (15.4); City of Toronto Act s. 114(14.1)–(14.3)). Some older articles still describe them.

The application fee is only one line. The consultant team’s fees for the studies, drawings and each revision cycle will usually be larger, driven by the number of disciplines on the checklist and the number of resubmissions. Carry both in the soft cost budget from the start; our piece on hard costs vs soft costs walks through how.

The site plan agreement

The Act lets the municipality require one or more agreements that secure the works and their maintenance, and that the development proceeds in accordance with the approved plans (s. 41(7)(c), (c.1)). The agreement can be registered on title and enforced against you and every later owner (s. 41(10)). In Toronto, registration is a condition of final approval and is completed to the City Solicitor’s satisfaction.

Read it with your lawyer before you sign. It binds the site after you sell it, and it often carries obligations that outlast construction, such as maintaining landscaping. On a site you’re buying, check title for an existing agreement during due diligence.

Securities

The City generally requires financial securities for the works in the agreement, such as landscaping and work in the public road allowance. They’re usually posted as a letter of credit, which uses borrowing capacity, so tell your lender early. The City doesn’t publish a formula, so ask at the NOAC stage how the amount is calculated and what has to be done before it’s released. Then close out the secured works promptly after occupancy, so the letter of credit doesn’t sit for years.

If you disagree with a condition or a term of the agreement, you can appeal it to the Ontario Land Tribunal (s. 41(12.0.1); City of Toronto Act s. 114(15.1)).

How long site plan approval takes, and the 60-day appeal

What the law says

If the municipality doesn’t approve the plans within 60 days after it receives them, the owner can appeal the failure to the Ontario Land Tribunal (Planning Act s. 41(12); City of Toronto Act s. 114(15)). Before Bill 109 the period was 30 days (City of Toronto, How Ontario’s Planning Rules Have Changed, July 2026). The clock starts with a complete application. Since 2022, decisions have been delegated to staff rather than council (s. 41(4.0.1)), so in Toronto a council vote isn’t part of the path.

What actually happens

The best dated figure we have is a December 2024 report by Altus Group for the Ontario Association of Architects, which puts the average municipal review at 23 months, up from 6 months in its 2018 edition (Altus Group, Cost of Site Plan Delays, December 19, 2024). Its own survey was small, 31 responses, mostly mixed-use and non-residential, so it checked the result against the BILD GTA and CHBA municipal benchmarking reports, which put site plan review at 18 to 23 months not counting pre-consultation. The four residential applications in the survey averaged about 16 months, too few to plan on. The Province quoted the same figures when it said in March 2026 that site plan control “can take years instead of the 60-day legislated timeline” (Environmental Registry of Ontario, 026-0310).

That isn’t a Toronto figure or a forecast for any one site. For planning, we’d treat day 60 as the point at which you could appeal, and carry many months of review in the schedule.

Where the time goes

The lever an owner holds is the resubmission count. A complete, internally consistent first submission, with the studies coordinated before they’re filed, takes cycles out. A design that’s still moving while the City reviews it puts them back.

Should you appeal at day 61?

You can. The Ontario Land Tribunal then decides the plans and the agreement terms itself (s. 41(12.1)). But an appeal adds a hearing, a lawyer and planner as witnesses, and its own wait. On most files a meeting with the planner and the divisions holding things up does more, sooner, and we’d keep the appeal as the last option.

Approvals can lapse

Since 2024, the City can set an expiry on a site plan approval, at least three years unless a regulation says otherwise, and the approval won’t lapse once a building permit is issued to implement it (s. 41(7.1), (7.2); City of Toronto Act s. 114(11.1), (11.2)). Check the approval for a lapse date, and put it on the schedule next to the financing and permit milestones.

Site plan approval and the building permit

A building permit can’t be issued if the construction would contravene “any other applicable law” (Building Code Act, 1992, s. 8(2)), and Toronto Building lists site plan approval as applicable law for the permit (City of Toronto, Building Permit Regulations). So the permit waits for the site plan.

That doesn’t mean the permit drawings have to wait. Most of the time lost here is lost by running the two in series. A better sequence:

• Start permit drawings once the site plan is stable, usually after the first round of comments, and apply for the permit while the agreement and securities are being finalized.
• Keep the two sets of drawings matched. If a site plan comment moves a wall or a grade, carry it into the permit set straight away.
• Ask about a conditional permit if a start date really matters. The Building Code Act lets a chief building official issue one for a stage of construction where zoning compliance is met, unreasonable delay would otherwise result, and the owner signs an agreement taking on all the risk, including removing the work if approvals don’t follow (s. 8(3)). The City decides, and it isn’t a way around site plan.
• Watch the development charge clock. The DC rate is frozen at the date of a complete site plan application, provided the first building permit is issued within 18 months of the site plan approval (Development Charges Act, 1997, s. 26.2). The municipality can charge interest on the frozen amount from the application date, so put the permit date on the schedule as soon as approval is in sight. Our hard costs vs soft costs article explains how the freeze can be worth real money.

If a minor variance is also needed, the Committee of Adjustment asks that site plan be filed first and its first comments received, as we covered in our guide to the Committee of Adjustment in Toronto. Sequence the two together rather than finding out at filing.

What changed in site plan control since 2022

Sources: Planning Act and City of Toronto Act section histories on e-Laws; City of Toronto, How Ontario’s Planning Rules Have Changed, July 2026.

More may come. From March 30 to May 14, 2026 the Province consulted on further reform (ERO 026-0310). The options it listed run from capping the number of circulations at three before a mandatory meeting, to a standard checklist of functional items, an arbitration or review panel as an alternative to the Tribunal, separate streams by complexity, and removing site plan control from both Acts entirely. The notice says it “does not propose any immediate changes,” and no decision had been posted when we checked. If you’re filing in 2027, check the rules again before you do.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need site plan approval for my project?

In Toronto, assume yes for residential buildings of 11 or more units and for most new commercial and larger mixed-use buildings, unless a Chapter 415 exemption applies. Residential projects of 10 units or less are exempt, though within 300 metres of a railway or 120 metres of water features the City can require it. A Zoning Applicable Law Certificate will confirm it.

How long does site plan approval take in Toronto?

The Act gives the City 60 days from a complete application before you can appeal. Real timelines are much longer: a 2024 Altus Group report for the Ontario Association of Architects put the Ontario average at 23 months, and municipal benchmarking reports at 18 to 23 months, not counting pre-consultation. Plan for multiple resubmission cycles, and reduce them with a complete first submission.

How much does a site plan application cost in Toronto?

For 2026, the City fee is $43,605.12 plus $5.37 per square metre of gross floor area, capped at $621,372.96, so about $70,455 for a 5,000 square metre building. Budget separately for the consultants’ studies, revision cycles, legal work on the agreement and the securities.

What is a site plan agreement?

It’s a contract between the owner and the municipality securing the works on the approved site plan, such as landscaping, grading and driveways, and their upkeep. It’s registered on title, so it binds later owners. In Toronto, signing it and posting securities are usually conditions of final approval.

Can I appeal if the City is slow?

Yes. If the plans aren’t approved within 60 days of a complete application, the owner can appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal, and can also appeal conditions or agreement terms they disagree with. An appeal adds its own time and cost, so most owners use a meeting with City staff first.

What to do next

Confirm whether site plan applies before you design anything in detail: check the unit count, the distance to rail and water, and Toronto’s exemptions, and get a zoning certificate if it’s close. If it does apply, book the pre-application consultation with a concept that’s settled, budget the fee, the studies, the revision cycles and the securities as their own lines, and put the review on the schedule as months with float rather than 60 days. Then start the permit drawings as soon as the site plan stops moving. In what developers get wrong about schedules we make the point that approvals are where projects quietly lose time; site plan is usually the longest of them.

Our experience was built at PCL Constructors and Oxford Properties, over 20+ years and $3B+ of delivered work. Planners and lawyers file and argue site plan applications; we keep the consultant team, the budget, the schedule and the permit moving together around it. If you’re taking a site through approvals and want an experienced hand on that, our development management service is the place to start.