October 28, 2026

Zoning By-law Amendment in Ontario: Toronto Process, Fees, Timing

A zoning by-law amendment, usually called a rezoning, is an application to your municipal council to change the zoning rules that apply to your land. You need one when what you want to build is a use the zoning doesn’t allow, or a building well beyond the height, density or other limits the by-law sets, so far beyond them that the Committee of Adjustment couldn’t call it “minor”. If the official plan doesn’t support the proposal either, you need an official plan amendment alongside it. In Toronto, the 2026 City fee for a zoning by-law amendment starts at $63,679.83 plus $6.23 per square metre of floor area. The Planning Act gives council 90 days to decide (120 with an official plan amendment). In practice, Toronto rezonings filed before mid-2023 averaged about 23 months.

The provincial rules have changed several times since 2022. Every rule and fee below was checked on October 27, 2026 against e-Laws (the Planning Act consolidated from July 1, 2026) and the City of Toronto’s own pages. This is a practical guide for owners, not legal or planning advice. A registered planner prepares and argues the application, and a land use lawyer belongs on the team for anything contentious.

Minor variance, rezoning or official plan amendment?

Three approvals can change what you may build, each decided by different people under different tests.

A minor variance is decided by the Committee of Adjustment under section 45(1) of the Planning Act. The Committee can approve a variance only if, in its opinion, it is minor, it is desirable for the appropriate development or use of the land, and it keeps the general intent and purpose of both the zoning by-law and the official plan. Those are the four tests. Our guide to the Committee of Adjustment in Toronto covers that route, its fees and its timing in detail.

A zoning by-law amendment is a decision of council under section 34. There is no “minor” test. Council is asked to change the law that applies to your site, and it weighs the proposal against the official plan, the Provincial Planning Statement and the City’s own policies. The owner, or an agent the owner authorizes, applies.

An official plan amendment changes the policy layer above zoning. Zoning has to conform to the official plan, so if your proposal doesn’t fit the land use designation or the plan’s height and density policies, council can’t simply rezone it. You file both, usually together, under section 22 (the request to amend the plan) and section 34 (the rezoning).

Where “minor” ends is a judgment call. A planner can usually tell you after one look at the zoning, the official plan designation and any site-specific exceptions, and it’s worth asking before you sign an agreement of purchase and sale.

Check two things first. Since late 2025, setbacks on urban residential land outside the Greenbelt can be reduced by up to 10% as of right (City of Toronto, How Ontario’s Planning Rules Have Changed, July 2026). And Toronto permits up to four units on almost every residential lot, six in some areas, as our guide to building a multiplex in Toronto explains.

The rules today, after the provincial bills

The Planning Act has been amended almost every year since 2019, most recently by Bill 98 in 2026. Here is where things stand for a rezoning, with the section that says so.

What the appeal changes mean for you

Before Bill 185, anyone who made submissions to council could appeal a rezoning to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). Since 2024, neighbours and residents’ associations can’t, unless they own land the by-law applies to. The City’s July 2026 summary says only impacted property owners, public bodies such as a utility, railway or school board, the Minister and proponents can now appeal a local planning decision. The same limits apply to an adopted official plan amendment (s. 17(24), (36)).

Neighbours still speak at the community consultation meeting and the public meeting, and council listens. They just don’t get a second hearing at the Tribunal, so the work of the application happens at the City.

What the fee refund repeal means for you

Bill 109 required municipalities to refund rezoning fees when they missed the deadline. Many responded by moving review work into pre-application consultation so the official clock started later, as Altus Group recorded in its 2024 study for BILD (GTA Municipal Benchmarking Study, 3rd edition, September 2024). Bill 185 then repealed the refunds. Any guide that promises your money back after 90 days is out of date.

The Toronto rezoning process, step by step

In Toronto the power to rezone comes from section 34 of the Planning Act, the same as anywhere else in Ontario. The City’s sequence below is from its development guide (City of Toronto, Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendment, modified June 24, 2026), with what each step means for the owner.

1. Pre-application consultation (PAC). Voluntary since Bill 185, and “strongly encouraged”. You request it through the City’s Application Submission Tool with a concept site plan and elevations, and pay a $3,000 deposit for each application type. An official plan and zoning amendment can share one meeting. You get five minutes to present, then the community planner sends 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 when you file, and the City asks you to file within 24 months of getting the package.
2. Prepare and submit. The team prepares everything on the checklist and submits it through the same online tool. Staff check the documents and send payment instructions.
3. Post the sign. Within 14 days of submission, a notice sign goes up on the property.
4. Completeness. Within 30 days of payment, the City tells you in writing whether the application is complete. An incomplete notice lists what’s missing. If you disagree, or the City doesn’t answer, you can ask the OLT to decide. Within 15 days of a complete application, the City Clerk publishes a notice of application.
5. Circulation. City divisions and outside agencies review the application. That can include the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority near ravines and watercourses, and a rail authority near a corridor.
6. Community consultation meeting. Not required by the Planning Act, but held for nearly all rezoning and official plan applications in Toronto. City planners organize it, the ward councillor usually attends, and you present the proposal and hear comments.
7. Comments and resubmission. The planner collects comments from circulation, the councillor and the community. You revise and resubmit, showing clearly how and where the proposal changed. The first resubmission carries no extra fee.
8. Statutory public meeting. Held at one of the City’s four Community Councils, or at the Planning and Housing Committee for an application of city-wide significance. The date goes on your sign. Anyone who attends can speak.
9. Staff report and recommendation. Planning staff report with a recommendation to approve, approve with changes, or refuse. Community Council or the Committee makes its recommendation to City Council.
10. Council decision. City Council decides whether to enact the amending by-law. Where community benefits are secured, there may be an agreement to sign as well; the City lists a legal services fee of $18,266.27 for a section 37 agreement.
11. Notice and appeal period. Notice of the decision goes out within 15 days, and the 20-day appeal period runs from when notice is complete. If nobody with standing appeals, the by-law is deemed in force from the day it passed (s. 34(21)).

What happens after the rezoning

A rezoning tells you what you may build, not that you may start. For most buildings over 10 units, site plan comes next, then the permit; our guide to site plan control in Ontario picks up from here. Toronto holds a separate pre-application meeting for each application type, except that an official plan and zoning amendment can share one, so plan for a second meeting at site plan.

Holding provisions and conditions

Council may pass the by-law with a holding symbol (“H”) on the zone, where the official plan allows it (s. 36). You can’t use the new permissions until a condition is met, such as servicing capacity or a signed agreement. Lifting the hold needs another by-law; in Toronto the 2026 fee for a holding by-law amendment is $51,255.18, and if council refuses or doesn’t decide within 90 days, the owner can appeal (s. 36(3)). Put each condition for lifting the hold on the schedule with its own date.

Minister’s Zoning Orders

The Minister can also zone land directly by order under section 47, and the notice, meeting and appeal provisions of section 34 don’t apply to those orders. They’re made at the Minister’s discretion. If someone selling land mentions one, have your planner read the order itself.

Studies, team and who does what

The checklist package decides what you file, and Toronto publishes terms of reference for each study (City of Toronto, Application Support Material: Terms of Reference, modified September 17, 2026). A planning rationale is required for every zoning and official plan amendment. Beyond that, the list depends on the site.

Two recent changes affect this list. Under Bill 17, a study prepared by a member of a prescribed profession is deemed to meet the requirement (s. 34(10.3.1)), and municipalities now need provincial approval to add new kinds of study requirements, according to the City’s July 2026 summary. And since Bill 98, some Toronto Green Standard measures are voluntary; our guide to the Toronto Green Standard after Bill 98 sets out what the interim checklist still requires.

Who does what

The planner leads the application and presents at the meetings. The architect designs to the height and density sought. The land use lawyer reviews the by-law and any agreements, and advises on appeals.

What falls between them is the owner’s side: deciding what to ask for, budgeting and scheduling the approval, hiring consultants in the right order and keeping their work consistent. A traffic study on last month’s unit count, or a shadow study on an old massing, costs a resubmission cycle. Commission the studies once the massing is stable, and the geotechnical and servicing work early enough that it can still change the design. That coordination is what a development manager does.

What a rezoning costs: fees, studies and the development charge freeze

Toronto’s 2026 application fees

From the City’s fee schedule effective January 1, 2026, which applied a 4.82% cost-of-living increase (City of Toronto, Development Application Fees, modified September 24, 2026):

Worked through, a proposal of 10,000 square metres of gross floor area pays $125,979.83 for a rezoning alone, or $138,551.18 for a combined official plan and zoning amendment. At 25,000 square metres the figures are $219,429.83 and $232,001.18. An official plan amendment filed on its own costs more than the combined application for any proposal under about 25,000 square metres, one more reason the two are usually filed together.

Refunds. Under the City’s Application Fee Policy (July 1, 2025), withdraw before the City issues its notice of complete or incomplete application and 85% of the fee comes back. After that, nothing. A later resubmission that adds floor area can attract more fee on the added area. Affordable housing floor area under the City’s Rental Housing Supply Program may have its fees waived.

For comparison, Mississauga. Mississauga’s 2026 schedule charges a rezoning base fee of $38,712, plus $1,424 per unit for the first 25 residential units and $1,101 per unit for units 26 to 100, with lower rates after that (City of Mississauga, Schedule C-1, effective January 1, 2026). A 60-unit residential rezoning works out at $112,847. Check your own municipality’s schedule.

The cost that isn’t on the fee schedule

The consultant team’s fees for the rationale, the drawings, each study and every resubmission will usually exceed the City’s fee. They’re driven by how many disciplines the checklist calls for and how many times the design changes. Add legal fees, carrying costs on the land, and the cost of the community meetings. We don’t quote a typical total, because it depends so much on the site and the team. Build it line by line in the soft cost budget, as our article on hard costs vs soft costs explains.

The development charge freeze

Filing a rezoning application can also fix your development charges. Under section 26.2 of the Development Charges Act, 1997, the charge is the amount that would apply under the by-law on the day you made a site plan application or, if there’s no site plan application, a zoning by-law amendment application. Three details matter to the budget:

1. The freeze lasts 18 months from approval. If more than 18 months pass between the application being approved and the first building permit (for most residential and institutional development) or the day the charge is payable (for everything else), the frozen rate falls away (s. 26.2(5)).
2. A later application resets it. Where a development has both a site plan and a rezoning application, the site plan date applies, and if there’s more than one, the later one counts (s. 26.2(1), (4)). The freeze you secure at rezoning is usually replaced by the one you secure at site plan.
3. You pay the lower amount. Since Bill 17 (2025), if the frozen charges plus any interest would come to more than the charges in force when you pay, you pay the current ones (s. 26.2(5.2)). The Act lets the municipality charge interest on frozen charges from the application date (s. 26.2(3)), so ask the City what rate applies.

Toronto’s residential development charges have moved a lot since 2024, and a conditional reduction is pending, so the freeze can work for you or not depending on timing. Parkland charges are also frozen at the application date, but that freeze lapses if more than two years pass from approval to the first permit (Planning Act s. 42(2.4)). Carry each date as its own line on the schedule.

How long a rezoning takes in Toronto, and appeals

What the law says

If council hasn’t decided within 90 days of receiving a complete application (120 days with an official plan amendment filed the same day), the applicant or the Minister can appeal the non-decision to the OLT (s. 34(11)). The clock starts only once the information, material and fee are all in.

What actually happens

The best dated figures we have come from the Altus Group study for BILD (September 2024), which measured applications decided between summer 2022 and spring 2024, mostly using municipalities’ own data.

Source: Altus Group, GTA Municipal Benchmarking Study, 3rd edition, Figure 14.

The same study shows Toronto rezonings filed after July 1, 2023 being decided in under four months on average. Treat that with care. Few of those applications had been decided when the data was collected, and the study itself says municipalities moved review work into pre-application consultation to keep the official clock short. The City’s 2026 budget notes report that 96% of rezoning decisions on applications filed after July 1, 2023 were made within eight months in 2024, and project 83% for 2025 (City of Toronto, 2026 Budget Notes, Development Review). Altus also notes that Toronto dropped its old preliminary report, which had pushed the community meeting to about 200 days after submission; the City now targets 45 days.

So the formal review is faster, but it runs from a complete application. The pre-application meeting, the studies and the work of getting the proposal into a shape staff can support all come before it, and that’s where many months now sit. For planning, we’d carry the whole approval from first consultant appointment to by-law in force as a period of many months, with float, and treat day 90 as the first day an appeal is possible.

The lever an owner holds is the number of resubmissions: coordinated studies and a proposal staff can support take cycles out. Our article on what developers get wrong about schedules covers why approvals are where projects quietly lose time.

Appealing to the Ontario Land Tribunal

You can appeal a refusal within 20 days of the notice of refusal (s. 34(11.0.3)), a non-decision after 90 or 120 days, or an approval you disagree with, such as one that cut your height (s. 34(19)). The OLT fee is $1,100 per appeal, or $400 on request for private citizens, registered charities and non-profit ratepayers’ associations (Ontario Land Tribunal, Fee Chart). The Tribunal can dismiss the appeal, amend the by-law or direct council to (s. 34(26)). It can dismiss an appeal without a hearing where the application has changed substantially from the one council decided (s. 34(25.1.1)).

An appeal adds time, legal costs and expert fees, and many are settled with the City before a full hearing. Talk to your lawyer before filing.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a zoning by-law amendment take in Toronto?

The Planning Act gives council 90 days from a complete application, or 120 with an official plan amendment. Rezonings filed in Toronto before July 2023 averaged 22.9 months, according to Altus Group’s 2024 study for BILD. The City reports faster decisions since, but the pre-application work and studies come before the clock starts, so plan for many months from first appointment to by-law in force.

How much does a rezoning cost in Toronto?

The 2026 City fee is $63,679.83 plus $6.23 per square metre of gross floor area, capped at $779,441.52, so about $126,000 for a 10,000 square metre proposal. A combined official plan and zoning amendment starts at $76,251.18. The consultants’ fees for the rationale, drawings, studies and resubmissions usually exceed the City fee, so budget them separately.

Can neighbours appeal a rezoning?

Not any more, in most cases. Since Bill 185 (2024), only the applicant, the Minister, and public bodies, specified persons (utilities, railways and similar) and registered owners of land the by-law applies to who made submissions before it passed can appeal an approval to the Ontario Land Tribunal. Neighbours can still speak at the community consultation meeting and the statutory public meeting, and council hears them.

What’s the difference between a minor variance and a zoning by-law amendment?

A minor variance is a small departure from the zoning, decided by the Committee of Adjustment if it meets the four tests in section 45(1) of the Planning Act. A zoning by-law amendment changes the zoning itself and is decided by council under section 34. A new use, or a building well beyond the zoning limits, needs a rezoning. Variances are cheaper and faster.

Where to start

Before you buy or spend on design, have a planner tell you whether the proposal needs a variance, a rezoning, or a rezoning with an official plan amendment. If it’s a rezoning, settle the concept before the pre-application consultation, budget the City fee, the studies, the resubmissions and the carrying costs as separate lines, and line up the development charge and parkland dates with the permit you expect to pull.

Our experience was built at PCL Constructors and Oxford Properties, over 20+ years and $3B+ of delivered work. Planners and lawyers file and argue rezoning applications; we keep the consultant team, the budget and the schedule moving together around them, so the approval leads into site plan and permit without a gap. If you’re taking a site through approvals and want an experienced hand beside you, our development management service is where to start.