Community Planning Permit System

The City’s new Official Plan acknowledges the CPPS as a strategic planning tool to facilitate intensification and redevelopment. Key benefits of this tool in Peterborough would include:

• A streamlined development approvals process;
• Increased regulation flexibility and design standards;
• Opportunity to apply a broader scope of development review;
• Opportunity to implement the City’s new Urban Design Guidelines; and
• Support for local objectives such as increased affordable housing supply, meeting density and intensification targets, promoting high quality design and preserving cultural heritage.

The CPPS process is proposed to be administered through a new CPP By-law, in place of the City’s existing and outdated Zoning By-law. In Ontario, municipalities are required to implement the policies of a new or updated Official Plan within three years of a new or updated Official Plan coming into effect. The City-wide CPP By-law will replace the existing Zoning By-law with modernized development regulations and will ensure alignment with the City’s new Official Plan.

Once a CPP By-law is in effect, the City can issue Community Planning Permits to allow development to occur if an application meets the standards set out in the CPP By-law.

In developing a CPPS, Peterborough joins several other forward-thinking municipalities across Ontario to proactively update our approach to regulating development, increase housing supply, and foster sustainable, well-designed communities.