The future starts now: New committee studying development services
July 14, 2023
On July 11, the Future-Ready Development Services Committee (FRDSC) held its first meeting and approved a workplan for the coming months. As Chair, I am joined on this committee by Vice-Chair Councillor Cormier, as well as Councillors Fortin, Landry-Altman and Parent.
The FRDSC is an ad-hoc committee of council created to review the City of Greater Sudbury’s development services and make recommendations to best support sustainable growth in the residential and non-residential development sectors.
The committee’s mandate includes benchmarking Greater Sudbury’s performance against other Ontario municipalities, studying best practices from other jurisdictions, and suggesting how these best-in-class policies may be adapted to the Greater Sudbury context. A large part of the committee’s work will be to hear directly from development professionals, who will be invited to provide their assessments and recommendations during the committee’s meetings in September and October. Starting in mid-August, all Greater Sudbury residents will have an opportunity to provide their feedback through a survey and comment period on OverToYou.
The committee’s work is of an exploratory nature – incorporating a review of best practices and holding public meetings with experts in the field. After holding these public meetings and analyzing all data, the FRDSC members will write a report of their findings and provide a set of recommendations to Council.
Throughout its meetings, the FRDSC will foster positive, constructive, and solutions-oriented discussions. The aim is to identify how all stakeholders can best move forward, together.
Throughout the Committee’s term, work will include:
- Analysis of existing processes, current service standards and benchmarking with other municipal policies and processes;
- Research into legislative requirements governing development services;
- Environmental scanning of relevant news articles, studies and websites;
- Interviews with staff at comparable municipalities;
- Focus groups with relevant stakeholders to explore specific opportunities for policy or process innovations;
- Review of feedback collected through the City’s OverToYou engagement portal; and
- Presentations by professionals and industry associations at public Committee meetings that provide insights about, or have experience with, best practice examples from other jurisdictions.
During the summer months, staff supporting the work of the committee will begin gathering data and assisting the committee in scheduling presentations from local development professionals – from the fields of architecture, construction services, engineering services, planning services, legal services, real estate services – as well as regional development companies of varying sizes.
I am feeling optimistic about the path ahead; I look forward to working with my Council colleagues on this new committee, and to hearing from stakeholders across our city in the months to come.