From Land to Approvals
Support from the moment you consider a site to the day your approvals are in hand.
Land and Site Due Diligence
Know what your site can support before you spend on design or commit to buying land.
Land is the biggest decision in a building project, and the hardest to undo. A site can look right and still carry problems that surface later: zoning that does not permit your use, a floodplain regulated by the conservation authority, limited water and sewer capacity, heritage or archaeological requirements, or easements and restrictions registered on title. Any one of these can add months or years to approvals, or rule the project out.
- If you are buying, we do this work inside the conditional period of your offer, so you can renegotiate or walk away before you are committed.
- We test the site against provincial policy, the official plan and the zoning by-law, and against the constraints the zoning does not show.
- We estimate what can realistically be built: permitted uses, building size, height and parking.
- We set out the approval path, from building as of right to a minor variance, rezoning or site plan approval, with the risks, timeline and order-of-magnitude costs.
- We flag title and legal items for your lawyer, so nothing falls between disciplines.
A masjid community seeking a permanent home had identified parcels it believed it could build on. A title search showed the land was owned by the provincial hydro utility, which does not release operating corridor land for buildings. We set out the alternatives and recommended a long-term partnership with a public landowner instead, before the community spent anything on design.
Development Management
We run the development process so you can focus on decisions.
Few organizations build more than once. A first project means hiring surveyors, architects, engineers, planners and lawyers, meeting municipal requirements that differ from site to site, and holding a budget and schedule together, usually on top of everyone's other work. Without someone coordinating, consultant scopes overlap or leave gaps, applications go in incomplete, and each round of municipal comments adds months.
- We build and coordinate your consultant team, including architects, engineers, surveyors, and legal and finance professionals. We write the scopes, run competitive quotes and negotiate fees.
- We lead pre-application consultation with the municipality and conservation authority, so you know which studies are required before you pay for them.
- We manage application packages, submissions and responses to municipal comments, and check each package for completeness before it goes in.
- We manage the budget and schedule for the pre-development and approvals phases, and report to you with a clear recommendation at each decision point.
Our role covers pre-development and approvals. We do not manage construction.
For a community services nonprofit whose own site is partly within a regulatory floodplain, we are advising on the conservation authority process and the procurement of survey and design work ahead of pre-application consultation.
Community Engagement
Bring members, neighbours and stakeholders with you.
Projects stall when the people affected hear about them too late. Opposition at a public meeting or at council can delay an approval, and members who feel left out can stall a decision inside your own organization. Engagement that starts early, and is designed around the approvals you need, avoids both.
- We have extensive experience working with diverse communities on complex, high-stakes public consultation and community engagement across the GTA.
- We design engagement around your project and its approvals: who needs to be heard, in what format, and how their input will be used.
- We facilitate member consultations, conversations with neighbours before public meetings, and deliberative processes for higher-stakes decisions.
- We report what we heard in a form that supports your application and your organization's decisions.
As part of a consulting team, we helped design and deliver a resident civic assembly pilot, from participant selection through to final recommendations.