Community Benefits Secured (Planning Act Sections 37 and 45)

The legacy Section 37 density bonusing framework in the Planning Act, 1990 enabled the City to negotiate contributions towards local community benefits for development applications that exceeded a site’s zoned height and density. Toronto’s Official Plan provided that Section 37 may be used for development, excepting non-profit developments, with more than 10,000 square metres of gross floor area where the zoning by-law amendment increases the permitted density by at least 1,500 square metres and/or significantly increases the permitted height.

When a developer submitted an application requesting more height and density than allowed, City Planning staff initiated a review process. Section 37 benefits were negotiated on a case-by-case basis with developers, incorporating consultation with the Ward Councillor, the community, and various City Divisions and Agencies.

In-kind contributions occur where a development applicant agrees to directly provide the negotiated benefit, such as dedicating physical space within a building for use by non-profit groups. Alternatively, a development applicant can provide cash-in-lieu of the negotiated benefit, transferring responsibility for implementation to the City.

After approval by City Council, the proposed Section 37 benefits are considered to be “secured”, and the developer has a legal obligation to provide the benefits at a future date, usually when applying for a building permit.

Similar to Section 37, community benefits can also be obtained pursuant to Section 45(9) of the Planning Act, 1990, where the Committee of Adjustment adds a condition on the approval of a minor variance to the zoning by-law.

Note: There is often a lag between when the City secures and receives a benefit as, in some cases, it can take years before an approved development submits an application for a building permit. Delays in receiving the benefit can also occur when large investments require the pooling of funds from multiple projects.

To access the full dataset, use the “Download Data” section to download a CSV, JSON, or XML file.

Datasets available for download

Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated October 4, 2024, 04:48 (UTC)
Created October 4, 2024, 02:37 (UTC)
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
City government,Locations and mapping,Development and infrastructure
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
.xml, .xpdl, .xsl - application/xml, .csv - text/csv, .json - application/json
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
2024-02-26
Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
Field Value
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
Location
Location of the dataset.
https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/section-37
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
City Planning, cityplanning@toronto.ca
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
cityplanning@toronto.ca
Author
Author of the dataset.
cityplanning@toronto.ca
Author Email
Email of the author.
cityplanning@toronto.ca
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
Field Value
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Field Value
Source
Source of the dataset.
https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/official-plan-guidelines/section-37-benefits/
Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
Field Value
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
Field Value
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
This dataset is retired. Its Data Quality Score will not be calculated. The last recorded Data Quality Score was 100.0% (Gold) on 2024-10-01T19:55:45.
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.
Data Quality is provided by the City of Toronto

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