Welcome to the Municipality of Tweed!
Date: December 9, 2025 Council Meeting
Report to: Council
Report from: L. Wales, Zoning Administrator
Department: Administration
Title: Planning Department – Year-End Activity Policy & Governance Report to Council
PURPOSE:
To provide Council with a summary of planning activities undertaken during 2025, including policy changes, development activity trends, and implementation outcomes relative to Council’s policy changes.
BACKGROUND:
This report serves as a summary to Council to outline how policy changes are having real outcomes in the Municipality of Tweed.
Official Plan – Amendments to the OP by County Council have provided guidance on managing Additional Residential Units in our Municipality and the requirements to establish ARUs. This past year we have seen several ARUs and Secondary Dwelling structures built throughout the Municipality of Tweed. While some of these structures required zoning amendments or minor variances for site specific reasons, the majority did not. Council has established policy that allows this type of soft density to be approved more quickly unlocking housing opportunities for residents. The Municipality will continue to support this type of development to add alternative housing supply in our community.
Zoning By-law – Amendments to our local comprehensive zoning by-law this year focused on residential densification. The large amendment has permitted smaller lots to be created in the Village of Tweed. Our development community is already planning their projects around these amendments in draft conceptual plans. We have also seen consent files in the village for new lot creation, which is not commonplace in recent years. This amendment will allow property owners and the Municipality to collectively unlock value in the village in our serviced settlement area.
Building- As of the time of this report, Tweed is once again leading our shared service area in building permits for 2025. This is both a testament to policy decisions being made that allow projects to begin quicker, but also a fantastic team working in building planning and development for the Municipality of Tweed that get projects moving where policy permits. The team strives very hard to meet 10-day review deadlines.
Law Enforcement – We have several open files/compliance issues. Working with BESB staff on local enforcement, our partner agencies, and legal where necessary is a priority not only for staff but residents as we work to maintain an even playing field and compliance.
Activity Overview - The Municipality of Tweed has several subdivisions being planned or built out around the village at various stages. Consent files were slower in 2025 for general rural land severance. Zoning amendments and minor variance files were consistent in volume to the previous 5 years. Zoning compliance requests from agents and lawyers were also consistent with volume from the previous 5 years.
The village has experienced more dwelling unit and townhouse style construction in 2025. The village is growing in terms of dwelling units (both planned and built), and that growth is rapid comparably to the last few decades. The addition of a third lagoon cell is helping facilitate dwelling unit growth through capacity. Though there is room for additional growth, the comparative rate of growth is quite substantial over the past few years. Our building and development community continues to add supply in our serviced area and are doing it at a comfortable pace for our infrastructure capacity. We are grateful for their work and for being in our community.
Committee of Adjustment / Planning – Our appointed committee has done a tremendous job once again at providing Council with sound recommendations and decision making for 2025. The governance of the process we have in place has allowed for both careful review of planning files for our local community and allowed our residents and builders to have a voice in how our community gets built out. We have a tremendous team and are grateful for the work they do for the Municipality each month.
Provincial Policy Changes – Staff have continued to monitor various changes made at the Provincial level to the Planning Act in 2025 and have made adjustments or will make adjustments accordingly to ensure the Municipality is following the direction of the Province.
2025 Challenges – Through our existing resources we work to ensure compliance and accountability for those who violate policy. Voluntary compliance and working with property owners are our first means of contact, though this is not always successful. A limited legal budget has posed a challenged to us in terms of being able to respond to potential violations that require a court order for resolution.
File, inquiry, and volume was a fluctuating issue again in 2025 for staff capacity but the 2026 Sparc Agreement with Hastings County will address some of those capacity concerns.
Housing starts overall were down from 2024. While this trend is disappointing it is the narrative across most of Canada with some of the slowest housing growth numbers in 30-40 years despite countless policy changes.
