Bill 63 explained in plain English
Restoring Planning Powers to Municipalities Act, 2018
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 41st Parliament, 3rd Session. Representative vote breakdowns appear when the Assembly publishes an Ayes and Nays page for the bill.
Our plain-language take, written for civic education.
Source: By PoliticalData.ca
Bill 63, the Restoring Planning Powers to Municipalities Act, 2018, amends the Planning Act to remove exemptions for renewable energy projects from municipal planning rules.
This bill amends the Planning Act. It repeals definitions related to renewable energy facilities and projects, and repeals specific clauses and sections of the Planning Act that were introduced by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009. These original amendments had exempted renewable energy undertakings from certain aspects of the Planning Act. This bill aims to reverse those exemptions, meaning renewable energy projects will now be subject to the normal planning processes, including provincial policies, official plans, zoning by-laws, and development permit regulations.
- Repeals definitions related to renewable energy generation facilities, projects, testing facilities, testing projects, and undertakings from the Planning Act.
- Repeals specific clauses in the Planning Act that related to renewable energy projects.
- Repeals a specific section of the Planning Act (Section 62.0.2).
- Makes renewable energy projects subject to the Planning Act, including provincial policy statements, provincial plans, official plans, demolition control by-laws, zoning by-laws, and development permit regulations.
- Names the Act as the Restoring Planning Powers to Municipalities Act, 2018.
- Municipalities
- Developers and operators of renewable energy projects
- The public, in relation to planning processes for renewable energy projects
- Municipalities will have planning authority over renewable energy projects that was previously exempted.
- Renewable energy projects will be subject to provincial policies, provincial plans, official plans, demolition control by-laws, zoning by-laws, and development permit regulations.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- The specific details of how the Planning Act will now apply to these projects are not detailed in the bill text itself, beyond the general statement that the previous exemptions are reversed.
Removes exemptions for renewable energy projects from various planning requirements.
Source: Sections 1, 2, and 3
Reverses amendments made by Schedule K of this Act, which had exempted renewable energy undertakings from the Planning Act.
Source: Explanatory Note
Generated using AI from official bill text. Not legal advice. It is written by PoliticalData.ca for civic education, automatically checked and spot-reviewed before publishing.
Official textProcess Snapshot
Vote Summary
This bill is still active. We only show vote counts after the legislature publishes a recorded division.
No published representative vote breakdown
This bill is still moving through the process. When a recorded division is published, representative positions can be listed here.
Official sources
Status, sponsor, votes, and timeline on this page are drawn from these official legislative sources and public records. Each summary above is attributed to its own source.
How this data is sourced