Valesa Faria has always had a soft spot for the public sector, and that’s clear from the 12 years she spent with Toronto Community Housing and the seven she spent with the City of Toronto (the bulk in the Housing Secretariat). And that’s to say she has the exact type of background the City was looking for last year when determining who would lead Development Review, a newly formed division dedicated to improving the way applications for new housing, and especially affordable housing, move from submission through to approval.
As Executive Director of Development Review — a role she’s been in since April — Faria and her team of 400 city staffers have their work cut out for them. Any developer, architect, or planner that works in the city will tell you that Toronto's development review process is arduous and bogged down with inefficiencies, and that it’s overdue for an overhaul. Already, Faria’s team has begun consultations with Toronto’s development community to see how they can reform processes related to Site Plan Control, which Faria cites as the “biggest opportunity” to improve review timelines.
We caught up with Faria to learn more about her work with Development Review, her passion for affordable housing (self professed!), and her advice for women who want to follow in her footsteps.
STOREYS: When the opportunity to lead Development Review came out, what drew you to the role?
Valesa Faria: At the time, I was the Director in the Housing Secretariat, I led most of the policy work on all of the big plans you see here at the city, including the HousingTO plan, the Generational Transformation plan. Previously, I also managed the affordable housing development portfolio in the Housing Secretariat. So when this position came up at the city, I felt like it was a natural fit and a great opportunity to solve a really challenging problem, and also an opportunity to make a generational change and change a system that had not been changed since amalgamation.
S: Talk to us about the Development Review team. Have they been pulled from other city divisions as well?
VF: Our division has about 400 staff, and it's comprised of the five community planning districts. I also have engineering review, about 150 engineering staff, transportation review staff, the former C2K office, and some policy staff. So it's a large, multi-disciplinary team.
S: What’s your understanding of why this division was created at this point in time?
VF: There is public perception that city hall takes forever to approve applications, and this division was a key priority, politically, a key priority of Council to improve the system, to get the changes we needed to optimize our limited resources while streamlining our processes to ultimately get not only housing, but parks, community centres, transit projects, and other projects built quicker.
S: I understand Development Review is looking to reform Site Plan Control. Tell us more about that, and what else Development Review worked on so far.
VF: We're still a brand new division, but we have made some great strides. Our average application review timelines have reduced by 80% on average, and these are across major application types. We have also started to look at, as you mentioned, standard operating procedures. In 2025, Site Plan is going to be the big one for us. We will be basically doing a complete re-engineering of the Site Plan process to make it more efficient, to make it more streamlined, to reduce the number of studies and requirements we have, which ultimately will reduce costs for developers, as well as resources on our end. It's all about finding the right balance to make sure we adhere to our regulatory requirements, but also moving the system in a way that's more predictable, consistent, and ultimately gets us to our objective of quicker city building.
S: Why start with Site Plan?
VF: Site Plan is the application type where we feel we will be able to make the biggest impact in the system. A number of applications that come in for Site Plan approvals, in my opinion, are a bit more complicated than they should be. And it's a symptom of ongoing legislative changes at the provincial level, as well as perhaps our standard operating procedures internally not evolving as quickly as our external environments. From our perspective, we see this as the biggest opportunity to not only improve our timelines, but to help projects right now that are eager to get into construction get into construction quicker.
S: Can you speak to progress that’s already been made with respect to Site Plan?
VF: Our current average review times as of December last year was 97 days, and that compares to 694 days over the previous five-year average. That's an 86% improvement, and we still think we can do better if we realign our processes. It's not only about speed, but it's also about making the process less onerous.
S: Besides Site Plan, what else will Development Review be focussing on in 2025?
VF: We'll also be introducing some new technology tools, one key tool being the File Circulation Tool, and this is an internal workflow tool for our staff that tracks comments across the various disciplines to ensure that we are meeting our timelines more efficiently, and we can easily identify conflicting comments and resolve them quicker. I am also focussed on updating our service level standards, and that's important to me as someone who has a good reputation of being a collaborator and maintaining relationships with industry. What I'd like to see is, ultimately, a customer service charter where you can come into the city and we give you a promise: this is what you can expect from us, and this is what we expect from you. Because I see this business as a partnership. We work with applicants to realize our big policy goals as a city, and I want to make sure we approach it perhaps in a different fashion than we have in the past.
S: You spent over a decade with Toronto Community Housing, so what did you take away from that time, good and bad, that you've brought into your current role?
VF: At TCHC, I was fortunate enough to get exposure to many different aspects of the business. I worked in HR-related finance, I also worked for the CFO at one point, then I moved into the development division. It gave me the opportunity to develop my expertise, not only as a housing professional, but also as a real estate professional. And it helped me to connect to community and remind myself that everything we do, we're doing it for the benefit of Toronto residents, especially those most vulnerable and marginalized in our community. It's that sort of people-centred approach I bring to every job I've had since.
S: What about from a planning perspective, what was your experience working with the city’s review process at that time?
VF: Even though the City’s the sole shareholder of TCHC, it’s still a separate corporation. So TCHC has to submit a planning application like everyone else, and go through a similar process with city staff. So my time there dealing with development applications, I think, helped me to develop relationships at the city, which have become instrumental in my current role and my previous role here at the city, and it also gave me some insights into things where perhaps the city could be doing better. And frankly, a lot of the learnings from my time at TCHC are informing the way I'm shaping this new division here.
S: You spent some time with Oxford Properties early on in your career, but then moved into the public sector and didn't come back. What’s the appeal of the public sector for you?
VF: My passion is to help people, to help those most vulnerable and marginalized. And while having the private sector experience was excellent, I always knew my ultimate goal was to work in the public sector where I had a direct impact or could directly contribute to public policy and make decisions that benefit residents.
S: When we're having these conversations about housing and affordable housing and city building, why do you think it's important to have a diversity of voices?
VF: It's really important to have women of all colours, and women from equity seeking groups specifically, at tables. I often find myself in this business being not only the only woman, but many times, the only woman of colour at the table. And while I feel a sense of privilege, I feel a sense of responsibility. I recognize I need to speak for those who may not be at the table, and to get others at the table. In leadership positions I've had over my career, I’ve focused on things like mentorship and sponsorship of women; I have worked with various universities to to support their internship programs; I've supported professional development opportunities for my staff; I often look for opportunities to bring women into leadership discussions, senior leadership discussions where possible. I've been fortunate enough to have had people to help me and recognize my my abilities over the years, and I try to keep that top of mind and and return the favour and help other women to get the exposure and opportunities to succeed.
S: Would you say there’s been a shift in representation since you’ve been in the workforce?
VF: Absolutely, I would say our the workforce definitely has become more diverse. There's still a lot of work to be done to get to gender equity and pay equity, but I'm confident the tides are shifting, and we will continue to see that intentional recognition and those intentional and tangible opportunities for women to take on more leadership roles.
S: What advice do you have for women who wants to follow in your footsteps?
VF: Work hard, there's no way around around it. Hard work is is a key ingredient for success in any role. Look for those opportunities, those mentorship opportunities, when they're available. Focus on networking, even if that means randomly reaching out to someone on LinkedIn you may have heard about. I have women and others who reach out to me quite frequently on LinkedIn, and I take the time to go for a coffee or answer questions over the phone. And never doubt yourself. As women, I find sometimes we are not as confident in the room as men. And I myself have had to speak a bit louder than everyone else in the room to get people to recognize I'm in the room. So I would say don't back down. Be tenacious, take risks, and continue to look for those opportunities, because you deserve it as much as everyone else who's at the table.
S: What else can you tell us about what it’s been like to lead Development Review so far?
VF: I continue to be inspired and impressed with the level of expertise on my team and colleagues across the city, including other women in leadership positions throughout the city, like Barbara Gray, who's our General Manager of Transportation, and Jennifer Graham Harkness, who’s our Chief Engineer. So I continue to be inspired by my team and by my peers. And the City of Toronto, the senior leadership that's in place, I can undoubtedly say everyone's focused on continuous improvement. We recognize we can always do better, but we're absolutely committed to building a better city, and that's what energizes me and keeps me going and excited about my job on a daily basis.
Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
