The visual material a Toronto development application actually requires

Most people outside the approvals process assume the visual side of a development application is the renderings. In Toronto it is considerably more than that, and marketing-style renderings are usually the part the City cares about least.

If you are assembling a submission for an Official Plan Amendment, a Zoning By-law Amendment, or Site Plan Control, here is what the visual material actually consists of, what the City specifies, and who produces each piece.

The process decides the list, not the other way around

Nothing below is automatically required. Toronto strongly encourages a Pre-Application Consultation, and that meeting is where your list gets set. City Planning staff assess the scope and requirements of any reports or studies during the meeting, and afterwards you receive a Planning Application Checklist Package identifying which requirements apply to your proposal, on top of the minimum application requirements. If you skip the meeting, you file a completed checklist yourself instead.

The application is not complete until everything on that checklist is in. Within 30 days of your submission, the City tells you in writing whether it is complete or incomplete, and only a complete application starts the approval timelines under the Planning Act or the City of Toronto Act. If the City doesn't decide within those 30 days, you can ask the Ontario Land Tribunal to decide.

So the practical sequence is: pre-application consultation first, then commission the visual work against the checklist you were handed. Producing material before that meeting is how studies get redone.

The computer generated building mass model

This is the requirement people underestimate, because it applies to everything.

A Building Mass Model is required for all developments, regardless of height, for Official Plan Amendment, Zoning By-law Amendment, and Site Plan Control applications. There is no small-project exemption.

It is not a rendering. It is a working model that gets integrated into the City's own context model so staff can evaluate the scale of the proposal and its sun and shadow impacts in place. The specifications are precise:

• Level of Detail 2: building envelope and external structure only, with all polygons closed
• Positioned correctly in the City's geographic coordinate system, either NAD 1983 CSRS MTM 10 or WGS 84
• Metric scale, with property survey information and average grade at sea level, street name labels, curbs, parking, ingress and egress, the underground parking outline with its entrance and exit, and loading areas
• Organized into three layers: envelope, external structure element, and property survey information
• Building Information Modeling components converted to polygonal modelling objects
• SketchUp 2022 or earlier preferred, AutoCAD 2022 or earlier acceptable, with no password protection and no unbound external references
• No larger than 75MB, and named with the project address

The City publishes its city-wide context massing model as open data, and your model is expected to snap into it.

The policy reason is straightforward. The Official Plan requires new development to be massed to fit harmoniously into its surroundings, creating a transition in scale to neighbouring buildings, providing adequate privacy, sunlight and sky view, and minimizing shadows and uncomfortable wind conditions on neighbouring properties and open space. The mass model is how staff test that claim rather than take it on faith.

Shadow and wind

For Zoning By-law Amendments on developments over six storeys or 20 metres, a Pedestrian Level Wind Study is required and a Sun/Shadow Study may be required. Shadow studies can also be requested for lower buildings near parks, schoolyards and other shadow-sensitive areas, and a wind study may be requested at Site Plan Control.

The City defines a shadow study as a technical document that uses computer generated models to illustrate the shadow impact a proposed development may have on adjacent streets, parks and other properties at various times through the year. It comes directly out of the same massing geometry, which is one reason the mass model specifications are as strict as they are.

Context, at two scales

Context Plan. Drawn to a standard metric scale legible at 1:2000, covering approximately a 500 metre radius around the site, showing the proposed footprint and property lines in relation to surrounding buildings, streets, parks, open spaces, natural features and land uses.

Block Context Plan. A larger piece of work, required in cases such as sites over one hectare, sites with multiple landowners, sites with two or more buildings or a new public street, sites adjacent to heritage or natural features, ravines, the waterfront or public parks, and sites adjacent to a higher order transit station. It is integrated with but separate from the Planning and Urban Design Rationale and other studies, including transportation, community services, shadow, wind, and 3D perspective views. It is expected to include supporting drawings, diagrams, plans, sections, three dimensional massing images and perspectives as appropriate, covering everything from topography and tree protection to street sections, phasing, and the pattern of building types on the block.

That reference to 3D perspective views is worth noting. Perspective views are treated as part of the technical submission package, not as marketing. For Site Plan Control on projects of 4,000 square metres or more, the City's terms of reference also call for a perspective drawing from an adjacent street, at the height of a pedestrian.

Coloured elevations at 1:50

Since June 2024, 1:50 scale detailed colour building elevations are required for developments five storeys or higher under Site Plan Control. The requirements are specific: full colour, a minimum building width of three typical bays including the main building entrance for the first three storeys, labelled exterior design features, materials and window types such as vision glass and spandrel, and fenestration patterns and treatment on the first 16 metres to reduce bird collisions. For new buildings of 1,000 square metres or more, the elevation must show the location of signage recognizing the Architect of Record or primary Design Architect, at least 0.06 square metres, near the main entrance or a prominent façade.

A sample board of exterior materials may also be requested during review.

Concept site, landscape and streetscape drawings

A Concept Site and Landscape Plan may be required for Official Plan Amendments and is a standard checklist item for Zoning By-law Amendments. It is legible at 1:100 or 1:200 and shows the ground floor in context with adjacent streets and properties, pedestrian and vehicular circulation, conceptual grading, and hard and soft landscaping both on site and on the adjacent street.

Concept Streetscape Diagrams show, in plan and section, the streetscape between the ground floor of the building and the curb, including setbacks, ground floor uses, and the location of above and below grade utilities overlaid on the public utility plan.

Heritage, where it applies

If the property is on the Heritage Register, or next to one that is, a Heritage Impact Assessment is typically required. If City Council has identified the property through a City-led study as having potential cultural heritage value but it isn't yet on the Register, a Cultural Heritage Evaluation Report comes first, and a Heritage Impact Assessment follows if the report finds the property meets the provincial criteria for designation.

These are research and evaluation documents rather than visual ones, but they typically carry visual material showing the proposal in relation to the heritage resource. The City's heritage mapping lets you check your address.

Who produces what

The architect produces the drawings, elevations and the building model. Landscape architects produce the landscape and streetscape drawings. Planners produce the rationale. Specialist consultants produce shadow, wind, heritage and the rest.

Where an outside visualization partner usually comes in is the perspective and context imagery: the views that show the proposal as it will be experienced from the street, from the park, from the neighbouring property. These sit alongside the technical drawings in the submission and then do a second job entirely: at the public consultation meeting, on the notice boards, at the community open house, and in front of a council committee.

That second audience is not reading a 1:50 elevation. What persuades a room of neighbours is an accurate perspective view of the building from the sidewalk they actually walk on.

The part worth planning for

The mass model the City requires is built from the same geometry as the renderings you will eventually want for consultation, for leasing, or for presale. The site is the same site. The context model is already public data.

Projects that treat the approvals visuals and the communications visuals as two unrelated purchases, six months apart, generally pay to build the same thing twice. Projects that sequence them do not.

It is worth asking, at the point you commission the mass model, what else it can produce.

The requirements quoted here are current as of September 2026. The City updates its terms of reference regularly, so check the current versions before you submit.

Where Olade fits

Olade produces architectural renderings, imagery and video for development projects, including context and perspective views for consultation and communications material. See architectural renders finished for marketing, read how to budget for rendering, or book a short call about the visual side of your application.

Sources

• City of Toronto: Application Support Material, Terms of Reference
• City of Toronto: Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendment
• City of Toronto: Site Plan Control Applications
• City of Toronto: Glossary of Terms
• City of Toronto Open Data: 3D Massing
• City of Toronto: City Planning Application Checklist (PDF)