“Committee of Adjustment in Toronto: what distinguishes applications that get approved from those refused, by variance type and magnitude of the ask?”
The broadest current analysis covers 40,856 Committee of Adjustment applications from 2016–2026, with the 90.8% approval rate computed on the 34,790 decided files (withdrawn and deferred excluded). The magnitude analysis below is an exploratory convenience sample: 218 family-by-band observations covering 356 decided variance lines extracted from discoverable official Toronto decision documents — not a random or complete census.
| Variance family | Magnitude band | Decided | Approved | Refused | % approved | Median departure % | Source |
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Method: outcomes count approved vs refused Committee of Adjustment decisions; withdrawn and deferred files are excluded in the broad 2016–2026 analysis (40,856 applications, 34,790 decided). Magnitude table: 218 deduplicated application/family/magnitude-band observations from 394 extracted variance lines in discoverable official Toronto decision PDFs — a convenience sample, exploratory only; semantic extraction failed on some results. Percentage departure is comparable only within a family (a 20% parking shortfall is not a 20% height increase); multi-variance files can appear in several families and refusals can turn on the cumulative package. Observational, not causal — panel, ward, opposition, staff comments, revisions, lot geometry and as-built work can confound. Only families with at least 8 decided lines are shown in the default heatmap for space. Data checked 2026-10-09.