Land, infrastructure, and spatial analysis
Land that a plan designates for use is different from land that someone can use. DDA screens parcels against every condition between the designation and a completed project. The result is a count of land that survives, with the reason for each loss.
01 The parcel funnel
A plan lists hectares of designated land. A funnel follows that land through six tests.
Designated land has the right land-use designation. Buildable land passes physical screens such as slope, floodplain, riparian setback, and agricultural reserve status. Serviceable land has water, sewer, power, and road access, or a costed path to them. Available land has an owner who will sell, lease, or build. Viable land supports a project that pays for itself at current costs and prices. Ready land has all of these conditions in place within the decision period.
Each test removes land. The count at the end is often a small share of the count at the start. DDA reports every loss with its reason, so the decision-maker sees which test removes the most land and which test the municipality can change.
A designation in an official plan does not permit development on its own. Zoning does. A parcel can carry an employment designation and still hold an old zone that blocks the intended use. DDA lists these mismatches parcel by parcel.
02 Servicing and network capacity
Servicing decides more sites than zoning does. A trunk main can pass a parcel and still lack the capacity to serve it. A plant can have headroom on paper while a pump station or a force main sets the real limit.
DDA separates installed capacity from usable capacity. Usable capacity depends on the weakest link in the network, on reliability, and on what other approved projects already claim. We identify the constraint in the network and the cost and lead time to relax it. A servicing extension that serves one site costs more per unit than one that serves several. DDA tests which sites share an extension and what combined demand pays for it.
Transport and utilities work the same way. Road access, truck routes, and power supply each carry their own capacity and lead time.
03 Ownership and owner intent
Ownership decides availability. A site of ten hectares can split into many small parcels with different owners. Assembly then costs time and money, and one owner can stop the whole project. Some owners hold land for reasons that a sale price does not change. Some parcels sit in an estate, a trust, or an unresolved dispute.
DDA maps ownership, parcel size, and holding patterns. We do not assume that a parcel for sale exists. Public parcel data is a starting point, and owner intent needs evidence such as listings, past transactions, and contact.
04 Constraint overlays
Land carries many overlapping conditions. Agricultural reserve status, floodplain, riparian areas, steep slope, contaminated sites, parks, and tenure all limit use. Where Indigenous title and rights interests affect a site, the analysis states the interest and refers the question to the right specialist.
DDA overlays the constraints and reports the land that remains and the land that each constraint removes alone. A constraint that removes land already removed by another constraint has no added effect. This test shows which constraints matter.
05 What the work can produce
The work can produce an employment lands analysis for a strategy or an update, a housing land analysis, a parcel table that shows every screen and every loss, a servicing and capacity review, an ownership and assembly analysis, an investment-readiness assessment for named sites, and a ranked list of actions that bundles the zoning, servicing, landowner, and investment steps that must happen together. DDA delivers the steps as one bundle, because separate recommendations leave the connections between them unstated.
A deprioritization list is part of the product. It names the sites that must not receive effort and gives the reason.
For sector versions, see Housing and municipal planning, Economic development, and Land, water, and resource use.
06 Bring the site or the question
Send the plan, the land inventory, the site, or the servicing study. DDA will find the test that removes the most land and identify what can change it.