What Is AEDI Fixing in the Construction and Development Industry?
People who have been operating inside of land development and any level of construction, whether it be a general contractor, a large-scale developer, or one of these newer developers focused on missing middle housing, gentle intensification, and utilizing the space we have in more dense cities, all the way down to land conversion for different reasons, understand there are fairly standardized processes that need to be gone through from an information standpoint.
However, there’s actually almost no standardized process when it comes to individual municipalities and provinces.
Every Municipality Is Different
They’re different across the board.
In some cases, that makes a lot of sense. Different areas have different requirements, different land uses, and justifiably different approaches and methodologies to move through land development.
Why AEDI Was Created
Where AEDI was born was out of a necessity to create a more streamlined understanding and clarity of that development process at an early stage.
There are companies across Canada, including:
- Engineering firms
- Legal firms
- Professional planners
- Land surveyors
These groups handle feasibility reviews for different projects.
Whether you’re doing:
- An addition
- An infill build
- A new lot severance
- A consent to create a new lot
- Any type of development application
The process starts very early in most municipalities.
If you’re creating a new property line, that’s development.
That’s a key piece of information many people don’t know.
Simplifying the Development Process
What AEDI is doing, and why we built AEDI, is simplifying a repeatable process through a planner’s logic.
As the CEO and founder of AEDI, I’ve spent more than 20 years in the industry, with the last 10 years heavily focused on land development, prospecting, and navigating the approval process.
My niche is working on complex files that do not have straightforward “as-of-right” uses on property, including situations involving:
- Minor variances
- Zoning bylaw amendments
- Official plan amendments
- Rezoning applications
- Complex approval requirements
That’s where I would come in.
And that’s where my logic comes from and is built into AEDI.
AEDI Is Not Just an AI Tool
What’s important to understand is that AEDI is not strictly an AI utility.
We did not build a platform that simply scours the internet for information and outputs hallucinated responses.
This is a purpose-built tool created with:
- The logic of professional planners
- Municipality-specific data
- Provincial planning policies
- Real development workflows
How AEDI Works
What we’re doing is going into the early stages and asking:
Key Questions
- What is the path through the process to get approval?
- How likely is approval?
- Where are the risks or roadblocks?
There are cases where the answer is almost definitely no because there’s too much complication or the municipality has no desired use for the proposal.
But there’s also a tremendous amount of time spent between the initial concept and receiving approval, or even getting municipal direction.
Speeding Up Development Decisions
That’s where AEDI comes in.
We speed the process up.
We take:
- Geospatial data from municipalities
- Provincial planning statements
- Municipal bylaws
- Other pertinent planning information
Then we perform a planner-level review to provide clarity on the process in minutes instead of weeks or days.
A New Way Forward
This is something that really needs to be seen to be believed.
It needs to be experienced to fully understand because it’s such a unique process and such an important tool for driving the next steps of development forward.