I apologize in advance, I'm a local who lives near this proposed development who has zero understanding of...well anything to be honest.
No need for apologies; we all learn by asking questions!
Is there anyway you could ELI5 your comment for me?
I doubt we have to lower it quite that far, LOL But sure.
What happens if there is a settlement offer? It shows up on city councils agenda?
So, more or less, yes.
If you think of it as a civil court case, which it is, sorta (the Tribunal is not divisional court, but the idea is somewhat similar).........
When you sue someone, you and the person you sued can arrive at a settlement, more or less at any point before the matter goes to the judge (or in the case Tribunal member) for decision; though typically before the hearing actually begins.
If the desire is to ratify a settlement prior to the hearing date, then the offer (if made) will need to go to Council with a direction to staff and legal to propose the settlement offer, jointly with the appellant when the hearing date arrives.
Should that window be missed, the City's lawyers and those of the appellant can still come to terms, but they can't actually settle w/o Council's permission, which means they would have to seek an adjournment of some kind.
Failing that, the OLT would hear the case, and rule and its judgement would generally be final.
While the OLT tends, overwhelmingly, to favour developers, there is the odd time it does not, so there is always some risk to the appellant that they will be one of those times the Tribunal sides w/the City, so there is generally an incentive to come to settlement if there is any reasonable hope of one.
Sometimes, of course, the developer is adamant in not changing or reducing in size their proposal, in which case, no offer is forthcoming.
Equally, the City is sometimes unwilling to budge if they think a proposal is sufficiently absurd, or would risk setting a terrible precedent.
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In this case, unless it was added at the last minute and I missed it, there was no settlement offer for this property on the last Council agenda.
There will be a Council meeting this coming week, but it is intended to be dedicated to the budget, so it's unlikely something like this would show up at that meeting, but not impossible, I suppose; though it is not on the agenda.
