Peepers
Banned
Sorry, I was referring to Matlow(?) I forgot his first name. Though I'm pretty sure Minnan also voted to fight the OMB, did he not?
Edit: Josh
Krystin Wong-Tam and Josh Matlow spearheaded this motion to abolish the OMB. The motion passed 34 to 5 ! I don't know if Minnan-Wong supported it (be surprised if he did since he seems to be one of the few sensible ones) but for sure most of the right wing of council went along!
UT did a cover story on this a way back and there was a very excellent comment made by a city planner Andrae Griffith which I will quote below:
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2012/10/development-review-ontario-municipal-board
Andrae Griffith • 4 months ago −
I am an urban planner, so I guess you can say that my thoughts on the OMB constitute my professional opinion (assuming that matters to anyone, but whatevs )
In the opinion of this planner, municipalities have three legal duties when they make a land use planning decision:
1) Their decisions must be principled and cannot be arbitrary.
2) Their decisions must be consistent with the provincial policy framework.
3) Their decisions must be in the spirit of "good planning".
When a municipality fails in any of these three duties, we should not be surprised when the decision is overturned at the Ontario Municipal Board as the decision they made was "illegal" (so to speak). If we disband the OMB, then the oversight responsibility will just go to the courts. Assuming they've still failed at their duties, we shouldn't be surprised when the decision is overturned by the courts (an option which I feel is more dangerous, as judges are generally not well versed in what the spirit of good planning is).
I feel that municipalities have all the tools available to them to make a decision and have it stick - they just often don't use those tools or they do not use them correctly. As for individuals who are unhappy with the land use decisions in their community, we need to make it clear that getting involved when an application is submitted is like showing up in the 8th inning. If one truly wants to shape their community in a positive way, the time to get involved is when policies like the Official Plan and the Provincial Policy Statement are up for review.
So as we can see from the above expert opinion it is fruitless - even dangerous - to do away with the OMB because disputes will just wind up in courts. Someone should explain that to these two dummies!
Last edited: