OMB on its way out
MPP Jeff Leal said it’s good that the Ontario government is about to scrap the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) and set up a new tribunal that will give cities more decisionmaking power.
The OMB is a tribunal that hears appeals from citizens and developers when they object to municipal rezonings or development matters.
It’s about to be replaced by the new Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, which will have less power to overturn local government decisions.
“And it will mean faster, fairer and more affordable hearings,” Leal said.
The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal will decide if a municipality has followed its official plans in the disputed decision. If it has failed to do so, the issue will be sent back to the municipality for reconsideration.
Only if the municipality fails to come to a decision or fails to follow the planning process a second time would a full hearing be held, with the tribunal making a final decision.
It will mean fewer municipal decisions can be overturned than under the current process, in which each dispute is treated as if it were new, disregarding the decision the local government has made.
Leal said the OMB has been “tilted” in favour of anyone who can pay for lawyers and professional planners to make their case at a hearing.
He cited the example of No Casino Peterborough. Earlier this year, the citizens’ group wanted to argue against a casino before the OMB but lacked the funds to hire a lawyer; they weren’t able to appeal.
When the reform was announced in Toronto on Tuesday, the development industry warned it would hinder the province’s plans to build up cities in Ontario as it empowers the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) tendencies of communities.
Former mayor Sylvia Sutherland, who was also a board member with the OMB until her recent retirement, wasn’t available for comment on Tuesday.
Mayor Daryl Bennett said he was pleased with the proposal because it creates “a true appeals body to replace the OMB.”
“For residents, it means the people they elect and hold accountable at the local level will make planning decisions - not unelected OMB members,” he wrote in an email.
“For developers, it will likely reduce the frequency of appeals and the length of time it takes to get a decision. This will lead to more locally responsive development instead of development imposed on a provincial level.”
Allan Seabrooke, the city CAO, was also pleased with the proposed changes.
“In my view, it’s a welcomed piece of legislation that will give municipalities a stronger voice in our local land-use planning decisions,” he wrote in an email to The Examiner.
Seabrooke wrote that the OMB too often allowed people who don’t know much about land-use planning to appeal decisions of councils.
He characterized these as “frivolous objections” that would “stifle” private development – even after a city council approved the plan. He prefers the new process.
“The bottom line is that even if a land-use decision gets to a tribunal, they are required to give greater weight to the decision of municipal councils – which is where the authority always should have been,” he wrote.
Last year, Seabrooke’s family was involved in an OMB hearing over the plan to build MasterMind Toys on Lansdowne St. W. and The Parkway.
Some of his family members owned the property when city council rezoned it to allow the toystore. Seabrooke had once been a part-owner of the property as well, but he said that by then he’d divested his interest in the land.
Local lawyer Ann Farquharson had appealed the rezoning, saying that the toy store should have been in the downtown.
But the OMB ruled that MasterMind should be allowed on Lansdowne St. because it redevelops an underutilized site in the city – which is something the provincial government encourages.