OMB really doesn’t help ordinary citizens

RE: OMB is available to ordinary taxpayers (March 6)

Letter writer Doug Anderson certainly wears rosecoloured glasses. The Ontario Municipal Board is widely seen as a legal process run by lawyers. An OMB hearing is only theoretically available to ordinary citizens. If someone wants to dispute a city bylaw, as proposed, their application ($300) would first be screened by OMB staff and almost certainly rejected, possibly because it is not expressed in proper legal terminology. This is probably why, in their call for comment on OMB changes, the government included the question: “Are there funding tools the province could explore to enable citizens to retain their own planning experts and lawyers?”

If anyone has a dispute with the city over a bylaw or zoning issue, they would be well advised to go to the committee of adjustment, and save their $300. Perry Bowker, Burlington