City council, the OMB and a mega-tower
Re How Toronto’s tallest mega-tower got the green light, Sept. 12 Urban planning in Toronto is not just flawed, it is non-existent — no offence to city staff or chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat.
I have been active in developments downtown and especially the waterfront for many years. The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) has loomed over every meeting with developers, city planners, city councillors, architects, Waterfront Toronto and hapless residents.
This unelected body is headed by people from outside Toronto. They are not experts in urban planning (lawyers and business people mainly), and the current vice-chairs live in Brantford, Stratford, Oakville and London. They are political appointments, all on the Sunshine List.
The story of the proposed mega-tower at 1 Bloor West shows how developers run the city like their own piggy bank. If city staff and council didn’t approve Sam Mizrahi’s “sanctuary in the clouds,” he would get approval from the OMB as so many developers have in the past. (That process will still happen as a mere formality.)
To cast further doubt on the city’s permit approval system, Mayor John Tory and his deputy Denzil Minnan-Wong bypassed the local councillor, Kristyn Wong-Tam, and met with Mizrahi, much to her dismay.
It is high time that Toronto gets out from under the OMB. City council must be willing to invest in a local appeals body — perhaps a two-level system that can tackle large as well as minor variances, making the Committee of Adjustment obsolete.
This improvement should also return planners to their rightful job of enforcing zoning bylaws and precinct plans to shape our city. Ulla Colgrass, Toronto Let me get this straight. Toronto city council fails to make a decision on the developer’s application in the time required by the Planning Act. The mayor, deputy mayor and local councillor can’t get their act together and have meetings behind each other’s backs. City staff support the application.
So, the developer appeals to the OMB and city council eventually settles. And this proves that there’s a problem with the OMB? And that the City should be freed from its oversight?
Yet another disingenuous and sensationalist attack on an administrative justice tribunal that is not permitted to defend itself. Michael Melling, Toronto As a former vice chair of the OMB, I am among the last to defend it. However, I read with dismay the above article. Instead of focusing on Councillor Wong-Tam’s concern about “planning by the OMB,” you would be well advised to focus on the fact that City planning staff returned a positive report on the proposed development.
In my experience, particularly in Toronto, municipal planning staff demonstrate a deep and thorough understanding of the council-adopted planning regime, and, importantly, the provincial vision for growth in this province. The planning staff understand what has been mandated for the municipality and the province; their focus is not currying favour with citizens. They are not looking to get re-elected.
Politicians often ignore the advice of staff in the face of the NIMBY neighbours. This case is a good example. It was forced into the hands of the OMB because politicians will not act on the basis of their own policy documents.
Repeatedly I saw the city politicians ignore the recommendations of staff and retain outside “consultants” who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Unfortunately, the OMB is the only check on this behaviour. Susan Campbell, Kitchener I am so tired of listening to Toronto councillors complain about how “there is nothing we can do” or “our hands are tied” when dealing with developers, who consistently bypass or ignore city regulations and bylaws and run directly to the OMB to get what they want.
How hard would it be to say “you won’t get a building permit until such time as you fully comply with our requirements”? Would it not be beneficial for council and city staff to dig in their heels a little before they roll over and play dead? Steve Craine, Toronto The Star’s recent article by Jennifer Pagliaro on the planning chaos that led to the approval of the 80-storey “The One” condo project at Yonge and Bloor is further proof that we need to put an end to this nutty condo boom that only benefits upperincome folks and the very wealthy.
Not only is Toronto developing one of the ugliest skylines anywhere with these ugly glass boxes that all too often shed their glass, it is also losing heritage buildings, particularly on Yonge St. Like many large cities in the world, Toronto has an affordable-housing crisis that the city and the province seem indifferent to. The City of Toronto needs to institute height restrictions not unlike what mayor David Crombie did in the early 1970s to curb, what was then, a massive building spree in the financial district.
This is obviously a wild idea and a pipe dream, but condo developers should be forced to include affordable rental units and public housing in their projects. Now that would have real community benefits. There should be no refuge for the rich when it comes at a public cost.
I recently read a fascinating piece from the July 26 edition of the New York Times about the 100-year anniversary of zoning regulations in New York City. In the early 20th century New York was undergoing a massive building boom that was changing the character of the city and a need for zoning laws and height restrictions became a must.
George McAneny, the borough president of Manhattan in 1913 and one of the architects of New York zoning regulations, wrote at the time: “Regulations are needed to arrest the seriously increasing evil of the shutting off of light and air from other buildings and from the public streets, to prevent unwholesome and dangerous congestion both in living conditions and in street and transit traffic, and to reduce the hazards of fire and peril to life.”
Those words were written over 100 years ago but they could easily apply today in many of our global cities. New York, like Toronto, also has an affordable housing crisis and is undergoing a condo boom with sky-high buildings blotting out the once-iconic skyline.
If Toronto wants to maintain its social cohesion and its status as one of the most livable cities in the world, it must build more housing for low-income people and put restrictions on condo projects that only benefit the wealthy. Andrew van Velzen, Toronto
“It is high time that Toronto gets out from under the OMB.” ULLA COLGRASS TORONTO
A rogue organization that is a law unto itself, serving private interests at the expense of the public, that is unelected and unaccountable for its actions? Must be in some fascist state, no? Unfortunately not, as it’s right here in the “supposed” heartland of democracy and the bandit goes by its three letter moniker, OMB.
Running roughshod over people’s wishes as expressed in their local planning departments, it is nothing more than a baldfaced tool of wealthy developers who use it to bludgeon all opposition to get their own way.
For once, however, the brave town of Richmond Hill has dared challenge this mafia-like cabal in the courts, actually winning a victory for the people. It may be at its peril, however, as the OMB lawyers are now threatening the town with the usual expensive counter suits if it doesn’t drop to its knees and submit in the usual shakedown fashion to its unassailable power.
This insidious organization has no place in a modern democracy and needs to experience forthwith the same political castration the municipalities it has neutered over the years have undergone.
The extent to which it continues to exist will be a direct measure of the undue influence it exercises over the Ontario government. Paul Pepperall, Penetanguishene The OMB stands for Only More Buildings — to the point that we need a development freeze until we have improved core transit as one example of an overload of our collective resources. Hamish Wilson, Toronto