A report released by Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi from a community summit last fall raises discussion about reforming the Ontario Municipal Board, as the provincial government considers legislation that would allow two municipalities to opt out of the appeal body.
Last month, a private member’s bill was introduced that would allow certain development decisions in the Golden Horseshoe region in southern Ontario to be excluded from OMB appeals. Another bill would let the City of Toronto opt out of the board altogether. The board hears planning and development issues appeals, with board members appointed by the provincial government.
Naqvi held his third Sustainable Community Summit with the public about the OMB last year and published a report this March with comments and suggestions from those who attended.
“I think we need to take a more holistic approach and that is to look at different reform mechanisms,” Naqvi says, adding thatthe legitimacy of the board has come into question over the years, Naqvi says, and at this stage there needs to be reform.
The OMB has faced calls for its abolition from various stakeholders, including accusations of bias in favour of developers.
During the 2011 election campaign, Naqvi proposed four changes, including mandatory mediation between applicants and appellants and incorporating community design plans as enforceable policies in a city’s official plan. Currently, official plans and secondary plans are given more weight as legal documents, while community design plans are guiding policies that don’t get the same consideration.
Rob Dekker, vice-president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association and co-chair of its planning and development issues committee, says the OMB is not working.
“Mediation would help, but I think what would go a lot further would be developers reaching out to the community and meeting with the community beforehand,” Dekker says.
“While mediation is an important part of what is being proposed with the OMB, I think what is actually important is for the city, the planning department, and developers to recognize is that these developments should be discussed with the community before they go to the city.”
Ted Fobert, a senior partner with planning and urban design firm FoTenn, says the OMB generally works well and that finding the balance between flexibility and certainty is really what the discussion is about.
Fobert says municipal issues such as zoning bylaws would reduce some of the disputes that go before the board, so when applications come forward for buildings permitted in the official plan, it’s not a huge shock and there’s no spot zoning happening.
“The other area where there’s been friction is where there are guidelines for growth,” Fobert says. “Where the community might like to see them more entrenched in an official plan and the development community would like a little more flexibility, so they’re not having to amend an official plan every time they have to reduce a setback by one metre or something.”