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Adam: Beware of the Wynne government's latest promise to review the OMB

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We’ve seen this act before, so forgive me if some of us are not overly impressed by all the words from the Ontario Liberal government on reforming the Ontario Municipal Board. Action speaks louder than promises, and Ontarians would be well advised to wait and see what the government actually does on limiting the power of the OMB before they celebrate a new era of municipal control over planning and growth.

“We are going to try as best we’re able to show more deference for local, municipal decision-making,” Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Mauro said recently, announcing yet another review – the second in a decade – of the quasi-judicial planning tribunal. Hopes of municipal control over how cities grow have been raised, but the mere act of an OMB review is not a cause for celebration.

Before anyone gets too excited, let’s remember what a previous municipal affairs minister said a decade ago. “We want to put land-use planning decisions back to where they belong – in the hands of municipal decision-makers. We want to give Ontario municipalities more power to determine what is best for their communities,” John Gerretsen said in 2005. That review spawned the 2006 legislation, Bill 51, that was supposed to make towns and cities masters of their own planning and growth. It did no such thing.

Despite being required to “have regard to” council planning decisions, the OMB time and again ignored the will of municipal governments and ruled in favour of developers. Egregiously, OMB panels often overturned official plan provisions that had been developed after significant public discussion, allowing developers to get their way. The most famous or infamous such decision in Ottawa was the 2009 OMB decision to overrule council and allow builder Minto to go ahead with a Manotick development that was not in line with the city’s plan to limit sprawl. The city spent more than $600,000 in the losing battle.

There were similar stories across Ontario. Things got so bad that in 2012, the city of Toronto tried in vain to get the province to remove it from the jurisdiction of the OMB. Now the Liberal government is back at the reform agenda again. One wonders whether this effort is not more window-dressing.

Consider this: Despite all the rhetoric, Bill 51 did not change the power of the OMB to overturn municipal government decisions, so why should we believe it will happen this time when the phraseology has not changed in any material way? Why will “showing more deference” for council decisions make any difference in 2016 when “having regard to” those decisions failed in 2006? They are all empty words designed to maintain the status quo.

If the Liberal government really wants change, it should say in simple and plain English that the OMB cannot overturn council planning decisions that stem from official plans, period. For instance, if a council draws up an urban boundary based on how it wants a city to grow, the OMB – as has happened in Ottawa – should not redraw it because a builder has land outside that boundary and wants to develop it. The OMB shouldn’t be allowed to substitute its view for that of an elected council.

Some argue that city councils make bad planning decisions – and they do – so the OMB is necessary to protect the larger public interest. The problem is that the OMB is pro-developer and the evidence is not just anecdotal. A study of seven years of OMB appeals in Toronto (2000 to 2006) by University of Winnipeg political scientist Aaron Moore left no doubt about it. The study concluded that “the OMB does favour developers more often than any other parties to a hearing …” That finding could easily apply to other cities. The truth is, individuals or small neighbourhood and community groups that appear before the OMB are no match for the battery of lawyers and consultants developers are able to marshal.

The OMB is an anachronism. The provincial government won’t abolish it, but we’ll soon see if it even has the will to really curb its power.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.

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