ducati0000
Active Member
ne 5, 2008
OPEN LETTER TO ALL WARD 20 RESIDENTS:
OMB REFORM BEGINS NOW!
A significant step was taken today, in the fight to reform, and in fact, eliminate part of the Ontario Municipal Board’s (OMB) functions. At the Planning and Growth Management Committee this morning, City Councillors approved the motion attached below.
This decision starts a process that will eliminate the Ontario Municipal Board as an as appeal body for Committee of Adjustment (CoA) decisions. As your Ward Councillor and as member of the City’s Planning and Growth Management Committee, I have been working my colleague Councillor Peter Milczyn on this idea and I was proud to support the motion which passed unanimously this morning.
Currently, significant development applications that fall just short of requiring an Official Plan Amendment, a formal re-zoning or are deemed to involve only minor amounts of additional density and/or changes to an approved or existing property or design are dealt with by the CoA.
In theory, the CoA was set up to deal with only minor variances such as; extensions to buildings (enlarged porches, rear additions, or the construction of new basement apartments, etc.). In practice, this work still forms the bulk of the cases heard by the CoA. In recent years however, this has begun to change, especially in Ward 20.
Residents now see large projects that have gone through an extensive planning process and careful debate (and occasionally, have even been settled by the OMB) resurface at the CoA with months of a settlement.
The project is restructured, the community is often ambushed, the political and planning process are undermined, and less informed, less regulated and less challenged developments are re-configured and approved in lightening speed.
Today at the Planning and Growth Management Committee, we set in motion a process to put an end to this form of backdoor re-zoning by instructing staff to take advantage of the new powers afforded council in the City of Toronto Act, and to begin work in creating a made-in-Toronto appeal process that will eliminate the OMB as an appeal route for applicants unhappy with the CoA decisions.
CoA decisions would still be open to appeal, but the body that would have carriage of the issue would be appointed by City Council and would operate within guidelines and rules set by Council. This could include instructions to adhere to heritage guidelines, render judgments consistent with Avenue studies and Part II plans. The new appeal body could also be required to interpret all non-planning city by-laws much more literally as the impact of a development is considered and approved.
This is a significant initiative. It heralds and hopefully begins the process of making Toronto’s planning process much more accountable, community-based and sensitive to local conditions and more importantly a more neighbourhood-based process.
There is still a lot of work ahead and as a member of the Planning and Growth Management Committee, I will do all I can to make sure that the concerns of resident groups are front and centre in how the proposal evolves. As it stands now, a working group of committee members and staff will jointly develop a proposal to bring to the community in the fall. At that time, public consultations, financial impacts and responses from all stakeholders and City diviisons will kick-off a public process to bring this idea to life and a introduce a new approach to planning approvals to City Hall.
This initiative won’t solve all of the problems we have with the OMB or the CoA, but it is a serious start and may be the first step in Toronto becoming a self governing city when it comes to planning.
Yours truly,
Adam Vaughan
City Councillor
Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina
OPEN LETTER TO ALL WARD 20 RESIDENTS:
OMB REFORM BEGINS NOW!
A significant step was taken today, in the fight to reform, and in fact, eliminate part of the Ontario Municipal Board’s (OMB) functions. At the Planning and Growth Management Committee this morning, City Councillors approved the motion attached below.
This decision starts a process that will eliminate the Ontario Municipal Board as an as appeal body for Committee of Adjustment (CoA) decisions. As your Ward Councillor and as member of the City’s Planning and Growth Management Committee, I have been working my colleague Councillor Peter Milczyn on this idea and I was proud to support the motion which passed unanimously this morning.
Currently, significant development applications that fall just short of requiring an Official Plan Amendment, a formal re-zoning or are deemed to involve only minor amounts of additional density and/or changes to an approved or existing property or design are dealt with by the CoA.
In theory, the CoA was set up to deal with only minor variances such as; extensions to buildings (enlarged porches, rear additions, or the construction of new basement apartments, etc.). In practice, this work still forms the bulk of the cases heard by the CoA. In recent years however, this has begun to change, especially in Ward 20.
Residents now see large projects that have gone through an extensive planning process and careful debate (and occasionally, have even been settled by the OMB) resurface at the CoA with months of a settlement.
The project is restructured, the community is often ambushed, the political and planning process are undermined, and less informed, less regulated and less challenged developments are re-configured and approved in lightening speed.
Today at the Planning and Growth Management Committee, we set in motion a process to put an end to this form of backdoor re-zoning by instructing staff to take advantage of the new powers afforded council in the City of Toronto Act, and to begin work in creating a made-in-Toronto appeal process that will eliminate the OMB as an appeal route for applicants unhappy with the CoA decisions.
CoA decisions would still be open to appeal, but the body that would have carriage of the issue would be appointed by City Council and would operate within guidelines and rules set by Council. This could include instructions to adhere to heritage guidelines, render judgments consistent with Avenue studies and Part II plans. The new appeal body could also be required to interpret all non-planning city by-laws much more literally as the impact of a development is considered and approved.
This is a significant initiative. It heralds and hopefully begins the process of making Toronto’s planning process much more accountable, community-based and sensitive to local conditions and more importantly a more neighbourhood-based process.
There is still a lot of work ahead and as a member of the Planning and Growth Management Committee, I will do all I can to make sure that the concerns of resident groups are front and centre in how the proposal evolves. As it stands now, a working group of committee members and staff will jointly develop a proposal to bring to the community in the fall. At that time, public consultations, financial impacts and responses from all stakeholders and City diviisons will kick-off a public process to bring this idea to life and a introduce a new approach to planning approvals to City Hall.
This initiative won’t solve all of the problems we have with the OMB or the CoA, but it is a serious start and may be the first step in Toronto becoming a self governing city when it comes to planning.
Yours truly,
Adam Vaughan
City Councillor
Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina