Mike in TO
Senior Member
That letter gives a perfect rationale as to why we have professional planners and expert witnesses at the OMB to ensure decisions are based on evidence, the public interest, provincial policy and long-term planning rationale rather then short-term political and local interests. The letter written by Mr. Graff reads as one of those "anti intellectualism / anti-expert" tea party supporter type views of the world. Of course the city has to hire outside lawyers & planners to appear before the OMB when council votes against the recommendations of their own planning department. They are professionals and bound by a code of ethics - they can't appear before the tribunal and toss their professional opinion and their own reports out the window based on the whims & political pressures of council - so the city goes and finds someone else to make their case and the city planners are often called as "expert witnesses" to testify against the council position.
Those are the cases that the city loses almost every single time and for good reason, which why the OMB is an important component of the land-use planning and appeals system - it makes evidence based planning decisions and takes local politics out of planning.
Professional planners are registered by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute - which is a long process and requires ongoing professional learning every year. Furthermore, most planners have at least a Bachelors of Urban Planning degree or a Masters - University of Waterloo and Ryerson University are the two schools in Ontario with undergraduate programs. Ryerson also has a graduate program and the U of T Cities Centre has an urban studies graduate program.
Those are the cases that the city loses almost every single time and for good reason, which why the OMB is an important component of the land-use planning and appeals system - it makes evidence based planning decisions and takes local politics out of planning.
Professional planners are registered by the Ontario Professional Planners Institute - which is a long process and requires ongoing professional learning every year. Furthermore, most planners have at least a Bachelors of Urban Planning degree or a Masters - University of Waterloo and Ryerson University are the two schools in Ontario with undergraduate programs. Ryerson also has a graduate program and the U of T Cities Centre has an urban studies graduate program.