City Hall
Question's for Queen's Park
BY Dale Duncan March 25, 2008 15:03
The Toronto Star posed a good question to Queen’s Park (that was never answered) in a recent editorial on the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). As I wrote on March 14, one residents’ group in Barrie has already shied away from participating in an OMB hearing after the development company they were fighting asked the provincially appointed board to force citizens opposed to another one of its projects to compensate the company for having to participate in a hearing. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), the board is considering the developer’s request. (“No date has been set to hear the cost application,” reports the Star.) Of course, all this means, as Rick Smith of Environmental Defence says, that "Any citizen thinking about going to the OMB is going to be taking a hard look at this, and thinking twice.”
Asks the Star: “Where is Queen’s Park on this issue?”
The implications of the developer (Kimvar Enterprises Inc.) actually having its application approved are chilling. Why spend the money to take the time to work out a plan with neighbourhood residents when you can go the OMB and then charge them for your time? Knowing that they could be asked to compensate developers for forcing them to go to the OMB, citizen groups and city governments will be motivated to do more to avoid OMB hearings altogether, and that means that developers will have more leverage to do what they want, even if it doesn’t meet the approval of local residents and elected politicians.
On the bright side, one thing this story proves (for those of us who didn’t already know it) is that the OMB is not just a Toronto issue. Cities and citizens across the province are dealing with fallout from this organization, which means that there’s an opportunity for people across the province to pressure Queen’s Park for change.
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