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• Councillor warns of cuts to TTC service [ National Post ]
• City diary; TTC, my winter love [ National Post ]
• Odds against TTC riders, tax group says [ Toronto Sun ]
• GO activist keeps message on track [ Toronto Sun ]
• Office complex planned for King [ Globe and Mail ]
• ‘Outrageous’ OMB move proves board must go [ Toronto Star ]
• Are you ready to fade to black? [ Toronto Star ]
• Municipal funding plan under fire [ Toronto Star ]
• Help T.O. go down drain [ National Post ]
• Toronto: Safer than you think [ Toronto Star ]

10 comments

  1. Damn the OMB. We want a beautiful city, not another suburb of King and Bay.

  2. There is some quality scare-mongreing in that OMB article. It isn’t some nameless faceless gestapo entity.. the hearingmaster’s name is on every decision/order (in this case, R. Rossi) and the hearings are open to the public should people want to see the OMB’s face. Furthermore, it isn’t outrageous that the 2 appeals were combined.. it is much more efficient to do it that way, as the issues are by-and-large exactly the same. And the Board could just as easily rule against both developments as it could for both developments (a point conveniently left out of the article).. not to mention the hearing hasn’t even started yet! I can’t speak to the merits of the applications themselves or the opposition as I haven’t really paid attention to the posturing that has gone on until now. But blanket statements against the OMB really ring hollow to me.

  4. What does Bay St. have to do with crappy decisions by the OMB?

    The proposed development along Eastern Avenue is from SmartCentres, which has much more of a connection to the 905 than downtown.

  5. Municipalities should be the masters of their own development ships. Box stores in Leslieville is not in the common interest. The OMB should be abolished.

  6. Scott: I generally agree. And if all municipalities handled applications as they are required to under the Planning Act, there might not be a need for the OMB. But many municipalities refuse to hear or rule on controversial applications because of how those decisions could impact their future re-electability. As such, the OMB will be required so long as politicians refuse to do their job.

  7. Bay has nothing with the decisions of the OMB (substitute Yonge and Dundas if you want), but it’s an important downtown centre, and rather than pushing the urbanity downtown outward, these kinds of developments seem content to squeeze downtown and surround it with 905 banality. Another example is what happened with the Stock Yards redevelopment along St. Clair.

    Yes there is scare mongering in the article, but we the city made our decision over our land, there’s no need for some appeal to an unaccountable board. Remember what happened with 48 Abell?

  8. I was under the impression the City of Toronto act gave the city the power to write the OMB out of the approvals process — not on to overrule it on a specific issue, but to create a new appeals process which does not involve the OMB. Or am I just imagining things? (A quick web search didn’t turn up anything either way.)

  9. the article also misses the point that the OMB is the only way to overturn decisions made by the city’s planning authorities that are unfair, based on irrelevant considerations, overly swayed by local complaints, or otherwise ill-advised. from personal experience, the OMB actually takes the time to listen to and consider submissions from everyone involved. in my experience, the OMB also strives to reach decisions that are mutually agreed, where such agreements are possible. perhaps the city of toronto should hire better lawyers and other service providers, or be more willing to negotiate with adverse parties, if they’d like better outcomes at the OMB. i am not at all convinced that the OMB should be attacked so harshly.

  10. Anybody can point to some decisions by the OMB that could be considered inappropriate. But I don’t see how the alternative is to do away with the OMB entirely. Unfortunately, many municipal politicians act (in Toronto and elsewhere) in a way that is less than consistent with their own official plans (often sensitive, as Sean has pointed out, to concerns about re-electability). That’s the nitty gritty that many of the local politicians carping about the OMB don’t really want to discuss. They want to have the ability to ignore their so-called official plans often for reasons that have to do with their own political future (and playing favourites with constituents) than with sound planning.