Strengthening planning process - RPCO on OMB reform

NRU
Sept. 21, 2016
By Geordie Gordon

While affirming the need for the Ontario Municipal Board as part of the provincial planning framework, the Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario has identified several issues with board operations. In a recent report, the planning commissioners suggest legislative, procedural and administrative changes that would emphasize mediation and curtail the amount of litigation before the board.

RPCO chair and Halton Region planning services director & chief planning official Ron Glenn told NRU that the most important aspect of OMB reform is to move away from litigation and towards mandatory mediation.

“[The report puts] a really strong emphasis on mediation, alternative dispute resolution as a mandatory process... whether it’s at the municipal level or whether it’s at the Ontario Municipal Board level,” he said.

Glenn said there should be a triage process conducted on all fi led appeals to determine whether the case is a candidate for mediation, dismissal or litigation-but only if the appeals are valid or cannot be resolved.

Th e report builds on the experience and expertise of the 18 RPCO members-regional and single-tier municipal planning leaders-on what works at the OMB and what needs improvement. The list of issues was derived through a survey of RPCO members: large complex hearings take too long, the process is expensive and too litigious, insufficient regard to municipal decisions and limitations to the de novo aspect of hearings. In response the report puts forward 26 recommendations to improve the functioning of the OMB.

What the RPCO is really looking for from the province is to strengthen the “good planning process” through OMB reform, Glenn said.

“That is to get decisions in a timely fashion so that we can implement policy, versus being in a continual policy cycle [where] some of the larger hearings are taking three or four years to complete, and then you’re starting [the policy review process] over.”

One of the report’s legislative recommendations is to “remove the right to appeal all municipally-initiated official plans or official plan amendments in defined circumstances.” The right to appeal policies as they related to specific lands would remain, but the result could not compromise the implementation and application of the official plan policy. This would allow municipalities to “operate with official plan policies that are up-to-date and in force.”

Urban Strategies partner Joe Berridge, the report’s lead researcher, told NRU that a basic tenet of the report is that a land use dispute resolution body is needed in Ontario. Berridge emphasised the need to streamline what is heard at the OMB, a process that has begun with restrictions on some appeals in the recent amendments to the Planning Act.

“The difficulty you have right now is one objection to a comprehensive plan puts the entire comprehensive plan in jeopardy. If that’s a site-specific objection, then it should be dealt with at the site-specific level, and not put the overall policy in question,” he said.

While the intent of the recommendations are to assist the province as it completes its review of the OMB, Glenn says the ultimate goal of the RPCO is more broadly concerned with improving the planning system in Ontario.

“The changes that we’re targeting are at the Ontario Municipal Board, but it’s really about getting into good planning and getting effective policy change on the ground,” he said.

Assisting with research and report writing was Leah Birnbaum Consulting principal Leah Birnbaum and WeirFoulds lawyer Ian Lord served as the team’s solicitor.