Richmond Hill and OMB face off in a duel over parkland and developers
Town appeals an OMB ruling that tossed aside a bylaw forcing developers to turn over enough cash to ensure lots of green space for condo dwellers.

TheStar.com
Feb. 24, 2015
Noor Javed

How much money should developers have to put up for parks and green space if they want to build in Richmond Hill?

That’s the question pitting the town council against the Ontario Municipal Board, which sided with developers in the first round of the fight in January, after they protested the high parkland-dedication rate Richmond Hill enforces on new condo development in the booming municipality.

The town is preparing for round two, as it appeals the decision at the board and at divisional court.
For Richmond Hill, this is no ordinary squabble with the OMB — an unelected board that has become the de facto decision maker in countless planning matters across the province.

The town says the OMB’s decision will fundamentally affect the ability of Richmond Hill to protect and preserve its green space — and if things go the way of developers, it will alter the face of the community for coming generations.

“This is really about a council’s ability and a community’s ability to make policy about the future of its community, versus the board’s ability to make a money decision,” said Ana Bassios, the commissioner of Planning and Regulatory Services for the town.

A few years ago, in the face of growth and calls for intensification, the town began to contemplate a different future. Once known for its subdivisions and single-family homes, Richmond Hill has started to build upward. Since 2010, it has issued building permits for 2,874 apartment units, the majority of those on designated high-density corridors along Yonge St. or Highway 7. The town anticipates that 13,491 units will be built by 2031.

But to ensure green space would be protected, town staff, in conjunction with the community, spent two years developing an extensive parks plan that would guarantee current and future residents would always have park space to enjoy.

“From our point of view, parkland is especially important for residents who live in condos,” said Richmond Hill Mayor Dave Barrow. “If you move and buy a home, you will have a park in your neighbourhood. If you move in and buy a condo, you should have a park in your neighbourhood.”

But the plan was contingent on getting condo developers to pay for green space through a parkland dedication bylaw — a provision of the provincial Planning Act that requires developers and builders to set aside either land or pay cash-in-lieu.

After determining exactly how much green space would be needed in future, the town passed a bylaw in 2013 that applied the maximum amount permitted in the Planning Act: one hectare of land for every 300 units, or the cash equivalent. As a lesser amount, the town added in the bylaw that developers could pay 1 hectare of land for every 730 people.

Developers weren’t happy.

They took the town to the OMB to complain that the rate — among the highest in the GTA — was a “serious disincentive to both intensification and the provision of affordable housing.”

They argued that under the town’s rate, the cash-in-lieu equivalent would be $37,600 per unit. (Bassios says the price would vary depending on the value of the land, and whether the developer would be giving up any land as well.)

The board sided with developers, saying the rate being applied by Richmond Hill was too high, and doesn’t conform with practices elsewhere in the GTA, where many municipalities demand much less from developers.

The OMB ruling imposes a cap on how much the town can charge on new development: 25 per cent of the land being developed, or its value in cash.

“No matter how many units there are on the site, they are going to pay the same amount,” said Bassios. “The cap removes any relationship between a density increase and the parkland that they owe,” she said.

She says the cap also limits the amount of actual parkland the town will be able to receive from developers. “It’s much cheaper for them to just give us the money.”

She anticipates that the OMB policy will shortchange the town’s parks plan by at least $70 million.
“This case is the epitome of OMB overstepping its bounds. We actually have an act that gives us the authority to proceed as we did, and they decided, no, you shouldn’t follow that and we’ll just pick a number for you,” Barrow said.

“This is it. This is the test,” he said. “This is a jurisdiction they (the OMB) have no right to be in.”