On August 2, 2013, the Ontario Municipal Board issued its decision on a motion to dismiss an appeal, without a hearing, of a proposed County Official Plan Amendment, pursuant to Section 17(45) of the Planning Act.
The Board found that the appeal by a local ratepayers association was an attempt to do indirectly what they could not do directly. Namely, to appeal an in-force local area Secondary Plan as opposed to the proposed County Official Plan Amendment that was before the Board.
The ratepayers association argued that they were not made aware of the approval of the local area Secondary Plan. This explanation was not accepted by the Board, who noted that the ratepayers association missed the opportunity to appeal the Secondary Plan and is now attempting to “come in through the back-door.”
Our team at DHP, led by Susan Rosenthal made submissions to the OMB in support of the motion for dismissal. In doing so, Jeff Davies presented the Board with the leading OMB decisions in dismissing an appeal without a hearing. The seminal case is Toronto (City) v. East Beach Community Association. In East Beach, the Board looked at whether the appeals were grounded in any planning rationale that could justify the granting or refusal of the appeal. After considering the law regarding dismissal, the Board in East Beach determined that the lack of genuine, legitimate and authentic planning reasons for filing the appeal did not warrant a hearing.
Ultimately, the Board followed the legal principle set out in East Beach and dismissed the appeal in its entirety. This decision re-enforces the legislature’s intent to reserve hearings for genuine planning reasons as opposed to false apprehensions draped in planning verbiage.
Toronto (City) v. East Beach Community Association, 1996 CarswellOnt 5470 (O.M.B.), [East Beach].