Ontario Municipal Board Essay

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The Ontario Municipal Board was originally formed in 1906 and served as a regulatory tribunal involved in all of the planning decisions made by a municipality. The board is now an appeal board where developers or resident groups go to question the decisions made by local council. The board bases their decisions off of planning policy and law that the members interpret and apply to each individual case. There have been many negative comments made about the Ontario Municipal Board recently, such as unpredictability, bias in decision-making and unaccountability. These comments have spurred the province to reform the board. Bill 139 was first introduced on May 30th, 2017 and received royal assent on December 12th. The bill replaces the board with the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, which has powers to appeal municipal council decisions only if they go against provincial or local policy and plans while also offering improved protections to municipal Official Plans and matters of provincial interest. This paper will discuss the opinions held by a …show more content…

Allen (2012) discusses how the board places lesser emphasis on how a project relates to the surrounding area and a city’s overarching vision of development. She recounts an example where after months of public consultation and work by planning staff, new by-laws were created that allows six-storey buildings. Developers appealed the municipal decision to not allow a seven-storey construction, resulting in the Ontario Municipal Board approving the development disregarding the new by-laws and public consultation that took place (Allen, 2012). While an additional storey is not a significant impact, it demonstrates how a board unaccountable to the public can overrule a fair democratic process such as participatory

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