and Toronto City Council has the mandate to establish a Planning Act without all the loopholes. The fact that nothing has been done lies right at the doorstep of McGinty and Miller. Gentrifaction of city neighborhoods started in the days of John Sewell and in the process affordable accomodation for the poor schelp going out to work everyday has disappeared.
It's no secret lawyers are the real planners of Toronto, and as recent events show, development decisions are now being made in court.
Unlike most cities in Canada and around the world, the planning process in Toronto has been held hostage by a provincial agency, the Ontario Municipal Board, which has final say on civic planning.
The OMB is a quasi-judicial body, which means legal counsel, witnesses, testimony, and in the end, a winner and loser.
Is it any wonder then that growth has been so badly handled in this city? To make matters worse, Toronto's planning department cannot keep up with demand; understaffed, underfunded and undermined by archaic legislation – the OMB dates back to 1897 – it is no longer up to the task.
The most recent example of the mess is the travesty of West Queen West, which has been pretty well been handed over to developers to do with what they want regardless of city policies and residents' concerns.
The story involves a trio of developers, an organized and engaged neighbourhood and civic bureaucracy that can't get its act together. It's a familiar tale; a district is colonized by creative types who bring it to life, then developers set about building condos that will kill the very appeal that made them possible in the first place.
What's different here is that the neighbourhood didn't lapse into the usual NIMBY negativity. Instead, it hired its own lawyers and planners and came up with a proposal to accommodate growth, which all agreed was desirable.
Because the city was so slow responding to developers' applications, however, OMB appeals were launched and heard. As usual, the tribunal sided with the builders but did insist that they return this fall with improved schemes.
In the meantime, feeling heat from outraged citizens, Toronto politicians announced they would seek approval from Ontario Divisional Court to appeal the OMB decision.
But the day before the case was heard, the city chickened out and settled with two of the three developers. Then the judge did the unexpected and agreed with the city argument, but by then it only applied to the third developer's plan.
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