Where Does McGinty Stand Regarding The OMB

What is the alternative?

When speaking up can mean paying up

One of my biggest beefs with the OMB is the amount it costs the city in legal fees and staff hours. Were Toronto’s limited number of planners not spending so much time preparing for hearings with the provincially appointed board, perhaps they’d be able to, you know, actually spend some quality time planning for the growth of the city.

In 2007, the city was involved in at least 141 OMB cases (as of September), which involved 416 hearing days. A recent report (PDF) received by the Planning and Growth Management Committee pointed out that the OMB sucks resources from other departments as well — from 2005 to 2007, Parks, Recreation and Forestry committed approximately 250 work days to OMB hearings, while Transportation Services spent somewhere between 250 to 400 working days on OMB cases. In 2006, the city’s legal department, whose bills may be more expensive than most, spent a total of 1044 staff days (the equivalent of 4.35 full time positions) preparing for and attending OMB hearings.

Obsessing over all these numbers, I tend to forget about another unfortunate downside to having the OMB as an appeal board for development applications in the city: lack of citizen involvement. The high cost of participating in OMB hearings means the average neighbourhood resident is often shut out of the process. In some cases, however, citizens can even be punished for participating.

A couple of weeks ago, Guelph Mercury columnist Tony Leighton, wrote of a resident group in Barrie that backed down from participating in an OMB hearing. The reason: they heard that the developer whose plans they were opposing had asked the OMB to order another citizen’s group who had opposed their plans elsewhere to compensate them for the “$3.6 million in legal fees and consulting costs incurred during an OMB hearing that lasted almost four months.” To many people’s surprise, the OMB agreed to consider the developer’s request. The risk that, if successful, the developer might do the same to them, wasn’t one the Barrie group wanted to take.

Writes Leighton:

The idea of being financially ruined because of your democratic objections is indecent.
A lawsuit against citizens attempting to defend what they consider the common good is sometimes called a "strategic lawsuit against public participation" or SLAPP. Its intended effect is to “chill” the defendant. (Oprah Winfrey, unchillable, won a SLAPP filed against her by the cattle industry.) At least 25 U.S. states have also enacted some form of statutory protection against SLAPPs.
In Ontario, there is no SLAPP protection. Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby told [the Toronto Star] that the provincial government has an obligation to ensure the OMB operates democratically. Says Ruby: "You don't expect crushing costs awards that frighten everyone so they never take part in the process… this then becomes a developers playpen, where only the rich kids get a chance to play."