TLAB is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal that was created last year to replace the Ontario Municipal Board's (OMB) jurisdiction over the adjudication of typically smaller scale land-use planning disputes that are heard through the Committee of Adjustment. The City is seeking your feedback on this newly formed local appeals body by either providing written submissions [...]
After years of advocating alongside my colleague, Kristyn-Wong Tam and local residents' associations, the Ontario legislature voted to move forward with major changes to the planning appeals system in Toronto yesterday. Bill 139, the Building Better Communities and Conserving Watersheds Act, 2017 will replace the OMB with the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. While I have serious [...]
Issue / Background: On May 16, 2017 the Ontario Government announced it was taking action to overhaul the Province's land use planning appeals system to give communities a stronger voice in land use planning decisions and ensure people have access to faster, fairer and more affordable hearings. As part of this process legislation will be [...]
Committee of Adjustment decisions on minor variances (generally related to single-family homes) will no longer be appealable to the Ontario Municipal Board. Instead, Toronto has now established its own Local Appeals Body. I hope that this is an important first step toward Toronto having greater freedom from the OMB. For more information, please see this Toronto Star article.
The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) is an unaccountable, unelected and anti-democratic provincially-appointed body that has the final say over our city's planning decisions. The influence that the OMB has had on the Yonge-Eglinton area were featured in a well-written, informative series in the Toronto Star this past weekend. As many of you know, I have been a [...]
Read this in-depth Toronto Star series on how the Ontario Municipal Board wields its unelected power over a city crunched for resources: Contested Development. The OMB is a quasi-judicial, un-elected and un-accountable provincial body that has the final say on all planning decisions in the province of Ontario. The tribunal's powers to overrule [...]
Review of powerful appeals body aims to give more consideration to local planning process. October 5, 2016 Jennifer Pagliaro The Toronto Star Attorney General Yasir Naqvi, whose department oversees the Ontario Municipal Board, said there is little agreement on how best to reform the land use planning process in the province but [...]
Toronto Star. June 23, 2012 The story of the Ontario Municipal Board is a story about the future of Toronto: whether, as growth redraws the skyline, this city will be a paint-by-numbers or a work of art. As a quasi-judicial tribunal that hears appeals arriving from municipal planning decisions, the OMB’s story is [...]
February 7, 2012 Consider it a welcome declaration of independence. Toronto’s residents, urban planners and elected councillors will have a lot more say over neighbourhood development if this city succeeds in freeing itself from a century-old oppressor. No, the bully Toronto wants to escape isn’t some local Scut Farkus (“He had yellow eyes!”) It’s the [...]
November 7, 2011 On the agenda for the next City of Toronto Planning and Growth Management Committee meeting on Nov. 8 is a motion to abolish the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). Under the current system, developers have little incentive to negotiate in good faith with the city, a process they see simply as a [...]
