Duane Hicks
An appeal has been filed with the Ontario Municipal Board over town council’s decision to re-zone the “Nelson Street Park” for residential development at its Dec. 19 meeting.
Municipal planner Faye Flatt said Monday that local resident Eric Rude submitted an appeal on behalf of himself and fellow “park” proponent Kalan Kielczewski on Jan. 4.
The deadline to file was Monday (Jan. 9).
Flatt explained the next step is for her to compile a record and send it in to the OMB.
What’s included in the record is copies of any information that was submitted in writing, affidavits from herself confirming that proper notice had been given in accordance with legislation, and names and addresses of anyone who made a presentation to council or asked to be advised of a re-zoning decision.
She must complete this within 15 days of the appeal period ending.
Once received by the OMB, it will assign a number to the appeal and acknowledge that it received the appeal to those who filed it as well as to the municipality.
The OMB then may schedule a hearing on the matter.
Usually it takes two-three weeks to receive acknowledge that the OMB received the appeal, then anywhere from three-five months to arrange a hearing.
In the meantime, Flatt said the town will go through the process of reviewing how it wants to proceed with the appeal.
After providing input herself and gathering it from the various divisions, a recommendation as to which tack to take will go to council for approval.
“There’s a number of options that the municipality has,” noted Flatt. “We just have to go through our process to determine which one’s the most appropriate.”
For example, if the appeal is not based on land-use planning issues, the town can make an application for the OMB to dismiss the appeal.
Requesting mediation is another possibility.
It’s up to the OMB as to whether to grant a hearing or not. If an appeal is deemed “to be frivolous, vexatious, or to delay something,” it may dismiss an appeal without a hearing, Flatt said.
This was the case here back in 2003, when appeal was filed after town council decided to re-zone property at 1250 King’s Highway—the would-be future site of Walmart.
Re-zoning appeals don’t happen too often here. The most recent one regarded a property at the end of Emo Road, which resulted in a hearing to dismiss an appeal on April 1, 2009.
A decision was delivered in May of that year, with the OMB chair dismissing the appeal.
As well, an OMB hearing on whether to dismiss an appeal of Abitibi-Consolidated’s proposal to separate the power dam from its mill here was held in November, 2006.
The appeal was dismissed in that instance, too.
