Details

I arrive in the Council Chamber for the Canada Post presentation. As I enter I see the large bulky form that is John Blommesteyn who is here to complain about the behaviour of Regional Councillor John Taylor who, quite properly, leaves his seat and joins the public in the audience.

I sit down directly behind Blommesteyn, noting a thick wad of notes in his hand, and strike up a conversation. I ask him if he feels nervous. No. He tells me he has done this before. He is chatty and smiles a lot, ignoring the fact that I often write unflattering things about him.

I ask if he is going to request extra time. Back in December 2013 he led a deputation of three – the others being his young sons – and loudly demanded 20 minutes instead of the usual five. Then he was the raging bull.

Now he is at the microphone complaining about breaches of the Town’s code of conduct and about this and that. Now and again the Mayor tells him he mustn’t stray from the subject and he complies without demur. He is going through the motions. Soon his five minutes is up.

The Mayor asks the councillors if they will give him some more time to finish what he has to say and, to my surprise, they refuse (with the exception of Christina Bisanz and, I think, Kelly Broome-Plumbley who are newcomers to Council). The animosity of the old guard, hidden behind blank faces, is deep and enduring.

I expected a roar or a rant from Blommesteyn, denouncing the Mayor or Taylor or, perhaps, just the system. But there was nothing. He smiles at me, collects his papers and silently exits without waiting for the discussion. Bad manners, I’d say.

Now we are on to a weary discussion about how the code of conduct should be updated and reviewed. There were a few good points made but I can’t immediately recall them. As the debate concludes I hear the Mayor make a plea for the new Code to contain a definition of what constitutes a “frivolous or vexatious” complaint.

No prizes for guessing who was in his mind when he said that.

Canada Post tells us to pick up our own mail

Canada Post delivers two men in suits to Mulock Drive. They are here to tell us to prepare for the end of home delivery of mail by the Fall. Bringing the mail to someone’s home is, apparently, the old-fashioned way. And it costs twice as the alternative “community mailboxes”.

Even though I hear that only one third of us now get mail delivered to our doors, what is happening is clearly a degradation in service and it can’t be wrapped up as anything else.

I learn we are all collectively to blame for this state of affairs. The number of letters in the system shrank by 1.2 billion between 2006-13. I hear this trend from paper to digital is irreversible. There is less mail and Canada Post is delivering to more addresses. We are told this is not sustainable.

Over the coming five-year period, five million addresses will be converting to community mailboxes. We are being pummeled into submission by statistics.

A slide comes up on the big screen showing a fictional map of two adjacent neighbourhoods giving us an idea of what life could be like with community mailboxes.

One neighbourhood has a smattering of red dots. Fewer dots mean bigger community mailboxes. Next door is a neighbourhood with measles. Lots of little red dots mean more - but smaller - community mailboxes.

Personally, I prefer the latter.

But maybe that’s because I have a feeling in my bones that, before the year is out, and despite all my protestations, something with a Canada Post logo is going to be sitting at the bottom of my garden.

 

Details

Inspectors from York Region are responsible for making sure the food we eat won’t harm us. They are the unsung heroes, policing restaurants and fast food joints on our behalf.

In Newmarket, so much of the public discourse is polarised around the (false) premise: private sector good: public sector bad.

Only simpletons are fooled by such talk.

We need efficient and effective public services and we should be prepared to pay for them. 

I’ve just checked out a number of places where I dine out from time to time. And there’s one I definitely won’t be going back to. Others keep on the right side of the food inspectors - just. A few have impeccable records. They’ll get my business.

The green Inspection Notices on restaurant windows and doors tell only half the story.

You can dig deeper by visiting York Region’s Food Safe website. Type in the name of the restaurant and it pops up as a pin on the map. Click on the pin and read the inspection reports and prepare to have your eyes opened.

You can also lodge a complaint against a restaurant or other food premises by calling Health Connection: 1-800-361-5653 or TTY 1-866-252-9933 or emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Restaurants that pose an immediate health hazard are closed down. The fact that this doesn’t happen very often is due, in large measure, to the work of our food safety people.

Case made.

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Details

Two years ago tomorrow, the much-maligned Ontario Municipal Board gave formal approval to the proposed Slessor Square development.

I remember it well. The casually dressed adjudicator, Mr Reid Rossi, giving the impression he had a train to catch.

A week earlier (11 February 2013) Newmarket’s councillors voted in favour of the massive complex opposite Upper Canada Mall, explaining their reasons one by one. It made for fascinating theatre.

Dave “it’s pointless to consult the public” Kerwin feared any more delays could bankrupt the developer.

As if!

With planning approval granted, the old car dealership site, pitted and desolate, is now worth millions. The approval is, as the lawyers say, “attached” to the land indefinitely. Once given, it cannot be taken away. It sounds almost biblical.

In any event, this allowed the Slessors to drain $7,500,000 out of the equity.

We heard in October 2013 that the site had been sold, conditional for 60 days. That “sale” obviously fell through but there may have been other offers. Who knows? But the Land Registry records show no change in title.  Dwight Slessor Holdings Limited remains the owner.

And still, day-in day-out, the huge red billboard shouts at us: THIS LAND FOR SALE.

To me, it is a constant reminder of our broken and dysfunctional planning system, infested with calculating lawyers and dissembling planners and presided over by randomly qualified OMB adjudicators with tunnel vision.

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To see details of title open “documents” in the panel top left, navigate to Slessor Square 2015 and open “Slessor land registry 17Feb15”

 

Details

The OMB has turned down my request to review the decision of the Glenway adjudicator, Susan Schiller, on 18 November 2014, allowing development on the former golf course lands, on the grounds that I was not a Party or Participant at the OMB Hearing.

I argued that the Board:

(a) heard misleading evidence from a party or witness which was discovered only after the hearing and which could have affected the result and

(b) should consider evidence which was not available at the time of the hearing but that is credible and could have affected the result.

The Associate Chair of the OMB, Wilson Lee, says:

"I have concluded that the Request is an attempt to reargue the issues raised in the hearing and addressed in the Decision."

He goes on:

“The Request refers to a number of reports on Town-initiated studies which assisted in the finalisation of its Secondary Plan and the adoption of this plan. The release of the reports and the adoption of the plan occurred after the issuance of the Decision (27 March 2014) and while settlement discussions were underway.”

“At paragraph 62 of the Decision, the Board determined that there was no requirement for completion of any Town-led, Town-wide study to precede its consideration of the appeals.”

(Paragraph 62 reads: The Board attached no weight to the suggestion that a Town-led, Town-wide study must precede consideration of the Marianneville development proposals.)

I appreciate that the Board “strives for finality in its decisions” and cannot allow things to drag on indefinitely. But I remain absolutely convinced that the entire dynamic of the OMB Hearing would have been fundamentally different if the participants – including the Adjudicator – had known in March 2014 what they know now. 

You can read the OMB letter by clicking on Documents in the panel above left, navigating to Glenway.  Open “OMB Review letter 13Feb15”   A copy of my request for a review is in the same Glenway folder.

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Details

It upsets me no end that wealthy property owners can get planning approval for a development and then sit on it for years, sometimes decades, doing nothing.

Too often this goes directly against the public interest.

In today’s Toronto Star, Christopher Hume, argues for a sunset clause where planning approvals expire after a set number of years if construction has not started. The property owner would then have to re-apply. In the UK planning permissions generally lapse after 5 years.

Hume talks about our broken planning system:

 “You needn’t look far to see that planning in Ontario is anything but. It has become a process so flawed, it actually creates the opposite. Indeed, if we had set out to create a system guaranteed to result in chaos – we’ve got it.”

He goes on:

 “The most recent example came last week when Riteland Holdings Inc announced it would build a luxury housing subdivision in the Oak Ridges Moraine – more than 16 years after the project was approved.”

In Newmarket we can do better than that. Planning approval was given for a 12 storey 115 unit condo at 22 George Street in 1993 and, scandalously, it is still a patch of bare dirt 22 years on.

The same owner, Peter Czapka, is also sitting on undeveloped land at 39 Davis Drive where planning approval was given in 2009 for a 280 unit 20 storey condo.

This is not a matter just for the owner. There are Town-wide ramifications if development is postponed indefinitely. Water and sewage allocations that would ordinarily go to major developments in Davis Drive and the urban centre will be channelled elsewhere, to Glenway perhaps. Another example of the law of unintended consequences is in the making.

So, what is to be done?

In October 2013 the Province announced a review of the land use planning system but it is like wading through treacle to get hold of a list of those who responded and to find out what they said. Is seems as if everything has disappeared into a big black hole. Where is the sense of urgency?

On 13 January 2014 Newmarket put in its own submission to the review but our councillors, inexplicably, are not demanding a change in the law to force developers like Peter Czapka to act on planning approvals rather than allow them to gather dust. (If the earlier link doesn't work try this and scroll to page 116.)

What will it take to get our councillors to act? 

Empty buses going past empty lots on Davis Drive while developers hoard their land, waiting for its value to go through the roof? Maybe then we shall see something stirring in the undergrowth. 

Update on 17 February 2015: Regional Councillor John Taylor has helpfully been in touch to say that when he was Chair of Planning he asked staff to include in York Region's submission to the Province a request that the Land Use Planning Review include a sunset clause on planning approvals.

A copy of the covering letter of 9 January 2014 from the then Director of Long Range Planning Val Shuttleworth and Edward Hankins, Director, Treasury Office was forwarded to me. It says this:

“ON January 9th, 2014, York Region Committee of the Whole considered and discussed the attached report. Committee of the Whole endorsed the Report with the additional request that the Province also consider possible legislative changes to the Planning Act that would allow approval authorities to place time limits on zoning approvals, similar to those lapsing provisions already available on plans of subdivision.”

Taylor says: “I think it is safe to say we will not know to what degree this is being considered until we see draft legislation or a report of some nature.”

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