Legal Versus Illegal

The  Town's Official Plan is a legal document.  An Official Plan is required by Provincial law.

Every property within the municipality has a designation within the Official Plan.

The plan is prepared with public input.Every step of the way the general public are invited to have input

Property owners have a right  to  appeal  the Official Plan,if they do not agree with the designation placed on their property.

The  Official Plan is approved by the Region  and must conform with the Region's Official Plan.

The purpose of  the Official Plan is to control growth and  ensure development takes place in an orderly manner. It ensures no growth  unless  hard services are  available.

A  legal designation for development  cannot be removed.

The value of land with a designation is many times the value of land without. Cost of process is reflected in  value. It takes years . Removing a designation , legally obtained. would be like stealing money. It's not allowed.

When the Province took land in Richmond Hill Oak Ridges Moraine out of development, they had to purchase  the lands, pay its full  value  and provide alternate lands in Pickering for development

The Province could not remove the designation.

Governments can't pass laws and  then refuse to abide by the law they passed. That's illegal.

Aurora did that with the Westhill Development Application. We  refused to process the site plan application in March 2008.

Even at the time , the town's failure to process the application within the time provided by law had been appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.A pre-hearing date had been set.

We spent $650,000 taxpayer's money, in legal fees, three years and untold  hours of professional staff  time and witness fees, in various O.M.B. and court proceedings and a final O.M.B. Hearing lasting six weeks, before the decision was made. The town lost on all counts.

Neighbouring home-owners spent  money on legal fees to oppose the development. Westhill  must have spent at least as much as the municipality and the opposing homeowners combined
.
All that money and at the end nothing . Not a stick upon as stick nor a stone upon a stone. Not a dollar flowing into our economy for  jobs or product manufacture.

At a time when thousands lost their  jobs, homes and hope ,not a bricklayer,carpenter,electrician or plumber saw an hour of employment from this project. No furniture or appliances were purchased  for the 75 town homes to be built. 

Not a penny of the potential $75 million of property tax assessment collected  by the municipality.

In July, despite  the O.M.B. decision, at eleven-ten p.m. during a second extension of the hour of adjournment, a motion moved and seconded by Councillors Ballard and Gaertner and voted in favour by Councillor Gallo and Humphryes, Council directed Mayor Dawe to write a letter to the Minister of the Environment urging  he  deny a water taking permit to Westhill.

The Mayor  did as directed. The understanding is, if the permit is denied, the development cannot proceed.

The same evening, we received a financial update from the treasurer. Tax revenues are less than due  because of the economic downturn. People without jobs are unable to pay  taxes.

Yesterday, in all the flurry back and forth . I was  challenged on my statement the last council acted illegally.

The last council disregarded  the   Official Plan and staff recommendation,  when they refused to process the Westhill  site plan development application.

The Official Plan is a legal document. Westhill's land designation was legal.

When the town refused to process the site plan. council  acted illegally.Our decision was over-ruled.

Other than  the ballot box , there is no punishment for such willful abysmal ignorance and unbelievable
stupidity.

Fortunately there is a  ballot box . Unfortunately.... only once every four years..