Niagara-on-the-Lake may soon get a faster way to deal with cases of land being used in ways that aren’t allowed, including a retail shop opening on farmland where retail is not allowed.
That was one example raised at council June 23 as councillors reviewed proposed Planning Act changes under Bill 119, the proposed Protecting Ontario’s Streets and Communities Act.
If passed, the change would let municipalities use administrative monetary penalties, known as AMPs, for zoning bylaw violations tied to land uses that are not permitted.
Right now, zoning bylaw enforcement is handled through Provincial Offences Act proceedings or court applications, which staff said can take significant time and resources.
Coun. Maria Mavridis said the proposal seemed connected to earlier council discussions about the commercialization of agricultural land and master business licensing.
“This should help actually alleviate some of the issues we were trying to achieve with that.”
“If there’s farmland and all of a sudden, there’s a retail shop — (and) it’s not zoned for retail — this allows the municipality to go on and say, ‘OK, you’re not zoned.’”
Chief administrative officer Nick Ruller said that is staff’s early understanding of the proposal.
“Upon our initial review, staff believe that this would potentially lend itself to address some of the concerns that were brought forward previously,” he said.
Mavridis welcomed the change.
“This is really great,” she said. “I feel that all the delegations and the advocating at the province by the mayor and the council, that we’ve been heard.”
The town already uses administrative penalties for some bylaws, mainly parking and administrative-type offences. Bill 119 would expand that tool to zoning contraventions, but council would still have to decide how to use it.
That means approving local rules for which zoning violations could be fined, how much those fines would cost and what the process would look like before anything changes on the ground.
Ruller said the town regularly deals with businesses operating outside permitted zoning and that enforcement can be resource-heavy.
“It tends to be a resource-intensive process for us to enforce,” he said.
“This may provide us a mechanism, you know, to assist in a more timely manner and gain compliance as a result of that.”
Coun. Wendy Cheropita said the proposed system sounded like it could help the town move faster.
“It does sound like the mechanism will actually allow us to be more efficient, streamline things, be quick and fine things that are currently not being fined,” she said.
Coun. Tim Balasiuk asked whether the change would mean the town could avoid some court fights and “implement their own fines and actually govern this on their own.”
Aimee Alderman, director of planning, building and development services, said the proposed change would allow the town to apply AMPs for zoning contraventions.
“It does simplify the process,” she said, adding bylaw enforcement would still be based on the complaints the municipality receives.
The report says AMPs would not replace the town’s existing enforcement tools. Instead, they would be part of a tiered system, with administrative penalties used for minor or first violations and court reserved for serious, repeat or high-impact cases.
Staff were expected to send formal comments to the province before the June 25 deadline.
If the province passes the changes, staff would review NOTL’s zoning bylaws, draft changes to the town’s AMPs bylaw, develop internal enforcement policies and procedures and bring council a detailed plan before anything is put in place.
