Dear editor:

We are heading into a municipal election with the pragmatic councillors being vilified for being pro-development and the pandering councillors wanting to fight any development proposal that does not fit the town’s secondary plan. Staff are likewise vilified for supporting most development proposals when the proposals go before council for final disposition.

I submit that the critics of the pragmatic councillors and of the town staff are identifying the wrong villain. The real villain is the Ontario Land Tribunal which is stacked with pro-development members.

The predecessor to the tribunal, the Ontario Municipal Board, goes back into the 1930s. In its final years, the municipal board allowed 90 per cent of appeals brought by developers who had been denied permission by a local municipal council to go forward with a proposed development. Under the tribunal, the success rate for development appeals has jumped to 97 per cent.

Budgets are set annually by town council, which includes provision for legal services. Should council fight every development request, even though the success rate for councils defending their denial is unlikely to succeed?

To give one example, the legal fees to defend the development proposal for the Rand Estate cost the town in excess of $3,000,000 (a sum spread over a number of financial years and was one likely to support the town’s denial).

In an era of complaints about rising taxes, can we really support giving financial support for cases that the town is likely to lose?

The pragmatic five councillors and the town staff realize that you have to pick your battles spending tax dollars for the few cases where winning before the tribunal is likely to succeed.

A number of years ago, the town lost an appeal relating to a local winery before the Ontario Municipal Board. The winery had offered to settle after negotiating certain concessions with residents adjacent to the winery. The town turned the offer down.

In allowing the appeal, the municipal board’s decision indicated that it did not have jurisdiction to include the concessions. Thus, the local residents were worse off.

One of the pandering councillors who is running again in the upcoming election indicated that sometimes you have to fight on principle. My response is, “Use your own dime.”

So the question that all who are seeking election should be, “How much are you prepared to spend annually on legal fees and how willing will you be to fund lost causes before the Ontario Land Tribunal?”

Ron Fritz
Queenston