OMB refuses AWARE’s 150 applicants for participant status

By Kate Harries AWARE News Network June 21 2013
It wasn’t exactly a fun day at the Ontario Municipal Board pre-hearing into the County’s Official Plan.
Here’s what happened yesterday:
NO to the 150 people whose signed the participant forms AWARE Simcoe collected and tried to present to the board.
NO to any sense that the OMB process is a forum at which there can be redress for the county’s failure to hold public meetings on the extensive amendments to its deficient Official Plan from 2008 that failed to gain provincial approval for four years.
NO to requests from AWARE and the Simcoe County Federation of Agriculture to video-tape the proceedings.

“Trying to get public input into this massively changed Official Plan Amendment is hugely frustrating,” AWARE Simcoe representative Sandy Agnew said after the hearing.
“First stonewalled by the County and now mired in a quasi legal process where only the lawyers and planners win. But this has only galvanized our determination work to save Simcoe County from the same paved-over fate as the GTA.”
The rationale for the OMB’s decisions:
-On the 150 participant forms
You have to be appear before the board in person to register as a participant, panel chair Sylvia Sutherland told Agnew.
No matter that Agnew was advised by an OMB official to bring the forms with him rather than file them two weeks ago (or ensure that everyone be there in person) – Sutherland said the person who gave the advice is a planner, “he can’t counsel you.”
-On the lack of public participation so far
“The issue with the large number of participants appearing at this pre-hearing probably wouldn’t have taken place if there had been adequate public participation in this process,” observed David Strachan, president of the Midhurst Ratepayers Association, to applause that was quickly silenced by the chair.
“The past process is past,” Sutherland said. “This is your opportunity to be heard on planning matters.”
-On recording
Recording is permitted on occasion at the OMB but ‘”the board is going the traditional route, it is not permitting video or audio recordings,” Sutherland said. “Why not?” she was asked. Such recordings are subject to manipulation, she said. A court reporter is now present at proceedings, but transcripts must be requested and come at a high cost.
ON the plus side, around 25 residents have been registered as participants, either to make a statement on their own behalf about the Official Plan, or as representatives from a number of public interest groups, including AWARE Simcoe, the Midhurst Ratepayers Association, the Simcoe County Federation of Agriculture, People United for Rural Everett (PURE), Clearview Community Coalition, the Angus Ratepayers Association and Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition.
And we had fun, getting there early and taking over the seats in the middle of the room that are usually reserved for lawyers. (We didn’t occupy the front row that was set aside for the county and the main Midhurst developers. It had ‘reserved’ signs on it and we are totally law-abiding!) Bewildered lawyers took in the situation when they arrived and filled the spaces at the back and the sides normally occupied by regular folks.
We also had fun posing outside the Nottawasaga Inn with a large sign that read: PLAN FOR FOOD AND WATER FIRST. AWARE Simcoe has signed the Food and Water First pledge and is part of the province-wide campaign.
One more pre-hearing (which deals with procedural matters) is set for August. The actual hearing on the Official Plan will come next year.
Whether the citizens’ presence at the hearing will address deficiencies in the Official Plan is open to question. Most of it has now been approved by the board, leaving only issues raised by appellants, mostly landowners, and parties, mostly lower-tier municipalities or developers with projects on the go in various parts of the county.
But one thing is for sure: links are being made across the county among people who believe in putting Food and Water First.