Details

Back story: Last year, the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) gave the go-ahead to Marianneville Developments to build over 740 housing units on former golf course lands that thread their way through the quiet, leafy residential neighbourhood of Glenway, wrecking its tranquility. The Town’s elected councillors unanimously supported the residents in wanting to keep the lands open space but that decision was sabotaged by planners directly employed by the Town who boycotted the OMB Hearing. An outside consultant, Ruth Victor, was employed by the Town at a cost of $129,000 to handle the Glenway file. She backed the developer, Marianneville, saying the former golf course could be built over.

You can wander into the undergrowth if you wish and read the sources I rely on by looking at my OMB appeal letter (Click on documents in top left panel and navigate to "Glenway".  Open “Request for a review of the OMB decision on Glenway". The response is shown as “OMB Review Letter").

Glenway is important as a case study in the forthcoming Provincial Review of the OMB. It shows what is wrong with important aspects of our planning system and illustrates the huge disconnect between the professional planners on the one hand and the people who employ them on the other.

OMB reform a priority says Van Bynen

The Glenway Lessons Learned meeting on Tuesday 23 June 2015 is not the end of the matter. In the municipal election last year, Newmarket’s Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, told us

“bringing reform to the OMB and Planning Act to ensure our residents have a say in shaping their community will be a priority in the next term.”

Now to the Glenway story. There are some loose ends to tie up but the broad picture is clear.

Defending the Official Plan

In his election campaign literature last year, Plan for Newmarket’s Future, Van Bynen wrote:

“Our Council’s decision to fight for Glenway and defend our Town’s Official Plan was the right thing to do.”

In fact, there was no defence of the Official Plan at the OMB Hearing. Not even a stab at it.

In the Glenway Q&As, Rick Nethery, the Director of Planning, says:

“Council did not hire Ms Victor to defend the Official Plan, but rather to process the (Marianneville) application and provide a professional planning opinion and recommendation to Council.”

Ruth Victor reported direct to Council, apparently with no line manager. She then became a temporary but de facto member of the planning staff.

When she concluded that the former golf course lands could be built on, her senior colleagues in the Town’s Planning Department - Rick Nethery, Jason Unger, Marion Plaunt - agreed. This led to the boycott of the OMB Hearing.

The planning priesthood

Nethery tells us in the Glenway Q&A that staff is obliged to give their professional opinion and if it conflicts with the position taken by the Town, even on a unanimous vote by its elected councillors, then the planners are within their rights to boycott.

“… in instances where the Council does not agree with staff recommendations, it cannot then ask staff to defend the Council’s decision at the OMB and it must decide whether it wants to hire its own professional planner (as was the case here) to defend its position.”

Not even the most junior member of the planning department sat in on the OMB Hearing, reporting back to Nethery. He had comprehensively washed his hands of the whole thing.

Consequences of the OMB boycott

This had profound implications. Statements were made at the OMB Hearing that should have been immediately challenged by the Town. But without support from the Town’s planning staff the Town’s Counsel, Mary Bull, was under-briefed and performed lamentably. There was simply no question that the Town’s Official Plan “was being defended”.

The Plan was being taken apart and eviscerated, paragraph by paragraph, by Marianneville’s forensic lawyer, Ira Kagan and there was no-one there to defend it – certainly not Ruth Victor who had been under subpoena by the developer to attend. She was pure gold. In his closing submission, Kagan told the OMB adjudicator:

“If I was really brave I would not have called any other witnesses but I was scared not to.”

The absence of the Town’s senior planners with their deep institutional knowledge meant there was a huge vacuum at the heart of the proceedings. There was no-one there to keep the  OMB adjudicator on track about the Official Plan, the Secondary Plan and the thinking behind them and developments elsewhere in Newmarket. Clearly, neither Ruth Victor nor the GPA’s professional consulting planner, Nick McDonald, was in a position to talk authoritatively about the entire sweep of the Town’s planning policies and their evolution. Given that void, the adjudicator was left to follow her own instincts.

Yet Nethery smugly tells us:

“Although the GPA was able to find a planner to support Council’s position (ie the position taken unanimously by the Town’s elected officials) the OMB was not swayed by that professional’s evidence and instead preferred the argument and evidence of the developer’s consulting planner and that of Ms Victor…”

Perhaps one reason could have been the absence of compelling evidence put before the OMB by the Town’s own staff – whose salaries we pay.

Buying the Glenway lands to preserve open space

The OMB written decision of 18 November 2014 says in paragraph 40:

“There is no evidence before the Board that the Town took any steps to acquire these lands for public open space and public park purposes”

Yet we now know from Nethery that:

“the Council did have discussions regarding the purchase of the Glenway Golf Course however, these discussions took place in closed session and as such, are not publicly available at this time.”

Now, years after these discussions took place, there is no need for this suffocating omerta to continue. We must know on Tuesday what options were put before councillors on the purchase of the Glenway lands and why, in the event, the purchase was rejected.

GO Bus Terminal

The GO Bus Terminal and its proximity to the Glenway lands also featured prominently in the OMB Hearing and heavily influenced the final decision to approve the development.

We now know from Nethery that, over an extended period:

“During the development of the Secondary Plan staff met with Metrolinx to discuss the future of the GO bus station and in particular whether Metrolinx had any plans to redevelop the property and relocate the buses elsewhere…  The future of both the GO train and bus stations was an ongoing consideration throughout the development of the Secondary Plan.”

Not a hint of this was mentioned to the adjudicator. Not one word. This allowed Ira Kagan to say without challenge:

“Mr McDonald (the GPA’s professional planner) may think it (the bus station) should move but no-one else seems to agree with him.”

The fact that Metrolinx had not decided at that stage on possible relocation was no reason for staying silent. (Metrolinx has no plans for a new GO rail station at Mulock Drive yet, despite this, the Town’s planners have inserted a GO rail station in that location in the newly adopted Secondary Plan.)

Other relevant information such as the September 2013 Transportation Study (which showed that discussions had taken place about possible relocation of the GO Bus Terminal on to the Upper Canada Mall site) was held back by the Town’s planning department and their colleagues at the Region and only published after the OMB decision.

McAvity's Cat

Who was responsible for this state of affairs? The man at the top in the Planning Department is, like McAvity’s cat, nowhere to be seen when disaster strikes.

When Nethery is asked when (a) he and (b) the Mayor first learned that Ruth Victor – the consultant hired and paid by the Town - was minded to support the developer’s position we are asked to believe this happened in October 2013 – one month before the Council voted to back the residents.

We are asked to believe that neither the Mayor nor any member of Council ever once asked Nethery before October 2013 how Ruth Victor was getting on in processing the Marianneville application. And we are asked to believe that our incurious Mayor and councillors never asked Nethery how the Town could effectively defend the Official Plan in the absence of any directly employed Town planner participating in or being present at the OMB Hearing.

It seems to me Nethery is comfortable passing the buck. Victor wasn’t his problem. The Mayor, for all his talk about defending the official plan, was disengaged from the issue. Where is the evidence otherwise? He was content – as he always is – to leave it to the paid professional officers to come up with the script that he parrots. He never took a grip.

We can learn many lessons from the Glenway debacle. I shall learn more on Tuesday night. But as I tap tap tap this out these initial thoughts occur to me:

(1)  Councillors must assert themselves. They have power if they choose to exercise it. They can reorganize departments, bring in new people, set goals and objectives and argue for them. They must involve themselves in the big issues and not allow themselves to be spoon fed by professional officers who, as we see in this case, have their own separate agenda.

(2)  Councillors should think carefully about the type of staff they need to support them and lead important departments.

(3)  Councillors should insist on regular and frequent report backs from planning staff and others working on major (to be defined) developments in Newmarket.

(4)  Councillors should consider whether more staff should be employed in-house to reduce reliance on outside consultants but, if these are brought in, they should be more closely monitored.

(5)  The Council should review closed session practice. How on earth can it be that information relating to the possible purchase of the Glenway lands by the Town is kept from the OMB?

(6)  Who, if anyone, is going to carry the can for Glenway? It shouldn’t just be the people who live there.

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Details

The Province is consulting the public on possible far reaching changes to the law that governs the way municipalities go about their business. The review, announced this month, will look at the Municipal Act, the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act and the City of Toronto Act.

I hope Newmarket Council will roll up its sleeves and get involved and not sit back and allow others to make the weather. It is time to sweep the stables clean.

Many of the issues that have roiled the municipality in recent years are up for review; codes of conduct, integrity officers, conflicts of interest and how the Region elects and selects its members. Should the Chair of York Region be directly elected? It’s all there, up for discussion.

The review is happening against a backdrop of huge disquiet about the way in which municipalities are managed and organised.

Councillors are accused of inappropriate behaviour. Some, like Vaughan’s Michael Di Biase, are found to have interfered in the City’s tendering processes. In Brampton, the Mayor wants an inquiry into alleged staff corruption linked to development deals.

Closer to home, former Newmarket councillor, the acidic Maddie Di Muccio, shamelessly spends taxpayers’ money on tendentious, partisan press advertisements and then, ludicrously, sues a regional councillor for libel for drawing attention to that fact and to her jaw-dropping double standards.

I shall be responding to the review as a private citizen but I hope Newmarket stirs itself and puts in a formal submission. There is an opportunity for councillors to raise the issue  tomorrow night (Monday 22 June 2015) when Newmarket Council meets.

The consultation period - which is clearly too short - runs through to 7 August 2015.

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Details

Bob Shelton, Newmarket’s Chief Administrative Officer, confirmed this afternoon (Thursday 18 June) that the Mayor receives remuneration from Newmarket-Tay Power. He serves as a Director by virtue of his position as Mayor of Newmarket. The Town appoints him.

The Municipal Act 2001 says any body that “pays remuneration or expenses to one of its members who was appointed by a municipality… shall provide to the municipality an itemized statement of the remuneration and expenses paid for the year.”

Bob Shelton tells me this information will now be included as part of the Town’s annual reporting.

The simplest way would be to include the details in the Statement of Remuneration and Expenses that, by law, has to be published annually in March.

Shelton, the sole director of Newmarket Hydro Holdings, is not remunerated.

Here is what the Mayor receives from Newmarket-Tay Power which is, of course, in addition to the salary and compensation he gets from the Town.

Year

Regular Comp (Salary)

Per Diem

2009

$8,004.00

$4,000.00

2010

$8,004.00

$2,600.00

2011

$8,004.00

$4,200.00

2012

$9,498.00

$4,000.00

2013

$8,004.00

$3,200.00

2014

$8,004.00

$1,600.00

When I first started looking into this I thought the Mayor may have waived the cash given that the Hydro directorship goes with the day job, but I was wrong on that one.

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Details

Planning staff directly employed by the Town of Newmarket have now answered questions posed by the Glenway Preservation Association, residents and others at a Public Information Centre and by me (Shrink Slessor Square). The answers were posted on the Town's website yesterday, buried in a mass of other material. The planners' response is shown below.

Two questions have not been answered because discussions took place in a closed session of Council. This is unsatisfactory and should be addressed immediately. The Council can lift the veil on its closed sessions if it so chooses.

The Glenway Lessons Learned meeting will take place at the Seniors' Centre, 474 Davis Drive on Tuesday 23 June 2015 from 7pm - 9pm.

A commentary on the answers - and the process - will follow.

GLENWAY LESSONS LEARNED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Why were no Town staff called as witnesses to support the Town’s position at the OMB hearing?

Town staff did not play a role in reviewing the application and/or providing a professional planning opinion to Council. Council instead hired an outside planning consultant (Ms. Victor) to, in effect, act as staff on this application and to process the application and make recommendations to Council. Council did not hire Ms. Victor to defend the Official Plan, but rather to process the application and provide a professional planning opinion and recommendations to Council.

Because staff did not play an active role in reviewing and/or processing the application (other than to provide administrative support to Ms. Victor), staff could not be called upon to provide evidence on the appropriateness of the application at the OMB.

In the event Council had not hired Ms. Victor and instead staff had made a specific recommendation to Council, staff’s position at the OMB would have been in support of the staffs recommendations in their professional opinion, and not just to support Council’s position. For example, in instances where Council does not agree with staff recommendations, it cannot then ask staff to defend Council’s decision at the OMB and it must decide whether it wants to hire its own professional planner (as was the case here) to defend its position.

2. How can the Planner for the GPA come up with points and a strategy to challenge Marianneville’s proposal and the Town did not?

At Council’s direction following the referral of the plan to the OMB, Town staff contacted 10-12 planning consulting firms, both locally and from across the Region, in an effort to find a professional planner that could support Council’s position. In addition to specific conversations with the firms, staff also provided background reports and Town planning documents for their review where requested. Upon reviewing the application and the available documents, only one of the planning consulting firms was able to support Council’s position.

Although the GPA was able to find a planner to support Council’s position, the OMB was not swayed by that professional’s evidence and instead preferred the argument and evidence of the developer’s consulting planner and that of Ms. Victor who appeared at the OMB Hearing for this Phase under subpoena by the developer.

3. The OMB adjudicator suggested the fact the Town didn’t attempt to purchase the Glenway lands demonstrated their lack of interest to protect it from development. We hear that the Town did consider purchasing Glenway in some manner years ago. What is the story?

Council did have discussions regarding the purchase of Glenway Golf Course however, these discussion took place in closed session and as such, are not publicly available at this time.

4. The GO Bus Terminal location was a key reason for the OMB to support development as it was described as a major transit hub. As part of the Town’s Secondary Growth Plan we see discussion of revamping transit to better support intensification including co-locating transit with GO Bus/Train to East Gwillimbury to promote much greater usage of transit. Why wasn’t this part of the Town’s defense?

During the development of the Secondary Plan staff met with Metrolinx to discuss the future of the GO bus station and in particular whether Metrolinx had any plans to redevelop the property and relocate the buses elsewhere (e.g. either on to the mall property or the GO Station in East Gwillimbury, or any other location). Staff was not advocating for the GO Station to move, but rather was trying to understand what plans, if any, Metrolinx had for the GO Station. Metrolinx advised that they had no plans at the time to move the GO station from its current location.

At the same time, staff was working with the Upper Canada Mall in terms of its future development plans. It was determined that as part of any master plan for the Upper Canada Mall, the Town, Region, and Metrolinx should at least explore the appropriateness of integrating transit into the mall site, be it YRT, VIVA, and/or GO, and policies reflecting this have been included in the Secondary Plan. As noted, this does not mean that the GO Station is closing or moving, and no decision has been made to move the GO station at this time.

5. When did (a) the Mayor and (b) the Director of Planning, Rick Nethery, learn that Ruth Victor was minded to recommend allowing development on the Glenway lands?

Generally, Ms. Victor’s position was made known through the submission of Planning Reports to Council. Ms. Victor submitted Report 2013-47 in October 2013 which indicated that there were a number of outstanding issues and development on the site as proposed could not be supported. In November 2013, Ms. Victor prepared a memorandum to Council providing responses to a number of questions raised by the public at the October 15, 2013 Committee meeting including indicating that there was not a planning basis to recommend a no growth option.

6. Did the Director of Planning ever consider that the September 2013 Transportation Study (prepared for the Town by external consultants GHD) might be relevant to the March 2014 OMB Hearing?

As a requirement of application submission, a Traffic Impact Study was submitted by the developer and prepared by Cole Engineering. Ongoing review of the Traffic Impact Study was provided by the Town’s checking consultants (RJ Burnsides), utilizing experts in transportation engineering. It is these experts that review the material to ensure all relevant information is included. While the traffic work associated with the Marianneville Development has not specifically cited the GHD reports, it has taken into consideration future traffic impacts of development in the area including the urban centres.

Furthermore, there is a condition of draft plan approval that requires the owner to submit a Traffic Impact Study and Traffic Functional Design report to the satisfaction of the Town and Region of York. The reports will address the internal and external traffic implications of this development, including but not limited to the functional classification and design of roadways proposed within this draft plan of subdivision and confirmation that the proposed road configuration can safely provide for vehicular, transit and pedestrian traffic. The reports will identify any external road improvements required for this subdivision, make recommendations for sidewalk locations, on-street parking locations and prohibitions, and provide an analysis of sight distances and stopping distances. In addition the reports shall address all outstanding comments provided by the Town’s Consulting Engineer as part of the Draft Plan review process.

7. Did the Director of Planning share the views of Ruth Victor on the development of Glenway?(This was asserted by Marianneville’s Ira Kagan in his concluding remarks at the OMB Hearing.)

These discussions with the Director of Planning took place in closed session and as such, are not publicly available at this time.

8. Why was the study area of the Anchor Mobility Hub at Young and Davis not shown on the Schedules to the Secondary Plan, as requested by Metrolinx?

Through discussions with Metrolinx and the Region, it was determined that a Mobility Hub Station Area Plan would be identified around the Newmarket GO train station given the complexity of this area in terms of opportunities and constraints to development related to the floodplain, access and mobility issues related to the GO station including the potential for future grade separation, etc.

While the Yonge/Davis area is also identified as a mobility hub, it was determined that a full mobility hub study or station area study was not required and many of the issues around access, land use, integration of transit, etc., could be addressed through the future Master Plan for the Regional Shopping Centre Study Area in consultation with Metrolinx, the Region, and the Upper Canada Mall. Therefore, while a formal mobility hub study was not shown, similar components of such a study will be part of the aforementioned Master Plan Shopping Centre study.

9. When did the Director of Planning form the view that the two Mobility Hub studies would consider, as part of their remit, the possible co-location of the GO Bus Terminal and GO Rail Station?

The future of both the GO train and bus stations was an ongoing consideration throughout the development of the Secondary Plan. These discussions included land owners, Metrolinx, York Region, and the Town's Planning Consultants. No specific decisions were made about co-location, etc., however it was acknowledged that future studies should be carried out (in the form of a Station Area Plan in one instance and the Regional Shopping Centre Study Area Plan in the other) that would evaluate the appropriateness of this and many other issues.

(The Full List of Q&As - including those posed at the Public Information Centre - are in the Documents Section of this website. Open "Documents" in panel top left and navigate to Glenway. Open: "Glenway Lessons Learned: Planning Staff answer questions put to Town.)

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Details

On Monday 15 June 2015 the attention seeking former councilor, Maddie Di Muccio, tweets:

 Maddie Di Muccio ‏@MaddieDiMuccio Jun 15

Today I served court papers to Newmarket reg clr @_JohnTaylor for libel after a town report did not support his reckless allegation about me

Retweets 12  Favourites 14

4:11 pm - 15 Jun 2015

In fact, according to papers filed in the Small Claims Court here in Newmarket, Maddie Di Muccio swore on oath that on 9 June 2015

“I personally served a written notice of libel to a grown up person at the Town of Newmarket located at 395 Mulock Avenue in Newmarket, Ontario.”

I have no idea who this “grown up person” is or how she found him or her at 395 Mulock Avenue when the Town Offices are located at 395 Mulock Drive.

Her absurd libel action will get absolutely nowhere. The delusional Di Muccio wants $5,000 from Taylor.

Di Muccio is in my considered opinion m’lud, a complete phoney and hypocrite, championing taxpayers as President of the York Region Taxpayers Coalition while using my “taxpayer’s dollars” to fund her vendetta against Tim Hudak.

She, the drama queen, and her angry husband, John Blommesteyn, come across as a truly pitiable pair.

She claims that Taylor:

“committed a tort when quoted as stating an untruth in the York Region Media Group Publication, the Newmarket Era, which did harm to Maddie Di Muccio and/or her reputation, by tending to make her a target of ridicule, hatred and/or contempt of others."

This is, of course, complete cobblers. She has been the author of her own misfortunes.

That said, I am genuinely concerned to read that “as a result of these false words (of John Taylor) Maddio Di Muccio had to seek police protection after being made a victim of harassment by a member of the public.”

We all hope the police catch this disturbed individual soon.

Personally, it would be a huge relief to me if she and her yakking husband, John Blommesteyn, would just fade away.

Is that fair comment? Or is it libelous?  

Don’t know. Don’t care.

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You can read the libel claim by opening "Documents" in the top left panel and navigating to "Correspondence". Open "Maddie Di Muccio's claim against John Taylor"

This blog was amended on 18 June 2015 to include reference to the $5,000 claimed by Di Muccio.

 

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