ONTARIO MUNICIPAL BOARD ADJOURNS HEARING FOR THE SECOND TIME OVER THE QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP

At noon today, Mr. Aker, the Ontario Municipal Board Adjudicator adjourned the hearing for the second time over the question of title.  At this time, there is no clear fact of ownership of the property by Dunpar because the deadline for objections to the granting of title has not yet been reached.  Any interested party has until July 5^th, 2010 to file an objection.  This was clearly stated in the notice placed in the Etobicoke Guardian last week.  In fact, that notice could be viewed as a public admission from the developer’s lawyer that they were going in to the OMB hearing yet again without being able to clearly show the OMB that they actually own the property. 

  

The Adjudicator made it clear to all the parties that he had no choice but to adjourn the hearing of the appeal “sine die” until clear title has been established and the title process completed (“sine die” means that no particular day has been set for it to start again).  This in all likelihood won't be until the Fall of this year.  Given that Mr. Aker will be leaving the Board in August, this means that the hearing will have to start from the beginning before a new OMB member.  It is imperative that all interested residents once again attend on that new hearing date.

There was one other matter that influenced his decision.  Dunpar has asked the Crown (the Ministry of Natural Resources) for permission to build a seawall on the Crown’s property at the shoreline but the MNR has refused to even consider this until the OMB has made a decision on the building application.  Dunpar wants to build this seawall against the City’s and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority’s objections in order to try and get around regulations that say there must be an open, unbuilt “hazards buffer” zone of 32 meters from the shore to protect structures from one-in-a-hundred-years storm events.

After the OMB hearing was adjourned, a dozen residents went to the Mayor's office at City Hall and spoke at length with a Constituency Liaison staffer from his office.  The residents outlined the community's concerns, were given a full hearing and were promised an immediate, investigative follow up by the Mayor's office.

LETTER FROM LAKESHORE PLANNING COUNCIL TO MAYOR MILLER AND CITY COUNCIL

DOUBLE CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR ENLARGED VIEW
Lakeshore Planning Council

OMB HEARING RECOMMENCES ON MONDAY

Please come on down to the hearing.  It starts at 10 a.m and the location is Ontario Municipal Board Offices, 655 Bay Street, 2 blocks north of Dundas at Elm Street.  It is scheduled for two weeks and a decision should follow 4 - 6 weeks after. 
The City Solicitor, the Toronto Region Conservation Authority lawyer and Ken Tilden, a local resident, will be there as parties to this appeal by Dunpar.
On Monday, residents who are registered as participants should find out what day will be set aside for us to make our statements.  It will probably be towards the end of the hearing.  If you are a participant and are not able to come on Monday, you will be contacted by phone.  The information will also be posted here.

PROPERTY OWNERSHIP ISSUE

There are lots of side issues to this application by the developer to overbuild on this site, contrary to City zoning regulations, the City's Official Plan and TRCA shoreline regulations.  
One of them is the question of ownership.  
At this point in time, Dunpar does not own the shoreline or have a permit to build shoreworks on it (the Province owns it); the developer does not yet have official ownership of the rest of the site (July 5th is the deadline for objections to their title application - see previous post); the G zoning on a large part of the site is one that is commonly found on publicly owned parkland (e.g. Prince of Wales park, Sam Smith park etc.) and the City has not yet offered any sort of explanation as to why municipal planners put this specific designation on the site. The Councillor's office has already stated that city parkland would not be surrendered for private residential development.
After last Thursday's Lakeshore Planning Council public meeting, it was decided that the Council should immediately write to CityCouncil with the community's concerns about this.

NEW APPLICATION FOR LAND TITLE BY DUNPAR

The OMB hearing was adjourned until next week, June 14th, so that Dunpar could verify with the Land Registry Office that it actually owns the property it wants to build on.  There was an investigation by the province, which is an adjacent landowner, and it indicated that a shoreline strip is actually crown land and belongs to the public.  The crown's claim is for a 25 feet strip measured from the bottom of the shoreline slope.  (The community has long argued that the public section of this property is substantially larger than this investigation could apparently prove.)  Dunpar has agreed to that finding and has produced a new survey to reflect that (survey on left - MNR shoreline strip marked "FILL")

On  June 3rd, 2010, the developer applied to the Land Registry Office for absolute title to the remainder of the property that does not include the public land.  Dunpar has not asked the province to sell them the publicly owned shoreline to this date.

Adjacent landowners, the 7 community members and groups who "have shown interest" and already objected to Dunpar's application for absolute title to the whole property and, according to the Etobicoke Guardian notice on Friday, any other "person/corporation having an interest", has until July 5th to file any objections.  The Guardian notice makes no mention of any requirement for an affidavit to accompany any objection

The Guardian notice is shown here (Double click for larger view)

YET ANOTHER "REVISED" SITE PLAN

After receiving a revised site plan on May 21st which showed a reduction in the number of units (6 instead of 7) and more of a setback from the lake (see previous post), the three parties at the OMB hearing which recommences next week on June 14th (the City, TRCA and Ken Tilden) received on June 2nd yet another "revised" site plan.

This latest plan is shown in this thumbnail (double-click to enlarge) .
We are now back to the 7 unit configuration with no obvious difference from the previously "revised" plan that replaced the "original" 7 townhouse plan that replaced the first monster-home-right-on-the-water plan!

If Dunpar had applied to build what is allowable on this property in the first place, we would all, by now, have new neighbours living in our community instead of this never-ending, convoluted mess.