This article was previously published on CambridgeToday.
The City of Cambridge is no stranger to adjudicators at the Ontario Land Tribunal which has resolved seven appeals filed against the city over the last two years with 11 still on the docket in various stages of resolution.
The cost of defending land-use disputes is adding up at city hall.
CambridgeToday wanted to know just how heavy the toll is on taxpayers, so we asked the city for some insight into cases that have been before the tribunal since January 1, 2022.
We were forced to file our request through the Freedom of Information Act and pay a processing fee once the city decided to grant us access.
Over seven cases filed since early 2022 and concluding as late as June of 2023, the city paid $263,523 in legal and consulting fees to represent its side at OLT hearings.
Arguably, the amount isn't staggering, but the tally should give readers some idea of what councillors are talking about when they decry the tribunal and the heavy financial burden that comes with those appeals.
The latest is a challenge of council's revision to the zoning bylaw for Preston Springs.
The appeal was added to the docket this week, two months after council blocked the developer's move to build a three-tower, 753-unit condo complex on the former heritage site.
Haastown Holdings didn't hesitate to appeal council's decision to approve its own zoning bylaw amendment for the property.
It caps the height of any building proposed for the site at 15 storeys and limits the number of towers on the property to two.
The amendments went against a city planning staff recommendation to approve three towers at a reduced maximum height of 22 storeys; amendments the developer agreed to.
Now that council's out of the picture, an OLT adjudicator will decide what, if anything, rises over Fountain Street.
Mayor Jan Liggett tried to get the system changed two years ago but failed to convince council to support an effort led by Aurora Mayor Tom Mrakas.
She could not be reached for comment for this story.
But back then, as Ward 4 councillor, she urged fellow councillors to support a resolution calling for dissolution of the tribunal because it had become "so profoundly pro-development" it no longer served the municipalities it was designed to help.
“It is consistently and repeatedly overriding local community development plans in favour of development interests,” she told her fellow councillors.
“We will never solve the housing crisis, which is rampant across the province, through the decisions of this unaccountable body.”
Despite those efforts, not much has changed.
Anyone who's witnessed a Cambridge council meeting knows the spectre of the OLT looms large around the horseshoe.
The Toronto-based, quasi-judicial body of cabinet-appointed adjudicators has taken on an ominous aura in recent years as case after case is decided in favour of developers.
Councillors often worry if it gets appealed to the OLT "something bigger" will get approved after they've worked with developers and residents to appease concerns and reduce impacts.
They also cite the heavy financial burden of defending those challenges, especially when a council decision goes against a staff recommendation.
In those cases, the city can't use its own planning or legal staff to mount a defense and that's where the costs add up.
Two appeals since 2022 stand out because they were triggered by council decisions that ignored expert advice.
In both cases, the city lost.
One was for 151 Main St. in Galt's core.
The city paid Hamilton firm Duxbury Law $86,684 to defend an appeal filed in 2021 after city council denied a plan from River Park Village Corp. to add two storeys and 40 more units to its downtown Galt apartment complex.
City staff had recommended approving the application, but council denied the request citing neighbourhood concerns over the building's height, the lack of affordable units and the fact no additional parking or amenity space were part of the plan.
The second appeal that forced the city to dip into taxpayers' wallets was 15 Clover Ave.
That project, for a 30 stacked-townhouse development, earned a recommendation from staff after nearly three years of consultation.
What was initially a 44-unit project was reduced in scope to appease resident, council and staff concerns.
But council ultimately denied the application because they felt it wasn't compatible with the neighbourhood and exceeded maximum density requirements in the official plan.
To defend council's decision, the city hired TMA Law for $40,866 and SGL Planning and Design Inc. at $30,244 to argue the merits of council's stance.
But, as in the previous case, the argument failed, giving Modeno Homes the green light to proceed with its project.
Those expenses could be dwarfed by what's in store at the OLT.
In addition to the Preston Springs appeal, the city will need to pay legal fees and hire outside consultants to defend council's decision on two more cases this year:
- a plan to build two stacked townhouse buildings with 32 units at 220 and 22 Blair Road.
- a plan to build a 39-unit townhouse complex at the corner of Wayne Avenue and Pinebush Road
Cases where the city won't incur fees to defend itself include:
- a plan to build a three-storey, 10-unit mixed-use apartment building at 44-46 Park Hill Road
- a plan to build five, 20-storey residential, mixed-use towers on Hespeler Road and Langs Drive
- a plan to build a "medium-density" subdivision of 752 units, including 278 lots for single detached homes, on Ripplewood Road
As Cambridge faces a directive from the province to get 19,000 homes built by 2030 and the region sinks deeper into the housing crisis, council's stance against housing projects seem like a lost cause.
And nearly 100 per cent of the time it is.
A 2022 investigation by the Hamilton Spectator found that 97 per cent of decisions the OLT made that year were in the prospective builder’s favour.
Knowing those odds, the argument could be made that a no vote against a staff-supported project is nothing more than political posturing at taxpayers' expense.
"It shows how little power city councils actually have," says Cambridge Coun. Scott Hamilton, who keeps the OLT and taxpayer burden in mind whenever a contentious decision comes to the horseshoe.
The toughest part of the job, he says, is when 20 people are yelling at you in council chambers to vote against something and there's a report in front of you recommending it.
In those moments it's essential to strip away the emotional component because a council decision can't be based on knee-jerk reaction, he says.
"We are not experts on council. We don't have experience in architecture...in land use planning. The best we can do is listen to those experts."
The power of council is in consultation; with developers, with residents and with staff to try to shape housing developments into something that meets the needs of the community and addresses as many as concerns as possible, he says.
Federal, provincial and regional mandates on growth matter, as does the Ontario Land Tribunal, he says.
The fact is, "if it ticks the provincial box, if it ticks the regional box" in terms of meeting growth and density objectives and gets the support of city planning staff, it gives city council very little wiggle room at the OLT.
Voting against it, in many cases, is like throwing taxpayers' money away. But that's the reality of the current system.
"I don't think people realize the gravity of it."
"The OLT is a massive hammer that's wielded above us. It's an unfortunate reality."
