{"id":16073,"date":"2016-12-14T12:30:27","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16073"},"modified":"2016-12-14T12:30:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:30:27","slug":"overhaul-and-more-oversight-needed-in-towns-bylaw-department-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/overhaul-and-more-oversight-needed-in-towns-bylaw-department-resident\/","title":{"rendered":"Overhaul and more oversight needed in Town\u2019s bylaw department: resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir
\n<\/strong>
\nAurora\u2019s bylaw department needs a significant overhaul, along with alternative ways of resolving disputes, according to a local resident.
\nDenis Van Decker, whose family has been involved in an ongoing dispute with the Town\u2019s Bylaw Department over alleged property standards issues on his Odin Drive property, made his comments as a delegate to last week\u2019s General Committee meeting.
\nThe property, which Mr. Van Decker contends should be seen as a \u201cmodel of sustainability\u201d boasts multiple solar panels, fruits and vegetables grown in the front lawn, and several composters. It has been at the centre of a years-long dispute and recent court hearings over its current state.
\nLast Tuesday, with members of the York Regional Police in attendance, Mr. Van Decker appeared at Council with several suggestions on how the \u201cprosecutorial\u201d bylaw department can be improved to the benefit of the taxpayer.
\nAlthough his concerns were not addressed by municipal staff members in attendance, they received a degree of support from some Council members.
\n\u201cI\u2019m calling it [being] a victim of IIL \u2013 It\u2019s In Legal,\u201d said Mr. Van Decker. \u201cWe have a bylaw department that is IIL. The core issue here is that it is a police force. That is what we have here. It\u2019s a police force that has extraordinary powers, more than normal police. They can enter a backyard without a warrant. I have actually asked 20 different residents of Aurora and nobody knows this. It is a surprise that they have this sort of power.
\n\u201cThere is no political oversight. Any time I have talked to you (Councillors) over the last 3.5 years at many community events, you have always told me it\u2019s in legal. There is minimal to no management. Your hands are tied and everybody\u2019s hands are tied in this lovely circle of IIL. There is no internal affairs on this police department and no complaint about process.\u201d
\nMr. Van Decker estimates that over $100,000 has been spent on his individual case, and \u201ctaxpayers should be demanding\u201d a review. To that end, he suggests quarterly public disclosures on the bylaw department, including actions, posted on the Town\u2019s website as the first step in \u201caccountability.\u201d
\nTheir budget also needs to be reduced, he said, \u201cby $500,000, cutting out and getting rid of the spurious and ridiculous persecutions that are happening.\u201d
\n\u201cThe first thing that has to happen \u2013 my prescription on how to cure your IIL-ness \u2013 is to allow open information and questioning by yourself, the Councillors,\u201d he said, saying too many complaints are addressed by IIL. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to stop that. This isn\u2019t litigation with a developer over tens of millions of dollars of property; this is a resident where they came in our back yard, self-represented in court, and we\u2019re already at a major disadvantage. We need help, not the further turning of a blind eye. Throwing this into court with an unlimited budget, which effectively is a moral hazard, that is what we have going on here.
\n\u201cThere needs to be some sort of complaints process or internal investigation. I suggest [the property standards committee would] be the right place to have some sort of remediation. Don\u2019t just have the 30-day [process where] you have to do an appeal. The courts are way too expensive, way too adversarial, more at your expense than ours, quite frankly.\u201d
\nMr. Van Decker then took aim on the right of the bylaw officers to come onto the property of an individual. Citing recent positions taken by Aurora Council calling for reforms on the powers and structure of the Ontario Municipal Board, he said here too it was time for Aurora to take a stand, and \u201cbe a leader\u201d for change.
\n\u201cThere are only five provinces in Canada that allow this,\u201d he said, suggesting a pilot program to address 50 per cent of bylaw disputes through alternative dispute resolution outside of the courts. \u201cSet clear bylaw on narrow complaint-driven investigations only.\u201d
\nAddressing his concerns, Councillor Tom Mrakas, who has previously questioned the issue of \u201cright to access\u201d said he raised some \u201cvalid points.\u201d
\n\u201cI agree that many residents\u2026probably don\u2019t realise they can enter into your property without a warrant,\u201d said Councillor Mrakas, with a note of caution. \u201cYou said Council [turns] a blind eye to it and we say it is in legal. I would just like to say for myself, and I think the rest of my colleagues here that we do a lot of things. Even though we can\u2019t speak to something specifically with the resident due to the fact it is in legal, we do investigations, we do talk to staff, and look at pursuing things. We just can\u2019t speak to that publically due to the fact it is in legal and we hope that residents appreciate the fact that we do do the work that is needed to be done behind the scenes to make sure that we can affect policy changes and make things better for all of our residents.\u201d
\nA similar view was expressed by Councillor Sandra Humfryes.
\n\u201cI can hear that you have been frustrated for a few years and I just hope things go better moving forward,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are some good points in here and I think I should take a look at it.\u201d
\nSpeaking to The Auroran following the delegation, Aurora CAO Doug Nadorozny said some of the ideas presented by the delegate would be considered, but alternative dispute resolution mechanisms could pose a challenge.
\n\u201c[Reports from the Province] said it is not as casual as you would expect or hope,\u201d said Mr. Nadorozny
\non alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. \u201cThere is still a judge there\u2026and what they [found was] they were basically going through the same process twice. I know there are challenges with alternative dispute mechanisms as a resolution and whether or not it really is more effective for these smaller kinds of items.\u201d
\n\u201cI think most of [Council\u2019s] interest was around if there is a better way of hauling people into court. We\u2019ll certainly consider some of those ideas and see if there is a place for them, but the biggest one was alternative dispute resolution and from a prosecution perspective, that is kind of out of our hands. That part of the process is regulated by the Province and actually performed by the Region.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s bylaw department needs a significant overhaul, along with alternative ways of resolving disputes, according to a local resident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4bf","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 00:55:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}