{"id":30701,"date":"2022-01-27T19:10:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T00:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30701"},"modified":"2022-01-27T19:20:35","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T00:20:35","slug":"mayor-renews-calls-for-land-planning-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-renews-calls-for-land-planning-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor renews calls for land planning changes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas has renewed his calls for changes to the land planning process at the Provincial level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He will bring forward a motion to Aurora Council on February 22 calling not just for his fellow Council members to support the dissolution of the Ontario Land Tribunal, but for the Province\u2019s 443 other municipalities to follow suit as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tribunal (OLT) \u201chas the authority to make a final decision on planning matters based on a \u2018best planning outcome\u2019 and not whether the proposed development is in compliance with municipal and provincially approved official plans or consistent with provincial plans and policy,\u201d says Mayor Mrakas in his motion, which was released January 20. \u201cOntario is the only province in Canada that empowers a separate adjudicative tribunal to review and overrule local decisions applying provincially approved plans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motion calls on the Government of Ontario to immediately dissolve the OLT \u201cthereby eliminating one of the most significant sources of red tape delaying the development of more attainable housing in Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFar too often we hear governments talk about \u2018cutting red tape\u2019, \u2018streaming the approval process\u2019 for new housing,\u201d said the Mayor in a statement. \u201cI agree. But the way to achieve that is to, finally, recognize the authority of municipalities to uphold their Provincially approved Official Plans. If we had a process that recognized the authority of municipalities in land use planning decisions, then thousands of housing units could be built immediately. Permits could be issued tomorrow! Much needed supply could be increased by simply building what is allowed. No more endless battles, pitting developers against communities, over and over again at a cost of millions of dollars and untold wasted time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a provincial government is serious about cutting red tape, streamlining the planning process and increasing housing supply, the simple solution is to limit the scope of powers of the Ontario Land Tribunal and recognize the authority of municipalities to uphold their Official Plans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayor Tom Mrakas has renewed his calls for changes to the land planning process at the Provincial level. He will bring forward a motion to Aurora Council on February 22 calling not just for his fellow Council members to support the dissolution of the Ontario Land Tribunal, but for the Province\u2019s 443 other municipalities to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30701","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\/p3D2k4-7Zb","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 05:57:02","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\/30701","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=30701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}