Nope it's all about development and growth. Business rules everything and councillors please do not forget that. As per two weeks ago lies abounded whether from consultants or planners on behalf of the property owner. They all got blatantly caught and it meant absolutely nothing to Council's final decision. The two lies included the phony non-existent "clay cap" over the former landfill and the other was in advising councillors that there was no need to continue methane gas monitoring. Wow! The second one was particularly egregious in that Woolwich Staff did not even advise the five new Woolwich councillors that the former Council had endorsed recommendations from both their consultants GHD as well as from their Director Of Engineering & Planning, Dan Kennally, to build a new passive methane gas collection system. Apparently $75,000 was also budgeted towards the project.
So what is the takeaway here? Clearly councillors, especially new ones are intimidated both by the Ford provincial government as well as by the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) and new rules regarding its' operations. These new rules include municipalities being on the hook for the legal costs of winning developers at the OLT who a municipality have opposed. To me this is similar to environmental hearings in which Intervenor Funding has long been removed. What a joke when individual taxpayers and residents are exposed to major financial costs simply for defending the environment from self-serving business demands . The system is rigges and has been for a long time.
P.S. The former Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was bad and the OLT is no better. In other words a piece of crap by any other name smells just as disgusting.
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