Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 17 March 2014

The OMB’s Glenway Hearing kicks off today and I am in the basement Conference Room of the Best Western Voyageur Hotel sharing the space with 33 members of the public, assorted highly paid lawyers, more modestly paid professional planners and a large number of huge lever arch files bulging with reams of documents.

The most important person in the room is Susan Schiller, the adjudicator, who has an easy manner and smiles a lot.

First up is Ira Kagan, the lawyer for Marianneville Developments. The acoustics are terrible and his clear-as-a-bell voice makes a huge difference. Counsel for the Town, Mary Bull, and James Feehley, should take a leaf from Kagan’s book and project their voices. This conveys confidence, even if they don’t know what they are talking about.

Kagan takes control

Kagan immediately takes control. He moves the centrally positioned lectern to the wall, telling everyone this will improve the sightlines for those at the back of the room. Now he puts his laptop on top of a cardboard box on the table in front of him. He runs through the history of the Marianneville application. 

The developer’s case, he says, can be concluded within the first week (and the hearing is not sitting on Thursday 20^th March).

He says that he will be calling four witnesses, including Ruth Victor, the outside consultant brought in by the Town to handle the Glenway file. She is called “under summons” and we learn there is no witness statement but rather a “will say” statement. This is all new to me. The non-lawyers are all on a very steep learning curve.

Glenway not needed to meet intensification targets

Mary Bull for the Town now summarises her case. The Marianneville lands are not identified in the Town’s Official Plan for any intensification.  She says there is an anticipated 12,000 increase in the Town’s population by 2031 and if Glenway gets the go-ahead it will contribute a whopping 16% of this. She says she will be calling Eric Chandler to give evidence. He is a recently retired top planner from Tecumseth.

Next up is the croaking James Feehley, representing the Glenway Preservation Association.  He will be calling two witnesses. He is losing his voice so no opening statement. This is alarming.

Now the lawyers are trying to reconcile the numbering of the documents in their huge ring binders. They are losing their way. Some documents are out of sequence!

As they compare their numbered notes, the adjudicator tells the lawyers: “The back of the room is laughing at us now!”

Kagan replies: “With good reason.”

Facts not opinions

Now Kagan calls Richard Zelinka, his first witness, who is a planner retained by Marianneville in February 2010 to do the spadework and provide land use planning advice on the development of Glenway. His job is to provide facts on the proposed development, not opinions.

The developers bought Glenway in January 2010 yet the golf course remained open for business until October 2011. We are told there were only 40-50 memberships, about 5% of the community. The Clubhouse was removed in summer 2012.

We are told Marianneville bent over backwards to be fair to everyone.

Kagan asks if at any point Town staff advised him that the proposed development should await a Town led review. Answer No. And did Ruth Victor, the outside consultant brought in by the Town to handle the Glenway file advise him so? Answer No.

Now Kagan tells Zelinka he is now going to use his laser pointer: “I shall try not to hit you.” At the time this remark seemed amusing.

Kagan’s brilliant red beam hits the Ray Twinney Centre. Zap! What’s this? And now moving to the GO bus station. And what’s this? We are told that 95% of the proposed new residential units will be within 400 metres of a bus stop. That’s where the questions are going. All this new development is within staggering distance of public transport.

Settlement Offers

Now Kagan coaxes us down into the big black hole of the Settlement Offers.  Marianneville put these to the Town last year (unsuccessfully) in an attempt to close the deal. Mary Bull says these are irrelevant and should not be considered by the OMB. There is much lawyerly argument about this while the rest of us examine our fingernails.

Now we are hearing about the meetings requested by Marianneville that were turned down by the GPA on the grounds that no development should take place at all. This is designed to paint the GPA as absolutists, unwilling to compromise.

Now it is the turn of Ruth Victor, Kagan’s star witness.

She is sitting next to me in the body of the Kirk as she waits to be called to give evidence. She is looking at a webpage displaying a selection of lamps and light fixtures. I marvel at her insouciance! I find myself thinking about her taste in home décor.

Now she is called up front and is telling Kagan that she was retained by the Town on 20 April 2012 through the consultancy “I plan”. She says she was a “sub consultant”. Her contract ceased on 25 November 2013 when the recommendations that went to Council were not hers. (She wanted to refuse the Marianneville application on technical grounds, not on the principle of development.) However, she is still retained to advise the Town on Phase 2 issues – should we get that far.

Now matters turn comedic.

Kagan sends her witness statements from those who will be called to give evidence, but Victor chooses not to read them, explaining “I am here today under your subpoena.”  She is not obliged to read anything Kagan sends her.

Kagan ties himself in knots

Kagan is now tying himself in knots, paraphrasing what these witnesses say and asking for Victor’s response. She delivers what he wants on a gold plate.

The Glenway lands are developable. The Marianneville application was not premature. There was no policy basis to deny development of the Glenway lands. Victor’s staccato delivery hammers each point home.

Now we are talking about population projections. The Town’s 2006 official plan anticipates a population of 98,000. York Region talks about 97,000. (Both grossly out-of-date.) Victor tells us: “These numbers have an element of fluidity to them.”

Too true. These are fairy tale projections. In a carefully tailored understatement, she tells us later that all the population numbers are “lifted” through OPA (Official Plan Amendment) 10 on the Secondary Plan. Newmarket could be growing to 130,000 and beyond.

Kagan asks us to assume a forecast of 98,000. He asks Victor if that number would cap residential development within the built boundary of the Town. No, she says. Forecast population numbers are not caps. There is more, much more, in this vein.

Planning babble re-surfaces

Now Victor is on a roll speaking with assurance and certainty. Planning babble starts to appear. We hear about “planning constructs”. Planners are there to promote the efficient use of land. Glenway is indeed developable. The only way to preserve the open space at Glenway is, she says, through some form of public ownership.

She sums up. The proposed development amounts to the intensification of existing residential. What is important is the interface between the new, proposed residential and the existing stable residential neighbourhood. There must be like-to-like and compatibility between the new and the old. But, at the end of the day, she tells us the development of the Glenway lands would assist in meeting intensification targets.

Now it is the turn of James Feehley, the GPA’s lawyer, to cross-examine. I am expecting great things but, alas, I am underwhelmed. He must get his voice back and raise his game.

Feehley tells Victor the Municipality should lead the intensification process. Victor looks bemused. The Town’s Official Plan allows for the intensification of lands that are within the built boundary.

She says this with a certainty that invites no contradiction.

Ruth Victor won’t be back. She has done her bit to sabotage the Town’s position.

Now the adjudicator wraps things up and we go home.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 14 March 2014

She’s at it again!

Newmarket’s increasingly fragile Ward 6 councillor, Maddie Di Muccio, is threatening to sue local journalist, Chris Simon, for this piece published in the Era today.

The paper reports that wannabe regional councillor, Darryl Wolk, is accusing Di Muccio of threatening Stephen Somerville. (Haven't we been here before?)

Di Muccio, who routinely threatens perceived opponents with legal action that never materialises, is all bluster. This is what she tweeted earlier today:

Maddie Di Muccio ‏@MaddieDiMuccio 3h

@csimonwrite I find your story and your tactics both contemptible and outrageous. I'll be speaking to my lawyer a/b defamation of character.

 12:40 PM - 14 Mar 2014 · Details

The damage inflicted on the Progressive Conservative brand in Newmarket Aurora by this prolonged vicious and very personal in-fighting must be absolutely immense.

Opposition parties will, no doubt, be squirreling away all the sordid details, every charge and counter charge, for possible use in the General Election, if provoked.

The sole candidate for the PC nomination, Jane Twinney, serenely floats above it all. Her coronation is on 20 March.

So far as Di Muccio is concerned, her defamation action will be going nowhere.

Truth is an absolute defence.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 13 March 2014

Newmarket’s hyper-active developer and self styled entrepreneur, Bob Forrest, told the Town’s Planning staff in October last year that Slessors’ former car dealership site had been sold and that the sale was conditional for 60 days.

We are now on day 139 (give or take a few) and the Ontario Land Registry records no change in title.

However, it shows that the Slessors, who originally owned the land outright, have chalked up huge charges in anticipation of a sale and are draining million of dollars out of the equity.

On 6 December 2011, PACE Savings and Credit Union paid the Slessors $4,500,000. A second tranche was paid on 22 January 2013, this time for $1,800,000.

And then a further $1,200,000 was paid.

A consolidated sum of $7,500,000 is shown on Land Registry records on 14 February 2014 as a charge on the Slessor property.

All this begs the question, what has happened to the sale?

Elsewhere… On 14 November 2013, Slessors’ lawyer, the ubiquitous Ira Kagan, told the OMB:

“My client is still working with Town and Regional staff to come to agreement on the conditions of draft plan approval. If we are unable to do so then we will request that the Board hold a hearing to deal with the conditions.”

On 24 March the OMB will be requiring a “status update” from the Slessors and the Town on how the proposed development is progressing.

Details

Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 10 March 2014

The anonymous, self important blogger, Newmarket Town Hall Watch, is Newmarket’s bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

Like the famous fictional detective, Newmarket Town Hall Watch is inept and incompetent. But unlike Clouseau, he never stumbles by accident on the truth, solving the mystery.

NTHW accuses me of inventing stories.  He (let’s call the blogger he) declaims with absolute certainty that I have “found to be literally making up the news”.

Now, getting into his stride, he brands me a “now disgraced blogger”.  He warns that what I write in my blog “needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt”.

As I am tap, tap, tapping this out I have alongside a letter addressed to me from York Regional Police, dated 6 March 2014.

The relevant section reads:

“Due to the provisions of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, we are not in a position to comment on the substance of the investigation. We can advise, however, that the investigation has been concluded and our file is closed.”

I followed this up and was advised:

“There were no charges laid in this matter.”

Newmarket Town Hall Watch, who treasures his credibility and his reputation for detail, mistakenly refers to my blog of 5 March 2014. (Oops! A trivial point. Just one day out!)

He also cautions his readers

“to be mindful of the credibility controversy with Mr Prentice’s blogs (as I have been contending all along)”

I take this as a reference to the statement made to the Era newspaper by Maddie Di Muccio, withdrawing any suggestion that she believed Stephen Somerville was behind the infamous YouTube ad which portrayed her as a scheming opportunist.

The fact that the Era chose not to publish the story does not mean the exchange did not take place.

I have incontrovertible proof that it did.

I leave it to Newmarket’s very own Clouseau to investigate further and report back to his credulous readers.