Maggie Preston-Coles is calling foul on the bureaucrats frustrating her appeal of a 25-lot subdivision she says was improperly approved and will detrimentally alter the north end of East Ferris.
“I think this whole process is biased toward the developer,” she said, referring to her two-year journey through the municipal and Local Planning Appeal Tribunal maze.
And her concerns about the Degagne Carpentry plan for the property along MacPherson Drive, Centennial Crescent, and One Mile Road have only grown since attending a public meeting over it in November 2018.
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Initially, Preston-Coles said the biggest fears focussed on increased traffic on under-sized roads without sidewalks, insufficient emergency response, and environmental issues. There were 50-plus signatures on a petition she created to oppose the project a year ago and that’s grown to more than 100 now.
But she is now also worried that the municipality is so blinded by gaining additional tax base that rules are being bent and broken without regard to long-term consequences.
“The municipality hasn’t even done a risk assessment,” Preston-Coles said, referring to traffic studies and water table impacts. (Editorial Note: The accepted planning process has municipalities review studies provided by developers who hire professionals in those fields to do the work for their plans). She also noted that the municipality went ahead and put culverts in for the MacPherson Drive lots before the plan was even approved.
Case in point, she said, was having to submit a complaint to the municipality’s Integrity Commissioner about conflict of interest allegations involving the Planning Advisory Committee.
Preston-Coles said she advised council that PAC chairman John O’Rourke should have declared conflict at the meeting where the plan of subdivision was approved on March 27, 2019. She said his company, The Brownstone Kitchen & Bath Design Gallery, does business with Degagne. In her official complaint, she notes the Brownstone website includes Degagne’s company logo amongst “quality partners.” There is also a photo O’Rourke and Marcel Degagne in a ‘Renovation’ prize announcement that included a bathroom renovation and a trip for the winner in 2018.
“And the others on the committee should have said something,” she said, adding that the information was not well-received when she first brought it to council on May 14, 2019.
Preston-Coles said she thought members of council would want such allegations investigated but nobody would and a staff member told her she’d have to make the complaint herself.
So she did and noted in the complaint that not one member of council has looked into the accusation, which she feels is “derelict” in their duty to uphold the municipal code of conduct:
- Members of Council shall serve and be seen to serve their constituents in a conscientious and diligent manner.
- Members of Council should be committed to performing their functions with integrity and to avoiding the improper use of the influence of their office, and conflicts of interest, both apparent and real.
- Members of Council are expected to perform their duties in office in a manner that promotes public confidence and will bear close public scrutiny.
- Members of Council shall seek to serve the public interest by upholding both the letter and the spirit of the laws of the Federal Parliament and Ontario Legislature, and the laws and policies adopted by Council.
That’s just the start of it. As an elementary school teacher by trade, she practices patience for a living but Preston-Coles doesn’t have much left for David King, Integrity Commissioner.
Exactly six months since filing the complaint, Preston-Coles is still waiting for King’s findings. If he finds that O’Rourke was not in conflict, she wants both the finding and allegation investigated by the Ontario Ombudsman.
“Council is not being accountable and David did not get the job done,” she said, adding the conflict of interest finding is important for her appeal.
As for LPAT, Preston-Coles said she’s getting the runaround over technicalities.
It began when she submitted her appeal, she described how the plan of subdivision wasn’t properly scrutinized by the municipality (not one study undertaken), while mentioning they were not following the Official Plan and rezoned the property without due diligence. But she didn’t check off all three boxes, only for the subdivision plan.
She asked for and received approval to amend the appeal for all three areas while they cashed her cheque for the additional $600 in fees. A case conference was called for February 2020 but was cancelled with a week’s notice because new legislation would require part of the appeal to be done separately.
But the municipal lawyer had already argued that she missed the first official deadline in 2019 and LPAT didn’t give them a chance to fight the amendment. The tribunal eventually reversed its decision this summer, siding with the municipality.
She responded immediately but never did get an explanation, stating in an email to the case manager:
“I am wondering why the Tribunal has reversed this decision, one year less a day later, when the authority and reasoning for the acceptance of my appeals was clearly stated in writing on more than one occasion in 2019. Again, I am not clear as to how the Tribunal can rescind a written decision such as this,” she wrote in July.
But it seems things have gone from bad to worse for Preston-Coles and her appeal since then. Her third LPAT case manager hasn’t answered any of her emails since July despite complaining to a supervisor who instructed the employee to do so.
“I have received no responses and no messages … I feel like I’ve been left out in the cold,” she said.
And last week, LPAT informed her that they have brought forward a motion to dismiss the appeal entirely, expecting her to argue for the right to have a hearing only over the subdivision plan approval.
She inquired about this, asking what they expect her to do next but that too was ignored.
So she filed an official complaint about the LPAT case manager:
“This case has had many complications and has passed through many hands. As a layperson, I feel that I am receiving unfair treatment due to a lack of communication and clarification on the part of several LPAT employees. I am hereby requesting an investigation into these matters and a timely response that offers a fair resolution of these issues,” she wrote.
They said on Friday a response about her complaint will come within 15 days.
A school teacher by trade, Preston-Coles knows a thing or two about patience. It’s obvious, however, the municipality and LPAT are running her through the full gamut of tests.
Dave Dale is a Local Journalism Reporter with BayToday.ca. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.
